Newspaper
La Voz del Interior
Cordoba
– Saturday, August 13, 2005
Interview with Suhail Hani Daher Akel, a Palestine Ambassador
Resistance
cannot be accused of terrorism (view)
By Alejandra Conti
Photo: Marcela
Marbian
“We would like to know what the expression ‘disconnection’ means according to Israel. The word disconnection does not exist in the accords we have signed with Israel, in international laws or in Geneva accords from the judicial point of view. All UN resolutions refer to the occupant power withdrawal from the territories which were occupied in the 1967 war. While Israel does not assume the fact of being an occupant power and it does not withdraw from those territories, everything will be very difficult”.
During a short visit to this newspaper, the Palestinian Ambassador in Argentina, Suhail Daher Akel, expressed –by means of these words- his disquiet over the situation which is experienced by the Palestinian People, who never see a final solution to the conflict.
-Which are the expectations of the Palestinian People in relation to this withdrawal?
-We expect that Israel keeps its word since we have not signed an accord. The so-called disconnection is an unilateral initiative. We have asked for international forces which separate Gaza Strip from the Israeli territory and which ensure that Israel never goes back to the Gaza Strip again. However, at the same time, Israel continuos building the “Apartheid Wall” within the Palestinian territory in West Bank. The wall will be 720km long and it is being built in Palestinian territory. Israel also passed the construction of the wall which will definitely fence up Jerusalem and which will leave it within Israel. Such a wall will separate 120,000Palestinians from the Palestinian society, their own State. It will turn them into outcasts within the Israel State. That is why I say that Israel is making decisions which humiliate and subdue the Palestinian People.
-Israel says that as Palestinians do not end up with terrorist activities, Israel is not able to do anything.
-We are victims of the Israeli terrorism and nobody says anything about it. We are victims of the settlers and 30,000 soldiers who carry out a State policy against the Palestinian population. Within Palestine, we have 430,000 illegal settlers who possess weapons, as well as, a permission from their Parliament to use those weapons against Palestinians. This does not mean that they will be judged. This is terrorism and it is not mentioned. Besides we must differentiate a disarmed country which lost part of its territory 57 years ago, a country which has been occupied for 38 years, a country which does not possess weapons, planes, tanks or nuclear weapons and a country which is before a nuclear power that subjugates it. Neither these people nor the Palestinian resistance may be accused of terrorism.
-It cannot justify the fact that someone puts a bomb in a bus or in a pizzeria. That is terrorism and it is reprehensible.
-Of course, we do not agree with this situation. We have reached an accord with Israel in order to eliminate this violence, but Israel insists on the occupation. We highly regret the death of Israeli people in attacks, but imagine our grief when Palestinians die as a result of terrorism. However, such a situation is not informed in the same way.
-In this conflict, we have the feeling that everybody wants to keep everything and no one wants to hand over anything. What could we wait from now on?
-Everybody is paying attention to this conflict because the great majority of the Israeli people, as well as the Palestinian, want to live in peace. The world tries to see a light of optimism in this disconnection from Gaza. However, while everybody is paying attention to Gaza, Israel accelerates the construction of the wall, goes on building illegal settlements within Jerusalem and goes on taking settlers into that zone. Jerusalem is part of the West Bank and it is our capital city (...) Israel cannot definitely stay there and it must respect UN resolutions which urge Israel to go back to the 1967 borders.
Photo: We are victims of the Israeli State terrorism and no one seems to care about it.