The Director of the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies, Dr. Azmi Bishara, during an interview regarding the war on Gaza, conducted on Sunday evening on Al-Arabi TV, said, “There is a state of bewilderment and confusion in Israel after the humiliation that occurred on October 7.”

Bishara stated that the source of the hesitation is that Israel does not know what the resistance has prepared in the event of a ground invasion, in addition to not knowing Hezbollah’s intentions. He pointed out that there are no guarantees for Israel that it will succeed in achieving the “ultimate goal” of ending the Hamas movement, and thus creating... Another Palestinian party rules the Strip, all of which Bishara calls “the uncertainty of the ground invasion of Gaza.”

He also stressed that the occupation authorities are launching their current aggression against the besieged Gaza Strip, as if there is no context other than the recent operation launched by the resistance factions, led by Hamas. “It is as if the Gaza Strip has not been besieged for years,” and as if the Palestinian has not been subjected to continuous persecution for years as well.

Commenting on the unprecedented American bias towards Israel and its narrative, Bishara stated that the Zionist intellectual structure of US President Joe Biden goes back to the time of American presidents in the 1980s in terms of identification with Israel and viewing it as a democratic state similar to America in its “political theology” as a colonial state, and in terms of the role of religion in it as well.

He stated, "What is happening in Gaza undermines the idea of the possibility of marginalizing the Palestinian issue." Bishara pointed out that "the resistance must prepare for the worst possible scenarios."

He added that the Western media had "enlisted to support Israel, and worked to obscure the context in reporting what was happening."

Bishara said, "The Western media must be held accountable for the nature of its coverage of what is happening in Gaza." He stated that there is "intellectual terrorism" practiced by the West against anyone who dares to stand in solidarity with Gaza, noting that some of those who criticized Israeli practices lost their jobs.

He stressed that the Western media deals with the Palestinians as numbers and not as human beings, each of whom has a story, a life, relatives and a biography. As a result, Bishara described what those in solidarity with the Palestinians in the West are currently facing as “the new McCarthyism.”

Bishara stated that there were violations that occurred in the “Al-Aqsa Flood” operation, related to the kidnapping and killing of civilians, noting that “this represents a burden on the Palestinian armed movements.” However, he reminded that “this is not the starting point of the discussion, but rather the occupation and its crimes. If we condemn them, we continue the discussion and end with an evaluation of the behavior, so we condemn it or not, because the Palestinians are not God’s chosen people, but like all other peoples, they make mistakes.”

He added that "the prisoners in Gaza are not a priority for the Israeli leaders," stressing that "the intensity of the clashes on the northern front is constantly increasing, and may actually reach a state of war."

Bishara said, “Israel targets civilians as part of a price tag policy that has goals,” stressing that “Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s political career has ended, and there will be investigation committees after the war.”

He explained that the current bombing of civilian areas in Gaza is not the result of “side errors” according to American military terminology, but rather “systematic targeting to make society pay the price, and this is a racist, colonial factor that is expressed in an Israeli mentality aimed at educating the Palestinians.”

Bishara stressed, "It is surprising that the official Arab position did not demand an end to the aggression from day one." He added, "The Arab countries are able to influence what is happening in the Gaza Strip if they take serious steps against Israel."

Bishara believed that the Egyptian and Arab position rejecting the displacement of the people of Gaza is positive in itself, but he pointed out that the problem lies in considering that “only displacement is a red line,” while this red line must include massacres and targeting civilians.

He expressed his fear that Israel would understand this categorical official Arab rejection of displacement exclusively as "it is permissible to keep the residents of Gaza in this cage and kill them in it."

In answering a question about what is happening in the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem, and if Israel fears the situation in the West Bank will explode, Bishara stated that the death toll is shocking by all standards in the West Bank, which makes what is happening there resemble the heroic intifada that is being covered up because of the war in Gaza, as it occupies all the media attention. 

He stressed that Israel's targeting of civilians "is a feature accompanying the establishment of Israel with the aim of pushing Palestinians to leave their lands and emigrate, especially in the West Bank."

Source: Arab 48