SUNDAY POLITICS, 20 th MAY, 2018
SS (Sarah Smith): In a moment I will be speaking to
the Chief Palestinian
Negotiator, Saeb Erekat, but first I’m joined here in the studio
by
the Israeli Ambassador in London, Mark Regev, thanks for
coming
in.
MR: My pleasure.
SS: Now the UN want to set up an independent investigation
into
what happened in the border in Gaza. Why will Israel not
cooperate with that?
MR: We’ve got to be more precise. The UN Human Rights Council
voted on Friday to do that and the UN Human Rights Council has
a
track record of anti-Israel bias. Not just I say so but the
Australian, British, Canadian and American Governments all
agree
that the UN Human Rights Council has been not balanced and
not
fair.
SS: So you would accept an international independent inquiry if
it
was run by somebody else? So if it was run out of the UN
Secretary General’s office for instance, you would be happy
to
cooperate with that?
MR: I’d ask the following question to British viewers, to the
British
Government. Would they be happy that their soldiers, British
soldiers in Iraq or Afghanistan, be investigated by a UN
Authority?
Or would they prefer that it be done by the responsible British
MARK REGEV AND SAEB EREKAT
institutions? And I think we’d be the same. We would prefer
that
our judiciary, which is known internationally for its
independence
and its professionalism, that we should be able to do our own
investigative processes.
SS: So regardless of who it was, you will not accept any kind
of
independent inquiry into what happened? Because of course
it’s
much disputed between what you say and what people in Gaza
say as to whether or not these shootings were justified.
You’re
not prepared to allow anybody in to investigate that?
MR: You are soon going to have on Saeb Erekat, and he
represents the Palestinian Authority. That Authority itself
refuses
to do joint investigations with the Hamas Government in Gaza.
There was an attempted assassination in March in Gaza on the
Palestinian Prime Minister. The Hamas authorities offered the
Palestinian Authority the chance to do a joint investigation, to
be
part of an investigation, and the authorities in Ramallah said
no.
SS: But your specific problem in Israel at the moment is
because
of what happened this week you’ve been condemned by people
who are normally your diplomatic friends. , the
Foreign Office Minister said that the large volume of live fire
was
extremely concerning and implored Israel to show more
respect.
Even President Macron condemned what happened there. You
are looking very isolated at the moment, but you maintain the
Israeli defence forces had to use live rounds against these
largely
unarmed protestors. Without some kind of international body
coming to look at it you will not convince people who are
supposed to be your closest allies?
MR: I’d urge people to look at the facts and to look at what
Hamas itself said. And one of the leaders of Hamas, al-Zahar,
just
said two days ago, he said that these weren’t peaceful
protests.
He said it was a deliberate deception by Hamas to manipulate
world opinion. And they were unfortunately successful in
doing
so.
SS: Well, they would say that, wouldn’t they, whether or not
the
protesters had anything to do with Hamas, there are obvious
reasons why they would like to take the responsibility for this,
for
their own political ends. But by responding with live fire
against
these protesters who did not – you know, even if they had a
few
rocks or Molotov cocktails, were not armed—
MR: They had more than that. They had more than that.
SS: Were not armed like the Israeli defence forces were, and
were
not protected like the Israeli army was. By doing that you’ve
walked into Hamas’ trap, haven't you? You have been condemned
largely around the world for this. Although you say your
actions
were justified, it’s exactly what they wanted.
MR: The Hamas leader in Gaza, Sinwar himself said what the
goal
was. He said the goal is to breach the border, infiltrate into
Israel
and kill our civilians.
SS: But nobody did, nobody breached the border.
MR: Because we successfully stopped them from implementing
their plan by defending our border. Let’s be clear—
SS: But nobody has breached the border. Why is it necessary
to
use live rounds against somebody who is not in Israel?
MR: You only use live rounds when you really have to. First
you
use tear gas. You urge people not to charge the fence. You
use
other non-lethal crowd dispersal mechanisms. But when people
are actually charging the fence, and the goal once again is to—
SS: When they’re still the other side of the fence, they’re still
in
Gaza?
MR: If they are charging the fence violently and the idea is
to
penetrate into Israel and kill our people, we have civilian
communities, farms, townships, right on that border, we must
protect our people. We must defend that border.
SS: But there are reports of a young boy who was killed in a
truck
carrying his family who were half a kilometre away from the
border. They can't possibly have represented a threat to Israel?
MR: So once again there are reports about all sorts of things.
And
the trouble is when you’re dealing with the Hamas regime in
Gaza
there is no independent way to check exactly what happened. I
would say—
SS: Well, that’s exactly why you need an independent inquiry
to
come in and if you’re so confident back up your story about
what
happened and refute what you say is propaganda coming from
the
other side.
MR: How does anyone do an independent investigation in Gaza
when it is controlled by an authoritarian regime and no one
is
allowed to speak out of turn? You can't demonstrate in Gaza
against Hamas. You can demonstrate against Israel of course,
but
you can't demonstrate against Hamas. Hamas will not allow an
independent investigation. And how do we know that? Because
the Palestinian Authority itself will not work with Hamas on
these
issues.
SS: So Hamas is the problem, not Israel. You would welcome an
independent inquiry, you just think Hamas wouldn’t cooperate?
MR: No, I would welcome – and I’d urge people to look at our
own system internally of checks and balances, where inside
the
army we have an institution inside our Judge Advocate
General’s
office, we have an independent judiciary which will look at
these
issues, our Parliament, our foreign affairs and defence
commitment which has both opposition and Government in there.
We have all sorts of ways that we can look at these things.
SS: Mark Regev, thank you very much for that. We’ll turn now
to
Saeb Erekat, who is of course a Chief Negotiator for the
Palestinian Authority. Thank you for joining us. Let’s address
first
this question of violence on the Gaza border. You’ve heard
Mark
Regev there say that it was necessary for the Israeli defence
forces to defend themselves against people who were trying to
get
into Israel to kill Israeli citizens.
SE: Well, that really scares me when you have 64 Palestinians
killed and 2,500 wounded. Not a single Israeli was wounded,
not
an Israeli person or a soldier or a civilian was threatened.
And
then you have spokesperson like Mr Regev and Mr Netanyahu and
Mr Lieberman, the Defence Minister, who said there are no
innocent people in Gaza. So he’s giving his soldiers the free
green
light to kill as many as possible. And Mark Regev standing tall
to
say, I give my condolences to these Palestinians, we should
make
peace, and so on, he’s justifying the killing and murders.
Imagine
how many tens of thousands of refugees have entered France,
Britain, Germany, coming from the Middle East. Imagine that
this
country, we will want – we will have—
SS: Are you absolutely sure that Hamas did not actually
incite
some of this violence?
SE: Absolutely not. Absolutely not. Mark Regev knows that in
2014, 2011, when there were clashes between Hamas and Israel,
Hamas uses missiles, tunnels, guns and so on, but not one
single
demonstrator was involved in this. There were people from
Hamas participating, there were people from Fatah, from all
political spectrums, but mainly from the civic society. And
then
the question, today the Human Rights Council said, “We’re
going
to form a committee.”
SS: Well, on the question of whether or not Hamas were
involved
I need to show you something. Because we’ve seen a Facebook
posting, and we’ll put it up on the screen now. This is from
the
High Committee of the Return Rallies, who organise protests
in
Gaza, and includes Hamas. And they say “the demonstrators are
requested to please act in accordance with the demand to bring
a
knife or a gun, hide them under their clothes and not use
them
except where there’s a need to capture soldiers or residents
of
Israel. It’s requested not to kill them but to hand them over
to
the resistance forces, as this is an important bargaining chip
of
which Israel is afraid”. And as far as we can ascertain that
was
posted on Monday morning. That sounds like an incitement?
SE: Sarah, I saw all the statements, I saw everything. But I
saw
on the ground who are the people who are demonstrating. Now
political parties try to use this or that. The question today is
that
we had demonstrations that were peaceful, not a single person
had a knife or a gun with them, they did not even…
SS: You can't be certain of that.
SE: …get near to the fence. Because Israel is not a country,
the
only country that did not define its borders yet. So I don’t
know
which border they talk about in Gaza. But the point is—
SS: If Hamas were inciting violence of any kind, would you
condemn that?
SE: We have condemned violence, we have condemned targeting
of civilians all the time. And this is what we’re seeing now on
the
disruption of relations and so on, this is the absence of
peace.
This is the results of Netanyahu’s policies of settlements,
dictations. This is the results of Trump’s administration
moving
the Embassy and dictating on Palestinians. Had we, had Israel
did, I wish that any Israeli official, I can tell you, Sarah, now
that
we in the PLO have recognised the state of Israel’s right to
exist in
peace and security on the 67 line. I want any of your Israeli
guests, I want anyone, anyone, to say that they are willing
to
recognise the state of Palestine to live in peace and security
on
the 67 lines.
They don’t do that, they do settlements, dictations, siege,
enclosure, killing, murdering, massacres and they want to get
away with it. And they even refuse an investigation committee
formed by Human Rights Council and guaranteed by the
Secretary
General of the UN. What are you afraid of? They’re trying to
hide
something, that’s why they’re refusing to have an
investigation
committee. We welcome an investigation committee. We
welcome them to go anywhere they want and we trust their
judgement and will accept their report in advance.
SS: Looking further to the future…
SE: But we have never objected—
SS: …you want an investigation into what happened this week,
given that you say you no longer trust the United States as an
ally
in the peace process, is it time to recognise there is no
peace
protect in the Middle East now? It is for the meantime dead?
SE: Look, there is no peace process now, you’re right. But I
cannot say that the peace process is dead. The only
alternative
for me and the Israelis is to live and let live. This is why we
have
recognised Israel’s right to exist and I pray and hope that the
day
will come that there will rise in the Israeli leadership that’s
willing
to sit with me at the table, at the negotiating table, in order
to
achieve the two-state solution, in order to achieve the freedom
of
the country.
SS: You say you want to talk to the Israelis—
SE: I wish that any Israeli—
SS: The Israeli Ambassador, Mark Regev, is still in the studio
in
London with us now. Is there anything you would like to say
to
him now?
SE: Well, I know Mark, he knows me, he knows that we’ve
devoted 25 years of our time to negotiate with them. He knows
that every single Government he served with chose settlements
and dictation, not peace and negotiations. And ignoring
facts,
Mark, doesn’t mean doesn’t exist. That is the truth. You
rejected
the two-state solution, the settlement activities—
SS: But these are accusations rather than the prospect of
reaching
out the hand of peace.
SE: They are not accusations. Between 2009 until 2018 the
settlement activities in the West Bank in Jerusalem increased
by
40%. This is the truth.
SS: Okay, well, we’ll need to leave it there I’m afraid, but
thank
you very much for talking to us, Mr Erekat and Mr Regev.
Ends
