Mustafa Barghouti, who leads the Palestinian National Initiative, and a top politician in the West Bank spoke exclusively to The Indian Express. A former Information minister in the Palestinian National Authority, he is one of the most articulate voices within the Palestinian political leadership. He is neither with Fatah, which rules the Palestinian National Authority, nor does he represent Hamas. The interview was conducted before Prime Minister Narendra Modi's phone call to the Palestinian National Authority's President Mahmoud Abbas. Edited excerpts: What’s your response to what happened on October 7? My response is history did not start on the 7th of October. I do feel very sorry for the death of so many Palestinians and Israeli citizens, but at the same time, I must say that what happened on the 7th was one of the consequences of Israeli behaviour in the West Bank where the country's army and its illegal settlers jointly conducted a campaign of terror against the Palestinian civilian population. This led to the deaths of 248 Palestinians, including 40 children before the war started in Gaza. Nobody even apologised for the killing of a two-and-a-half-year-old child in one of the villages in Ramallah. There were also severe attacks on the Aqsa Mosque and Muslim and Christian holy sites. This is in addition to Netanyahu, in his United Nations speech, declaring the map of Israel which included the annexation of the West Bank, all the occupied West Bank, Gaza Strip and the Golan Heights. And when he said that Likud, he will marginalize the Palestinian issue by normalizing with Arab countries. This is the background of what had happened and that also included terrorist Israeli settlers, which led to the ethnic cleansing of 20 communities in the West Bank, Ramallah, Hebron and Jordan Valley. So Hamas tried to interfere and respond to all these and things went out of control of course, and what happened has happened. But since then, in my opinion, what Israel is doing now in Gaza is not like a reaction, it must have been planned and had been waiting for an opportunity. They think they've got the opportunity now by conducting three horrible war crimes. These war crimes were preceded by a big campaign of dehumanising Palestinians. Were women and children targeted during these attacks? Yeah, but it was planned in advance. I don't know the details of course. I am not Hamas. They say that they were taken by surprise, because the whole Israeli defence fell in a strange manner. And then there was a flood of people that went to Gaza, some of them were totally uncontrolled. So maybe the failure here was that they couldn't control what happened afterwards. This is because the Israeli army disappeared, which is very strange. This never happened before, that the whole Israeli army simply disappeared for eight hours. Usually even if a little thing comes too close to the border, they will immediately react. I don't know exactly what the failure was. But the reality is that this led to this terrible disaster where innocent people were hurt. I don't think Hamas was planning to take civilians. Probably they wanted to take many military people to release Palestinian prisoners, that's for sure. But, now what you see is. that doesn't justify the war crimes being committed now. Israel isn't just attacking commerce now, they are attacking all Palestinian people, committing war crimes. The war crime of ethnic cleansing, the war crime of genocide against the whole population and the war crimes of Gaza, subjecting people to collective punishment, depriving them of water, electricity, medical supplies. Who can justify this behaviour by a country that claims to be a democracy? You know, it's really horrible. Will this have an impact on ordinary Palestinians? That is already happening as I mentioned before. Since the war started in Gaza, they have killed 62 Palestinians in the West Bank in the last 10 days. They were killed by Israeli settlers and the nation's army. Palestinians in the West Bank have been protesting against the attack on Gaza. When they go out in peaceful nonviolent demonstrations, they are encountered with gunshots from the Israeli army - something that the world unfortunately doesn't talk about. In one case, in the village of nablus, settlers attacked the villagers, killing three Palestinians. Then the army came and killed a fourth Palestinian. The next day, at the funeral for the three slain Palestinians, the settlers attacked once again, killing two more. What we see here is really something that should be condemned but what we see also is bias to Israel. I am also surprised at the position of the Indian government which stands for Israel, in contradiction with the traditional Mahatma Gandhi position before. He was the one who warned for the very first time in 1933 about the risks of settler colonial Zionist projects in Palestine. Then there was a tradition of friendship with the Indian people. Now what we see is this total bias to Israel, it's unacceptable. India struggled for 230 years against British colonialism. India struggled to be free from this oppression. How could India be on the side of an oppressor like Israel, an occupier practicing apartheid against the Palestinian population, claiming that Hamas is ISIS? Hamas is not ISIS. The only leader in this area that cooperated with ISIS was Netanyahu who brought ISIS fighters for treatment in Israel to the Golan Heights when they were fighting Syria. So, to claim that Hamas is ISIS is a fabrication. I'm not defending Hamas, but I'm telling you the fact. And then to use that to dehumanise all Palestinians and kill Palestinian children is unacceptable. Okay, 1,500 Israelis killed — unacceptable. But why is the killing of 6,000 Palestinians acceptable, including more than 1,300 children by now? Why is the continuation of massacres considered acceptable? We speak about the rights of people for self determination. Why are we as Palestinians deprived of our right to freedom and self-determination since 1948? As a way forward, what do you want India to do? Take a balanced position, and demand an immediate ceasefire. Immediately open passage to bring in Gaza humanitarian aid and support initiating a process of exchange of prisoners because Israeli airstrikes are killing their own prisoners too. I don't think Netanyahu cares about them. So far, he has killed 22 of these prisoners with these airstrikes and clearly he will continue. If he really cared about the prisoners, he would accept, at least temporary ceasefire and exchange of prisoners but he doesn't care. I think India should support an immediate ceasefire, and then support a solution which entitles Palestinians to be free from occupation, have a State of their own.
