'Civilians pay heaviest price': 'Most devastating moment for Israelis and Palestinians since 1948'

FRANCE 24 English

Visit our website: http://www.france24.com  Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FRANCE24.English  Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/France24_en

Transcript

00:00 Now, as a reminder, despite the temporary truce that we've seen, the war in Gaza continues

00:05 with no end in sight, and civilians are bearing much of the brunt.

00:09 Since October 7th, the Hamas attacks across southern Israel, at least 1,200, more than

00:14 1,200 Israelis have been killed, while over 15,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza,

00:19 and over 200 killed in the West Bank.

00:22 John Linden joins us on the program now for more.

00:25 He's the executive director at the Alliance for Middle East Peace.

00:29 Thank you for joining us, sir.

00:30 Now, you've been working on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for over a decade.

00:35 I'd like to know, have you ever seen the situation as bad as it is now?

00:39 No, and nobody, frankly, alive has seen the situation as bad as it is now.

00:45 It is the most devastating moment for Israelis and Palestinians, really, since 1948.

00:50 And I think you phrased it very well.

00:53 Civilians were paying the heaviest price.

00:54 We've had wars before, and the Israeli-Arab conflict.

00:57 We've had intifadas, of course.

00:59 We've never had this scale of civilian loss of life, nor this scale of trauma, visited

01:05 on so many people in Israel and Gaza, in the West Bank.

01:08 It's truly unprecedented.

01:10 A lot of your focus has been on the role that civil society can play in any lasting resolution.

01:17 Given the situation as it stands today, do you still have any hope about a role that

01:22 civil society can play?

01:24 What can civil society groups more generally offer that governments have clearly thus far

01:28 failed to bring to the table?

01:32 I mean, civil society groups can be the key to breaking the current impasse.

01:35 I work with over 170 different NGOs of Israelis and Palestinians, Arabs and Jews, who are

01:41 building partnership and equality and a sense of solidarity that can really generate the

01:45 trust, the ideas, the new leaders that I think everybody has sensed has been needed even

01:49 before October 7th.

01:51 And I'm seeing it every day.

01:53 Israelis and Palestinians turning up and working together in small and big ways.

01:56 And I think the question of how it can impact the politics is really important.

02:01 We need to see a diplomatic horizon provided by the international community.

02:05 And we really need to see a process that can lead toward an end to this conflict.

02:09 But critically, there needs to be a bottom up process as well.

02:12 Trust needs to be rebuilt between both populations.

02:14 And politicians need to be incentivized to take the sort of risks and moves towards peace

02:18 that are necessary.

02:19 And that requires robust civil society working at scale on both sides within Israel and in

02:24 Palestine and cooperating with one another, coordinating their efforts and calling on

02:28 the international community to take the sort of action necessary.

02:30 And we would love to see the international community really scale and strengthen those

02:35 NGOs.

02:36 They can be the key to really moving into a very different paradigm for Israelis and

02:39 Palestinians.

02:40 Do you think the drive that that or the energy that people in these NGOs have to fight for

02:47 peace has been shattered at all, given the violence that we've seen not only in those

02:52 attacks in Israel, but also, of course, in Gaza?

02:56 Not shattered, but there's certainly been trauma and it's been tested.

02:59 I mean, many of the victims in both Israel and Palestine of this shocking outbreak of

03:04 violence have been members of our organizations, our members and their family members and communities.

03:09 The Kibbutzim in the south of Israel is overrepresented with peace builders.

03:13 Vivian Silver, a leader within ALMEP and many of our members, was tragically killed on October

03:18 7th.

03:19 And this last few days dealing with members of ours who are trying to get their family

03:22 out of the Gaza Strip.

03:24 So they've certainly been tested.

03:26 But what I've noticed is that by and large, and I don't want to sound naive about this,

03:30 many perhaps most are recommitting to this work.

03:33 They see the abyss, right?

03:34 They see what the alternative is, Israeli and Palestinian tragedy and violence.

03:38 And they understand the only alternative, the only real security can come from from

03:43 partnership and from a real diplomatic agreement.

03:45 And we've seen new people join.

03:47 It's important to note.

03:48 I've had many conversations with people who've lost family members who haven't been peace

03:52 builders since October 7th.

03:54 They've said things to me like I'm now committing for the rest of my life to work towards Israeli

03:58 Palestinian peace.

03:59 That's the lesson I'm learning from this trauma.

04:01 That is certainly reassuring.

04:03 Now, lately, the attention has, of course, been focused, understandably, on the October

04:08 7th Hamas attacks.

04:10 But even before October 7th, 2023 was the deadliest year in the West Bank since since

04:17 in decades, really.

04:21 To what do you attribute the surge in violence that we saw there prior to the October 7th

04:25 attacks?

04:26 I mean, number one, it's the diplomatic inertia and the fact that the conflict remains unresolved.

04:30 Right.

04:31 And we know that these periods of international inattention are sort of rhetorical support

04:35 for two states, but no real action on it.

04:38 It creates a vacuum sometimes where violent actors will fill it.

04:41 I think the other big dynamic has been settler violence, which has been increasing year upon

04:45 year in recent years.

04:47 We have some quite extreme elements within this current Israeli government who are openly

04:50 allied with some of the forces in the West Bank who have been visiting violence upon

04:55 Palestinians.

04:56 And we've seen an explosion of that violence since October 7th.

04:58 I mean, you mentioned that last year was the most violent year since the second Intifada.

05:02 This year overtook it.

05:04 And even just since October 7th, we've over 240 Palestinians who've lost their lives in

05:08 the West Bank.

05:09 And a troubling number of those are from settler violence, direct engagements from settlers,

05:14 sometimes with the idea of F looking up, looking on.

05:16 I want to really note this.

05:17 This should go beyond politics.

05:19 We welcome statements from the United States, from the European Union, from France, really

05:24 urging Israel to pay attention to this and to make sure that there is a sense of justice

05:29 for those that carry out violence against Palestinians in the West Bank.

05:32 And we also know that Shin Bet, the internal Israeli security agency, has also warned the

05:36 government of Israel that this settler violence risks tipping things into much further escalation

05:42 in the West Bank, which considering what's going on in Gaza, everybody should be trying

05:46 to avoid.

05:47 You mentioned, I did want to talk to you about that settler violence in the West Bank.

05:51 You mentioned a little bit or at least suggested why there's been little response from Israeli

05:54 authorities.

05:55 But the Palestinian Authority also really seems to be powerless to carry out its own

06:00 security to prevent attacks on its own residents.

06:03 Does its government at this point have any power at all?

06:06 I mean, they are doing security coordination.

06:09 They are, according to people I've spoken to, assisting in keeping the situation in

06:13 the West Bank from fully boiling over.

06:15 It's important to note that they have lost a lot of legitimacy and credibility in recent

06:19 years around issues of corruption, but also this lack of a diplomatic vision.

06:23 Right.

06:24 Like Palestinians frustrated that the PA doesn't seem to be providing a horizon that will lead

06:28 to self-determination.

06:29 And critically, they've lost control in large parts of the northern West Bank.

06:33 And we saw over the last 24 hours in the city of Jenin, which was the site of a huge military

06:38 operation this summer in July, more pronounced violence.

06:41 This is a place where the PA has not really had full control of Jenin for many, many years,

06:46 really, but most acutely in the last year.

06:48 And what we've also seen is this disturbing rise of new militias, particularly in the

06:52 northern West Bank, groups like the Lions Den, who are attracting young Palestinians

06:56 towards very radical and violent ideas.

06:58 And all of this is, I'm not trying to place any culpability on anybody other than those

07:03 committing acts of violence.

07:04 But structurally, we have a situation where lost and hopeless and angry young people are

07:08 being drawn towards terrible ideas.

07:10 And we need to make sure that we, and I say we as the international community, are providing

07:15 that diplomatic horizon, are empowering moderate political forces within Palestine and within

07:19 Israel and encouraging young people frustrated with this status quo, whether they're Israelis

07:24 or Palestinians, to invest instead in a nonviolent and diplomatic path towards peace and security

07:30 for both peoples.

07:31 Speaking of the diplomatic horizons, and I think we'll finish on this.

07:35 As far as the latest truce goes, it's likely to be extended.

07:40 But you think that once Israel gets its hostages back, it will continue its offensive as planned,

07:45 as many members of its government has suggested it will do.

07:48 So do you think that these truces can lead to any form of long-term peace?

07:53 This is the question.

07:54 I think what we've noticed in this truce is that the longer the guns are silent for, the

07:59 more diplomatic bandwidth there is for conversations to take place.

08:03 I think at the moment, Israel's stated war aims, the removal of Hamas and Hamas not to

08:08 be the governing authority inside the Gaza Strip, has so far appeared to be something

08:12 that can only be achieved by military ends if it can be achieved at all.

08:15 And I think what's interesting, with Secretary Blinken now arriving in Israel this week and

08:19 then going to the Gulf for meetings in the UAE, is to test the idea, and I don't know

08:24 whether this is viable, of whether you can get a version of that diplomatically and nonviolently,

08:29 and whether extending this particular ceasefire to get all of the hostages released, and remember

08:32 that is mandated under international law, could also provide the time and the space

08:37 for diplomatic ideas that would result in Hamas no longer being the governing authority

08:41 in the Gaza Strip, but maybe doing so without a recommencing of the sort of violence that

08:45 has plagued the last seven weeks.

08:47 That's what we have to see if it's viable.

08:49 John Linden of the Alliance for Middle East Peace, thank you very much.

08:53 Thank you.

Category

Transcript

Recommended