Saturday, September 22, 2018
Miko Peled: An Insider’s Views on the Zionist Project
"Only a focused and well co-ordinated strategy to delegitimize and
bring down the Zionist regime can bring justice to Palestine. BDS has
the best potential for that."
Miko Peled, an Israeli general’s son and himself a former Israeli
soldier, is nowadays a noted peace activist and a tireless worker for
justice in the Holy Land. He is considered to be one of the clearest
voices calling for support of BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions)
against the Zionist regime and for the creation of a single democracy
with equal rights on all of historic Palestine.
He will be at the Labour Party Conference in Liverpool on 23-26
September. I was lucky enough to have the chance to interview him
beforehand. In a week that marks the 70th anniversary of the
assassination of Folke Bernadotte and the 36th anniversary of the
genocidal massacre at Sabra and Shatila refugee camp, atrocities
committed in pursuit of Zionist ambition, what Miko says may give those
who take dictation from the Israel lobby cause to reflect.
SL: Miko, you were raised in a Zionist family on a Zionist diet. What happened to cause you to break out from there?
MP:
As the title of my memoir The General’s Son suggests, I was born to a
father who was a general in the IDF and then, as the sub-title points
out, I embarked on a “Journey of an Israeli in Palestine”. The journey
defined for me, and through me will hopefully define for he reader, what
is “Israel” and what is “Palestine”. It is a journey from the sphere of
the privileged oppressor and occupier (Israel) to that of the oppressed
(Palestine) and the people who are native to Palestine. I discovered
that it is in fact the same country, that Israel is Palestine occupied.
But without the journey I would not have figured that out. This for me
was the key. It allowed me to see the injustice, the deprivation, the
lack of water and rights and so on. The further I allowed, and continue
to allow myself to venture into this journey the more I was able to see
what Zionism really is, what Israel is, and who I am within that.
SL: Many months ago you warned that
Israel was going to “pull all the stops, they are going to smear, they
are going to try anything they can to stop Corbyn”, and the reason
anti-Semitism is used is because they have no other argument. This has
come true with Jeremy Corbyn under vicious, sustained attack even from
former Chief Rabbi Lord Sacks. How should Corbyn deal with it and what
counter-measures would you suggest he takes?
MP:
Jeremy Corbyn made it clear during last year’s Labour conference that he
will not allow the anti-Semitic accusations to interfere with his work
as leader of the Labour Party and as a man dedicated to creating a just
society in the UK, and a just world. In that speech he said something
that no Western leader would dare to say: “We must end the oppression of
the Palestinian people.” He has been right on the money the whole time
and his support is growing. I believe he is doing the right thing. I
expect he will continue to do so.
SL: And what do you make of Sacks’ outburst?
MP: Not surprising that a racist who supports Israel would come out like this – he represents no one.
SL: The Labour Party’s ruling body,
the NEC, has adopted the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism lock, stock
and barrel despite warnings from legal experts and a recommendation to
include caveats by the House of Commons Home Affairs Select Committee.
This decision is seen as caving in to outside pressure and obviously
impacts on free speech which is enshrined in British law and guaranteed
by international convention. How will it affect Labour’s credibility?
MP:
Accepting the IHRA definition was a mistake and I am sure they will live
to feel the sting of shame this has placed on those who voted to adopt
it. There are at least two notices out already by the Ultra Orthodox
Jewish community, which makes up at least 25% to 30% of UK Jews, that
they reject the notion that JC is anti-Semitic, they reject Zionism and
they reject the IHRA definition.
SL: Turning to the Occupation, you
have said that Israel achieved its aim to make the conquest of the West
Bank irreversible 25 years ago. Why do you think the Western Powers
still cling to the idea of a Two State Solution? How do you expect the
situation to play out?
MP:
The US, and particularly the current administration, accepts that Israel
has swallowed all of Mandatory Palestine and there is no room for
non-Jews in that country. They make no claims otherwise. The Europeans
are in a different situation. The politicians in Europe want to appease
Israel and accept it as it is. Their constituents, however, demand
justice for the Palestinians so, as an act of cowardly compromise the EU
countries in true post-colonial fashion treat the Palestinian Authority
as though it was a Palestinian state. That is why, I believe, the
Europeans are going ahead and “recognizing” the so-called State of
Palestine, even though there is no such state. They do it in order to
appease their constituents without actually doing anything to further
the cause of justice in Palestine. These recognitions have helped not
one Palestinian, they have not freed a single prisoner from an Israeli
prison, they have not saved a single child from bombings in Gaza, they
have not alleviated the suffering and deprivation of Palestinians in the
Naqab desert or in the refugee camps. It is an empty, cowardly gesture.
What the Europeans ought to do is adopt BDS. They should recognize that
Palestine is occupied, that Palestinians are living under an apartheid
regime in their own land, they are victims of ethnic cleansing and
genocide and that this must stop, and the Zionist occupation must end
completely and without conditions.
I believe the State of Israel will crumble and that we will see a free
democratic Palestine from the River to the Sea sooner than most people
think. The current reality is unsustainable, two million people in Gaza
are not going away, Israel has just announced – again – that two million
of its non-Jewish citizens are not welcome to be part of that state,
and BDS is hard at work.
SL: The IDF calls itself the most moral army in the world. You served in the IDF. How credible is its claim?
MP:
It is a lie. There is no such thing as a moral army and the IDF has been
engaged in ethnic cleansing, genocide and enforcing an apartheid regime
for seven decades. In fact the IDF is one of the best equipped, best
trained, best financed and best fed terrorist forces in the world. Even
though they have generals and nice uniforms and the most advanced
weapons, they are no more than armed gangs of thugs and its main purpose
is to terrorise and kill Palestinians. Its officers
and soldiers execute with enthusiasm the policies of brutality and
ruthlessness which are cruelly inflicted on Palestinians’ everyday life.
SL: Breaking the Silence is an
organisation of IDF veterans committed to exposing the truth about a
foreign military trying to control an oppressed civilian population
under illegal occupation. They say their aim is to eventually end the
occupation. How do you rate their chances of success?
MP:
They and other NGOs like them could make a huge difference .
Unfortunately they do not go far enough, they do not call on young
Israelis to refuse to serve in the IDF, and they do not reject Zionism.
Without these two elements I feel their work is superficial and will
make little difference.
SL: Israelis often accuse the
Palestinian education system of turning out future terrorists. How does
Israel’s education compare?
MP:
The Palestinian education system goes through a thorough vetting process
so all claims of it teaching hate are baseless. Israel, however does a
fine job in teaching Palestinians that they are occupied and oppressed
and have no choice but to resist. They do it using the military, the
secret police, the apartheid bureaucracy, the countless permits and
prohibitions and restrictions on their lives.
The Israeli courts teach Palestinians that there is no justice for them
under the Israeli system and that they are counted as nothing. I have
not met Palestinians who express hate, but if some do it is because of
the education that Israel is providing, not because of any Palestinian
textbook.
Israelis go through a thorough racist education that is well documented
in a book by my sister, Prof. Nurit Peled-Elhanan, titled Palestine in Israeli Textbooks.
SL: Christian communities in the
Holy Land have been dwindling fast. The Israelis claim the Muslims are
pushing them out but Christians say it’s the cruelty of the occupation
that has caused so many to leave. What is your take on this? Are the
Israelis trying to drive a wedge between Christians and Muslims? Is
there a religious war going on to drive the Christians out?
MP:
Christians used to make up 12% of the population in Palestine, now they
are barely 2%. There is no one to blame for this other than Israel.
Israel destroyed Palestinian Christian communities and churches just
like they destroyed Muslims. To Israel Arabs are Arabs and they have no
place in the Land of Israel. I strongly recommend the late Bob Simon’s excellent report on CBS
60 Minutes from 2012 titled Christians in the Holy Land. At the end he
confronts the former Ambassador of Israel to Washington DC who wanted
the show cancelled.
SL: Would you call yourself a religious person these days?
MP: I never was.
SL: You know Gaza. How do you rate Hamas on their potential to govern? And could honest brokers work with them towards peace?
MP: I
have no way to rate Hamas one way or another. I did speak to people who
worked in Gaza for many years, both Palestinians and foreigners, and
their assessment was that as far as governing goes, and taking into
consideration the severe conditions under which they live, they are to
be commended.
SL: Some people say that the
Israeli public are largely unaware of the horrors of the occupation and
shielded from the truth. If true, is it beginning to change?
MP:
Israelis are fully aware of the atrocities and they approve. Israelis
vote, and they vote in high numbers and for seven decades they keep
voting for people who send them and their children to commit these
atrocities. The atrocities are committed not by foreign mercenaries but
by Israeli boys and girls who for the most part serve proudly. The only
thing that changed is the discourse. In the past there was a facade of a
civilized discourse within Israel, and today that no longer exists.
Saying that Israel must kill more and more Palestinians is a perfectly
acceptably statement today. In the past people were somewhat embarrassed
to admit they thought that way.
SL: Israel has carried out a
succession of armed assaults in international waters on humanitarian aid
boats taking urgent medical and other non-military supplies to the
beleaguered people of Gaza. Crew and passengers are routinely beaten up
and thrown in jail, and some killed. Should the organizers now give up,
or re-double their efforts using different tactics?
MP:
The Gaza flotillas are certainly commendable but if the goal is to reach
the shores of Gaza they are doomed to fail. Their value is only in the
fact that they are an expression of solidarity and one has to wonder if
the time and effort and risk and expense justify the result. Israel will
make sure no one gets through and the world pays them little attention.
In my opinion the flotillas are not the best form of action. No single
issue in the ongoing tragedy in Palestine can be resolved on its own.
Not the siege on Gaza, not the political prisoners, not the water issue
and not the racist laws, etc. Only a focused and well co-ordinated
strategy to delegitimize and bring down the Zionist regime can bring
justice to Palestine. BDS has the best potential for that but it is not
being utilized enough and too much time is wasted on arguing its merits.
Certainly one of the weaknesses on the part of those who care to see
justice in Palestine is that anyone with an idea just “goes for it.”
There is little co-ordination and hardly any strategy to the very
crucial question of how to free Palestine. Israel has succeeded in
creating a sense of helplessness on this side and in legitimizing itself
and Zionism in general, and that is a serious challenge.
SL: This week was the 70th
anniversary of the murder of Swedish diplomat Count Folke Bernadotte by a
Zionist hit-squad while serving as UN Security Council mediator in the
Arab–Israeli conflict. Everyone is keeping strangely quiet about this,
even the Swedes.
MP:
This was one in a series of many political assassinations perpetrated by
Zionist terrorists gangs in which no-one was held accountable. The
first was in 1924 when they assassinated Yaakov Dehan. Then in 1933 they
assassinated Chaim Arlozorov. The 1946 massacre at the King David Hotel
was of course politically motivated and caused close to one hundred
deaths, most of them innocent people who happened to be at the wrong
place at the wrong time. Then in September 1948 the assassination in
Jerusalem of UN intermediary and member of the Swedish royal family,
Folke Bernadotte, who apparently came with plans to end the violence in
Palestine, plans that the Zionist establishment did not find acceptable.
Bernadotte is buried in a humble family grave in Stockholm, there are
no memorial services planned that I know of or any mention of this
anniversary by any official Swedish organization. My grandfather was
Israel’s first ambassador to Sweden. This was shortly after the
assassination and he did a fine job making sure that the Swedish
government would keep the issue quiet.
There were many, many more assassinations and massacres – the attack on the USS Liberty comes
to mind as well as the part played by the brutality of the Zionist
apparatus that sees killing as a legitimate tool for accomplishing its
political goals. Little is known or recalled about these brutal
killings. Countless Palestinian leaders, writers, poets, etc., were
assassinated by Israel.
SL: A lot of hope is pinned on BDS
by Palestine solidarity. How effective is BDS and how best can civil
society turn up the pressure?
MP:
BDS is a very effective but slow process. It won’t work through magic or
Divine intervention. People need to embrace it fully, work hard, demand
the expulsion of all Israeli diplomats and total isolation of Israel.
There is too much tolerance for those who promote Zionism and promote
Israel and the Israeli army and that needs to change. Elected officials
need to be forced to accept BDS entirely. The Palestine solidarity
groups need to move from solidarity to full resistance, and BDS is the
perfect form of resistance available.
SL: Are there any other key issues that you’re confronting right now?
MP:
Moving from solidarity to resistance is, in my opinion key at this
point. Using the tools we have, like BDS is crucial. The passing of the
Israeli Nation State Law is an opportunity to unite the Palestinian
citizens of Israel back with the rest of the Palestinians. We should all
strive to bring total unity between the refugees, the West Bank, Gaza
and 1948, and demand complete equal rights and the replacing of the
Zionist regime that has been terrorizing Palestine for seven decades
with a free and democratic Palestine. This opportunity will hopefully be
seized.
SL: Finally, Miko, how are your two
books doing – ‘The General’s Son’ and ‘Injustice: The Story of The Holy
Land Foundation Five’? It seems to me that the latter, which tells how
the justice system in the US has been undermined to benefit pro-Israel
interests, ought to be a must-read here in the UK where the same thing
is happening in our political and parliamentary institutions and could
spread to the courts.
MP:
Well, they are doing fine, though neither one is a best seller yet, and
as we are on the less popular side of the issue it is a tough sell. TGS is out in second edition so that is good, and I would certainly like to see it and Injustice in
the hands of more people. Sadly though, not enough people realize how
the occupation in Palestine is affecting the lives people in the West
because of the work of Zionist watchdog groups like the Board of
Deputies in the UK, and AIPAC and the ADL in the US.
In this case alone, five innocent men are serving long sentences in federal prison in the US only because they are Palestinians.
SL: Many thanks, Miko, I appreciate your taking the time to share your views.
AFTERWORD
Chief among the many positive ideas I get from this encounter with Miko
is the need for activists to shift up a gear and accelerate from
solidarity to full-on resistance. This will mean wider involvement,
better co-ordination, revised targeting and sharper strategy. In effect a
BDS Mk2, supercharged and on high octane fuel. Secondly, we ought to
treat Zionism and those who promote or support it with far less
tolerance. As Miko said on another occasion, “If opposing Israel is
anti-Semitism then what do you call supporting a state that has been
engaged in brutal ethnic cleansing for seven decades?”
As for Jeremy Corbyn – if he reads this – yes, he’d better come down
hard on hatemongers including the real foaming-at-the-mouth
anti-Semites, but he must also purge the Labour Party of its equally
contemptible ‘Zionist Tendency’. And that goes for all our political parties.
Stuart Littlewood
21 September 2018
21 September 2018
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