00:00Well, to discuss, we're joined now by academic and political analyst Gilbert Achkar, author of the
00:05book Gaza Catastrophe, the Genocide in World Historical Perspective. Thanks for being with
00:12us on the programme this evening, Gilbert. Firstly, we're seeing these denials from Israel
00:17repeatedly that there is no famine, people are not starving in Gaza. Are we in fact
00:22seeing a famine being played out on our TV screens? And why is the world failing to act?
00:30Well, that's a very good question. Good evening, first of all. That's a very good question.
00:36And that is part of this failure to act, as you say, of the world. And when you say the
00:43world, of course, that's not South Africa, that's not the global South. We're speaking
00:48of the United States, first of all, because that's the country that has the most leverage
00:57over the Israeli state. And then other Western countries that have been traditional allies
01:04of the Israeli state. And they are their failure to recognize what is happening, to call it by its
01:11name, because that's obviously a genocide today. Most recently, two Israeli organizations, Physicians for
01:20Human Rights and B'Tselem, the major organization for human rights in Israel, acknowledged the genocidal
01:29character of what their own state is perpetrating. I mean, the title was Our Genocide. And that's
01:38absolutely terrible. And yet, you have had this absolutely appalling organized salvation now going
01:48on for several weeks. And it's only now that they are awakening and paying lip service to the need to
02:01confirm this atrocity. So yes, I mean, you're right to pose the question. And the answer is in the
02:09question itself. It's part of this, how to say, lack of empathy, total lack of empathy with the
02:16Palestinians that has been with us from the beginning of all this.
02:23And Gilbert, you mentioned the fact that two human rights groups in Israel have accused their own country
02:29of committing genocide. How significant was that for you? And does it suggest that public opinion
02:36in Israel itself is beginning to change?
02:38It would be difficult to say that because these organizations have not been reflective of the mood
02:51of the public opinion in Israel. But I would say what is even more striking is
02:59the fact that two major Jewish organizations in the United States, the key organizations of the
03:10Reform of Reform Judaism, plus the American Council for Judaism, have expressed their sorrows,
03:18and even more than that, for Reform Judaism, with regard to what is happening in Gaza, to this starvation.
03:26And that tells you a lot about the fact that the Western public opinion, including in the United States itself,
03:37including the Jewish organizations in the United States, are starting to find this absolutely intolerable.
03:47And that is why that explains the change of tone of someone like the U.S. President Donald Trump on this issue,
03:58and other Western leaders. I mean, Keir Starmer, you started the news with this. But I mean, this is a very belated and still only conditional gesture,
04:14and this is only a gesture, nothing more than a symbolic gesture that coming, you know, from a country that has been cooperating militarily
04:25with the Israeli state and refusing to stop this collaboration.
04:29And what do you make, though, of the timing of it? You mentioned Donald Trump there, you mentioned Keir Starmer.
04:34This announcement this evening, it's coming just after Keir Starmer held talks with Donald Trump earlier this week,
04:39and seemingly it's being reported that he gave his blessing to the U.K. Prime Minister to go ahead
04:45and announce that he was going to recognize the state of Palestine. Does that suggest to you that we're starting to see
04:52something shift within Donald Trump that might suggest it's more than just a change of tone?
05:00Well, I'm not sure Trump gave Keir Starmer any blessing for that.
05:08The fact is that Starmer has been under pressure from his own party people, from his own cabinet,
05:16actually, several ministers of his own cabinet, to do something about that. And he came out with this
05:24kind of compromise solution. Okay, we will recognize the Palestinian state, whatever that means today,
05:33not much to be frank, in September, provided Israel, I mean, or under the condition that Israel
05:43Israel, or unless Israel, sorry for that, unless Israel accepts a ceasefire and gets into some kind of
05:57peace process. And this is really, I mean, in my view, a very pitiful compromise, not even having
06:07the courage of, the very minimal courage of saying, like the French president, that this recognition
06:16will happen without provisors or conditions. And this is coming at a time when this, the so-called
06:27Palestinian state, this is purely a marriage. I mean, what state are we talking about? You know,
06:34the surface in which the Palestinians of the West Bank and Gaza are confined has been shrinking over
06:45time, dramatically recently in Gaza, but over a much longer period of time in the West Bank. The population
06:55is being decimated in Gaza. We are, I mean, I think it's rather indisputable today that
07:03we are witnessing a genocide there. And therefore, what kind of state can emerge from such conditions?
07:14I mean, at best, at the very best, that would be some kind of Bantustan with even less sovereignty than
07:22the South African Bantustan of yesterday at the time of the apartheid regime,
07:28and under full Israeli control. Gilbert, we'll have to leave it there for now. We do appreciate
07:35you joining us this evening. That is academic political analyst and author, Gilbert.
