Israel-Hamas at war: Palestine’s Ambassador to the UK
JVL Introduction
This interview with the Palestinian Ambassador Husam Zomlot took place during the temporary ceasefire, now a distant memory…
Zomlot is a skilled, humane and articulate spokeperson. Channel 4 is to be congratulated for giving him space to develop his views, to make a series of powerful arguments against the dominant media narrative and generally to place the current conflict in its historical context.
There is plenty to ponder over, plenty to want to discuss further. It’s an hour long but really worth listening to, right to the end.
RK
Here is Channel 4’s own blurb about the programme:
A four day temporary cease-fire agreement between Israel and Hamas has been extended by two days, and brings a glimmer of relief and hope to Palestinians in Gaza. Momentum from this brings the possibility of even more Israeli hostages and Palestinian detainees being released. (Subscribe: https://bit.ly/C4_News_Subscribe) Over 14,000 Palestinians have been killed, one-third of them children, since the onset of Israel’s siege in Gaza on October 9th, according to the Hamas-controlled Health Ministry. It followed the October 7 attacks by Hamas that killed 1,200 people in Israel and around 240 were taken hostage. In this episode of The Fourcast, we speak with the Palestinian Ambassador to the UK, Husam Zomlot. He’s a part of the Palestinian Authority that governs areas in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. We look at the wider ramifications of the Israel-Hamas war, and what it does to damage a secure and prosperous future for the Palestinians. A warning, this episode contains graphic descriptions of violence and warfare.
Husam Zomlot epitomises the resilience, determination and hope of the Palestinian people. I visited Palestine in 2009: West Bank. Hebron, Dura, Nablus, Bethlehem, East Jerusalem, Ramallah. As an International on a Palestinian Farm, owned by Palestinian Christians for over a century, I experienced and witnessed the oppression by the Zionist Army . Young soldiers committing brutal acts, apparently without a second thought. I saw pictures of Palestinian Martyr`s on the walls in Nablus. Always an underlying feeling of hope for the future, an energy which neither US Bombs nor Zionist Terrorism can undermine. We see and hear Palestinians saying “we will not leave”. Husam is right. The slaughter continues, but the Zionist project is doomed to fail. We feel the consequences on our streets: arrests for holding up placards and waving Palestinian flags, restricting our right to protest, to freedom of speech. We must resist and take spirit from the Palestinians.
A tour de force of the true picture of the past, the present and the possible future. How in the ambassador’s own words the media and the western world have for so long “flipped” the narrative of who is the oppressor and who is the oppressed. I was particularly taken by the segment where he explains that a two state solution is not a Palestinian demand but actually a concession. The Palestinian people deserve leaders like Zomlot instead of the ageing corrupt Abbas.
Sadly, most Channel 4 News viewers won’t have seen this. The real journalistic achievement would’ve been a broadcast of this interview on Channel 4 proper.
Unthinkable!
Thanks to Channel 4 for setting up and hosting such wonderful interview with the superb Palestinian ambassador.
The length of the interview helps enormously in creating its impact. It gave the ambassador the chance to demolish the Western media’s unthinking prejudices about Israel, Palestine and about Western / global responses to both nations. The ambassador needed to do this BEFORE he could get a proper hearing for his other points.
I was much heartened by what the ambassador said about his determination to ensure renewed, strengthened state and personal accountability under international law for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Without effective accountability, the powerful can’t be deterred from committing these crimes and being personally punished for their offences.
Just in case you haven’t yet seen this (from the “Guardian” 6.12.23):-
“The high court has been urged to intervene and suspend UK arms sales to Israel in a legal challenge launched on Wednesday.
The Palestinian human rights organisation Al-Haq and the UK-based Global Legal Action Network (Glan) have applied for a judicial review of the government’s export licences for the sale of British weapons capable of being used in Israel’s action in Gaza … Ahmed Abofoul, a lawyer at Al-Haq, said: “The UK has a legal and moral obligation to not grant licences for the sale of British weapons to regimes that commit atrocity crimes.”
Also mentioned in the “Guardian”, a German minister is calling for the EU to cease supplying arms to Israel which might be used in Gaza. France and Ireland are likely to support the minister.
These legal and political moves will take time – but may stiffen America’s resolve to rein back Netanyahu and so indirectly save some lives.
Perhaps the world is “flipping” now as the Palestinian ambassador hoped. A world regaining its long-lost moral compass and being newly ready to support international law against those transgressing it would be a better world for all of us.