Bartosz Romanian: How did you remember October 7, 2023?
Baha Hilo: I was awakened by reports that members of the muslim Resistance' armed wing attacked Israel's armed forces station, Gaza Division. It is liable for the 17-year siege of the Gaza Strip, where 2 million Palestinians live. The first pictures of captured Israeli soldiers appeared, moments later, I was informed of forty decapitated children. I realized then that we would not be informed of what was going on, but prepared for what would come – and what we are witnessing now. To destruct Gaza.
The events of October 7 were presented as the biggest massacre of Jews since planet War II.
Israel's propaganda began immediately. The news was prepared and served in specified a way as to justify future raids and what happens later became an open genocide.. The communicative is that Palestinian terrorists murdered Israeli civilians.
Didn't you?
There were mixed attacks on the military with attacks on civilians, attacks carried out by militants with those carried out by the group that self-exited out of Gaza and attacked the music festival that continued right next to it. To this day, we do not know how many Israelis died at the hands of Palestinian militants, how many were killed by Palestinian civilians, and how many were killed by Israeli soldiers, bombing objects with hostages.
On October 7, a military operation was launched to capture Israeli soldiers to replace them with Palestinian prisoners. At the time of the attack there were 6,000 Palestinians in Israeli prisons, many without convictions and many sentenced to multiple life sentences. The only way to get them out is to trade prisoners. Israeli hostages were besides to be leveraged in demanding the cessation of the brutal business of 2 million people in Gaza.
You're talking about a military operation, but on October 7th, much more happened. Over 350 festival participants were massacred, innocent people were brutally assaulted in their own homes, civilians were abducted. In total, more than a 1000 people were killed, including children. It didn't look like any military operation. It looked like a meaningless violence.
I have just returned from my tour in the footsteps of the Warsaw Uprising and the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and I think that if you are subjected to a society of inhuman treatment for 1 year, 2 years, 4 years, or yet 76 years, there will yet be an outbreak of violence. In order to avoid further akin scenarios, we request to realize that this is just how it works.
The degree of force that day was shocking.
From the news that came to me, it was clear that we Palestinians had turned into Israelis. We're utilized to killing our brothers, women, children. According to reports from October 7, oppressed people reached for oppressive methods. The news of rape was frightening – rape has been utilized as a weapon by Israeli soldiers for decades. But it was mostly lies.
Lies?
I could multiply their examples. Cutting off kids' heads, burning babies in the oven, mass rape. Israel has an extended and effective propaganda machine. There's something out there, it's quiet, it's colored or made up somewhere else. We do not know the full fact about the events of October 7, but we know, among others, that stories about the torture of children or mass rapes were created for Israel's needs. That doesn't mean there's no sexual violence, but there's no evidence of mass or organized crime against that background.
Israel claims to have the right to self-defense and that its existence is permanently threatened. Don't you think this fear is justified?
This fear stems from the fact that Israel is simply a state founded on attempts to destruct Palestinian society. A akin 1 accompanied a white man in South Africa during apartheid. It is simply a fear that 1 day the colonized will treat me as my ancestors treated the colonized, and in the case of Israel – as my country treats them today.
If we look at the pages of past written by Israel, we will learn that in 1946, 1947 and 1948 the Israelis were attacked by six arabian nations. We will never know that erstwhile Israel was formed in the agreement of the planet Zionist Organization with Britain, Britain had Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Iraq and Jordan, and Syria had France. Israel tells us that these British colonies wanted to attack a British political project. Why would they do that? And what if the coordinator of the arabian troops was British General Glub Pasha? If we compare historical facts with the narratives that the State of Israel tells us to believe in, we will see clearly that something is incorrect here.
Let's take the 1967 war. Israel attacked independent arabian countries – Syria, Egypt and Jordan – but the work for these attacks was cast upon the people on whom the bombs were falling, calling it a "preemptive war". That's how you explain any crime. Israel has been cruel and ruthless to the Palestinian people for more than 70 years, and it has dressed itself in the feathers of “the only democracy in the mediate East” and of a civilized state that is at risk.
Threatened by undemocratic and non-civilised arabian states.
Exactly. You were talking about the right to self-defense. Did the United States occupy Iraq have specified a right? And erstwhile they destroyed Afghanistan, did they commit genocide in Vietnam? We are not talking about Switzerland's right to self-defense, but about a cruel government that has tortured and murdered the Palestinian people for more than 70 years and tells the planet that this is just a essential defence. Anyone who is not convinced by this communicative is portrayed as individual with a intellectual defect, genetically predisposed to hatred Jews.
Abraham Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League says in the movie Israelism, The existence of Israel guarantees that the Holocaust will not happen again. I come from this part of the world, where Jews have been persecuted for centuries and where genocides have yet been carried out. It's hard for me to miss Foxman's words.
The best warrant of safety is equality before the law, which does not let a criminal government to be revived in Germany, threatening the lives of Jews and Jews. Abraham Foxman uses the memory of the Holocaust to justify Israel's criminal actions. In my opinion, this memory should service to prevent akin tragedies in the future, not to make justifications for them.
Amnesty global accused Israel of committing genocideand the global Criminal Court He put out an APB on Benjamin Netanyahu., accusing him of war crimes and crimes against humanity. How do you take specified gestures?
Since 1947, the UN has regularly released resolutions concerning the oppression of the Palestinian people. These are further chapters in the book documenting Israeli crimes. As early as the 1970s, Israel was recognized as apartheid regime. There are only 2 countries in the planet who have been accused of this – South Africa and Israel. Apartheid in South Africa fell, the 1 in Palestine is fine.
We must gather evidence, besides in the form of global reports, in the hope that 1 day there will be a trial, specified as in Nuremberg, and Israeli criminals will sit on the bench. So far no of them have been punished for their actions, due to the fact that the government behind them hides their identity and protects them. To this day we do not really know who is liable for the death of the Polish volunteer from planet Central Kitchen – Israel does not want us to find out.
Israel's most powerful ally is the United States, but this conflict spills further – the West versus the mediate East, and even the global North versus the global South. It is not accidental to stress that Israel is the only democracy in the mediate East. It all puts aside the day you say the guilty will stand trial.
Israel is governed by ideology, and states governed by ideology are not democracies. People have the right to vote, but it is not the only determinant of democracy. There are undemocratic regimes in which votes are held. "The only democracy in the mediate East" is simply a catchy slogan – in the spirit of racist sayings, like "not all Muslim is simply a terrorist, but all terrorist is simply a Muslim." The more they are repeated, the more people believe in them. religion is crucial here. Israel wants people to believe and not know.
As far as allies are concerned, the US will support Israel to the very end, due to the fact that the Americans have invested much in this conflict.
You know what the worst thing about Western politics is? keep diplomatic, economical and military relations with Israel while sending humanitarian aid to Palestinians. In this way there is simply a oppression on which you can earn, and almost all Western countries are involved.
Janis Warufakis in Political Critics claimsthat designation of the Palestinians' right to our own state is our moral work and our way of peace in the mediate East. I will ask you plainly – how do we accomplish this without reproducing evil, but this time done to the Israelis?
The solution to the situation in South Africa was not safety guarantees for white people, but the abolition of apartheid. He was the problem at the origin of the others that grew on him.
W Palestine has 2 problems – a problem of oppressors and a problem of oppressors. The problem for oppressors is the very existence of the Palestinian people. They deal with him through apartheid politics, genocide and cultural cleansing. The problem with Palestinians is apartheid, genocide and cultural cleansing. Israel's problem can be solved by solving the Palestinian problem.
Only guilty men tremble before justice. The victim's not afraid of her. What is most crucial to the victims erstwhile justice is triumphed?
Aren't you afraid it might be revenge and revenge?
Nope. If revenge and revenge were the domain of oppressed, present there would be apartheid oppressing white people in the United States and South Africa. For the oppressed, freedom is the most crucial thing. Does anyone hurt that slavery was abolished in the States today? Yes, any white people. Or that women can vote? Sure, any men. Israel says: if we don't execution Palestinians, they'll do to us the same thing we've been doing to them for decades.
"Palestines will push Jews into the sea". Where did you get this? Was it inspired to push Palestinians into the sea in Jafa? "Palestines erase Israel from the map of the world". And this? Look at the 1947 map of Palestine and compare it with today's maps.
It's typical of people utilized to their privileges. akin arguments were utilized by white racists in the U.S. of segregation times or men opposed to the emancipation of women.
Many tried to destruct Palestine, but no 1 succeeded. And no substance how much the defenders and beneficiaries of Israel's present genocidal policy will deceive themselves. They'll end up where all the tyrants are. In a dumpster of history.
And do you imagine the Palestinians will live in peace next to the Jews?
I don't gotta run distant in any way. That was before 1917, before Zionism, colonization, apartheid, and genocide, so I know that it will be so in the future. It's inevitable.
The day of the fall of apartheid will be the first day of the flourishing Palestinian society.
Sooner or later, everyone will realize that they are part of the beautiful mosaic that Israeli politicians wanted to destroy.
I'm just gonna say this consecutive due to the fact that I don't like to leave any behind. I will never forgive the Israeli authorities for denying me rights, liberty and equality. Never. But I believe there will come a time erstwhile my deficiency of forgiveness will have no meaning.
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Baha Hilo – Palestinian educator and activist who visited Poland at the turn of November and December. The series of lectures was accompanied by the Polish premiere of the documentary IsraelIn which Baha appeared. The video is available on YouTube.
