World not to put up with Israel: Activist

Press TV has conducted an interview with Paul Larudee, the co-founder of the Free Palestine Movement, about the appointment of hawkish far-right figure Avigdor Lieberman to the post of the Israeli regime’s minister of military affairs.

The following is a rough transcription of the interview.

Press TV: Now, isn’t it something of a major ‘adding insult to injury,’ I mean, how worse possibly can it get? We’ve already have been witnessing the, let’s say, resurgence of a new intifada in the region. And one would assume that the wise sitting in Tel Aviv would be looking at some sort of a pacifist strategy of sorts, although all be it a very very, let’s say, guarded in order to calm the situation, in order for them to then take advantage of the situation as they always do. But this is going to be just adding fuel to the fire and blowing up an already-volatile situation. I mean, how much more can they, the Israelis, afford the violence that we’re witnessing in the occupied territories?

Larudee: Well, apparently, they feel that they can afford a lot more violence and this is exactly what they want.

By the way, I think you’re insulting the name of fascism, when you compare it to Lieberman and Israel. Israel is far worse than any fascist state I can think of, and they are bad enough. To call a state fascist is an expletive, but to call it similar to Israel is worse. And Israel is planning to make it that way. They are out very clearly to eradicate the Palestinian presence in Palestine and to make Israel into the most dangerous state on the planet.

Well, they can do that. They have new nuclear weapons and so forth. They can make all kinds of threats, but ultimately we have to think that the world is not going to put up with this. And they’re going to make it impossible for such a state to exist, but when?

Press TV: You said the world will resist, in what exact particular way do you think the world [will do that], and what do you mean by the world? Is it the broader international community being, let’s say, represented usually by America and its allies or it’s a different world you’re referring to?

Larudee: No, even the existing world, which has been severely tested and distorted by politics in the US and the European countries, even those politics are being tested to the maximum. Right now, they’re really under the control of Israel, but there are Americans in the State Department, in the intelligence services, in the military, that are not going to stand for this on an indefinite basis. I can’t predict exactly what’s going to happen or when it’s going to happen. It’s new ground, but Israel is pushing the entire world to a precipice that we either fall off or we find a way to hang on but without Israel.

Press TV: Essentially, what the Israelis are pursuing even by reappointing Avigdor Lieberman isn’t anything new; it’s been around for ages, isn’t it? I mean cracking down harshly and ruthlessly on the defenseless people living in the occupied territories. Now, what’s new this time around?

Larudee: Well, I mean… what I expect to see is that, [I’ve] forgotten his name now, the settler who was just released for burning a family of three in their home dead, including an infant, and he was just released, he’s not been charged with anything.

I think we’ll see a lot more of this; hangings, shootings, assassinations by Israeli settlers and citizens. And I think we’ll just see wanton mayhem on a scale that we haven’t seen in Israel. I think they’re going to carry it just as far as they possibly can until someone stops them. I don’t know who or when that’s going to be or in what form it’s going to take place, but they are constantly pushing it farther and farther and farther.

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