NOVANEWS
On Monday, Israel announced that it plans to construct 1,600 new illegal settlement units in East al-Quds (Jerusalem), which was annexed by Tel Aviv following the Six-Day War of 1967, in violation of international law. Israel’s annexation of East al-Quds (Jerusalem) is also in violation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 242 and has never been recognized by the international community.
Press TV has conducted an interview with Muhammad al-Asi, Imam of Washington Islamic Center, to further discuss the issue.
The video also offers the opinions of two additional guests: Richard Millet, a British journalist, and Omar Nashabe who is with the Al-Akhbar newspaper in Beirut. The following is an approximate transcript of the interview.
Press TV: Maybe in some respects, some were saying that Israel’s staunchest ally, the United States, is guilty. They voted against the vote at the UN General Assembly on Israel’s nuclear program and also canceled this conference to create a Middle East free of nuclear weapons and it has said that it is because not only Iran but some Arab nations. The real reason for that was because of Israel’s refusal to attend. How do you see the US’ role when it comes to Israel?
Al-Asi: This is one of the areas that I think the United States has to be liberated. There is a liberation that has to take place in the United States foreign policy. The United States has been supportive of the Israelis’ right or the Israeli government right or wrong.
It has come to the rescue of the Israelis in the United Nations many times especially in the Security Council parallel to the three to six hundred nuclear warheads that Israel has. It has three to six hundred American positions of support in the United Nations throughout all of these years.
I want to backtrack a little to the statements that were said by the gentleman in London. The head of the snake, he quoted the Saudi Arabian King as speaking to the American government saying that he would go along with, obviously here I am using my own words, he will go along with cutting off the head of the snake and that is in reference to the Islamic Republic of Iran.
I think if these politicians had their information properly organized, they would realize that the head of the snake is Tel Aviv and Israel. That is the head of the snake. It is only the nature of the snake that refuses to abide by the international legality. It is the nature of the snake that lives in a jungle that does not have any laws and this is more and more the appearance of the Israeli nation state.
It does not want to honor international resolutions; it does not want to abide by international laws; it could care less for what the world is saying pertaining to its own policies, whether these policies have to do with building illegal settlements in the occupied territories or whether these policies have to do with wars of aggression with international war crimes committed in places like Gaza, whether it has to do with the occupation of Jerusalem [al-Quds] which by United Nations’ resolutions it is supposed to be something like an international city with no sovereignty giving to the Israeli nation state which uses all the American diplomatic and political clout to try to have foreign embassies’ move from Tel Aviv and be located in Jerusalem in the face of everything that is internationally agreed upon. That is one thing.
The other thing is the comment by the gentleman in London in which he said that the Islamic Republic of Iran called for the elimination of the state of Israel and Israel has not called for the elimination of anyone else. Well, sir, I think you should check your information very accurately and the translation sources you go to.
This has been claimed time and again that the president of Islamic Republic of Iran said that Israel should be wiped off the map. That is not an accurate translation. What the president of Iran was saying was that the Israeli nation state will diminish in the course of time, just the way South African Apartheid state diminished, just in the same way that the Soviet Communist state diminished; likewise, the Zionist occupation expansionist state of Israel shall diminish.
And to put your information straight, sir, and all of those who agree with you, it is the Israeli nation state that has obliterated or is trying to obliterate the Palestinian people. This is not rhetoric; these are policies that are in action.
There are ten million Palestinians who have been displaced or who have been the subjects of numerous wars and who have become nonentities and the Prime Minister Golda Meir [the fourth prime minister of Israel who was elected in 1969] of Israel said at one time that Palestinians do not exist.
Has any official in the Islamic Republic of Iran said a Jew does not exist? So I think we should get our information straight before we make such statements.
Press TV: You have these three events that have taken place and perhaps in no other time has Israel found itself to be cornered? We are talking about the two votes at the General Assembly and of course their announcement especially the UN settlements of which, by many accounts, that just ruins any prospects for a two-state solution.
How do you think this is going to affect the way Israel, by many accounts analysts are saying, is isolated and then in turn its relationship with the international community?
Al-Asi: That is a very timely question that you asked. I think it is true right now the Israeli politicians are feeling the heat probably like no other time but there is a sort of parallel to this.
If you can recall back towards the August, 2001, there was an international conference against racism that was held, I think it was, in Durban; it was in South Africa and there was the same political climate jelled in such a way that the Israeli politicians and decision makers were feeling the same type of international pressure and international consolidation of will against the policies of the Israeli nation state.
Lo and behold, what happened just in a course of less than a month after that, we had 9/11. The world is still living the consequences of 9/11. My fear is that the Israeli politicians are being cornered politically, diplomatically, internationally. The way they are cornered now, they may have some surprise that they will spring on world public opinion along the lines of 9/11. That is my concern.
… [In response to the guest from London] That is not correct. No, excuse me sir, [UN resolution] 242 does not give Israel the right to be in Judea and Samaria and the Golan Heights and the West Bank. [UN resolution] 242, according to the two official translations, –the French and English translation– in the United Nations says Israel has to withdraw from ‘occupied territories’ or from ‘the occupied territories’, depending on the translation you wants but it does not give the right to stay in the West Bank which it refers to as Judea and Samaria and to occupy those lands in the Golan Heights. Let’s not get away with something that is on the record.
