What is it like to do journalism in Palestine?

In your daily work you find few difficulties. There are people who don't like journalists, others scream at you, there are soldiers who are aggressive, but yet we have the freedom to work and to report. Why? Because they are aware of their total impunity. Other countries are trying to hide certain things, not Israel.

How do you see the media landscape of Israel?

When information became a business, it became a relative truth. Large media are business structures among which there is fierce competition to increase the audience ratio. This is done by very simple means: provocation, false information, promotion of nationalism, false hysteria or, directly, lies.

What is going on in Jerusalem?

In October there were several knife attacks caused by two crises. The first of these, in early September, was the murder of the Dawabcheh family. A settler command set his house on fire with his family. The Ministry of Defence stated that it knew the authors of the facts, but that they would not judge them, as to do so it would have to explain the computer means they use to access the information. In other words, life, if it is Palestinian, is worth nothing. That was one of the reasons people went out in the street. The new Israeli policy on the Al-Aqsa mosque led to the second crisis. This context has caused the attacks and, coinciding with the evolution of the days, there has been a state of hysteria. It is not a political issue, the Israeli citizens of Jerusalem are afraid. I buy my mother-in-law or she asks for it by phone, because she's afraid to go out into the street. One of the culprits for the climate of panic is the media.

To the consequences of the occupation must be added the class conflict.

The two communities live together in Jerusalem: the Israelis (including settlers) and the Palestinians. Society in general is poor on both sides. 80 per cent of Palestinians live in poverty and work in the Jewish care services sector. That is where the current ethnic struggle is taking place.

Why attack with a knife? Isn't it a suicide?

Yes. If you pull a knife in front of the police in Palestine, you know you won't go well. What we are experiencing now is the personalization of violence. However, I would like to stress that the attacks were less than expected. According to my calculations, only half of the cases have been real attacks. The rest have been “false positives” – among them the acts sold as terrorist attacks for the mere fact of having passed away.

The point is that political organisations have lost credibility. The diplomatic strategy of the Palestinian Authority (PA), aimed at influencing the United Nations Organization and the Arab League, is completely sterile, and in the meantime the situation continues to worsen. Jerusalem has been lost. Hamas wants to resolve its territorial contradiction. And the left, historically beaten, has no capacity to reach the lead. Knives do not respond to a strategy, they have been the reflection of a popular response, and that has shown, precisely, the lack of a political strategy.

How long can they prolong the diplomatic route?

When we talk about PA, we are talking about bureaucracy and cooperation with the repression of the Palestinian people’s movement. It has a lot to lose. In Jerusalem we talk about knives and in the West Bank we have to talk about the mass demonstrations that the PA has stepped up. Abu Mazen is trying to extend the present situation to the fullest because of the close relationship between some groups of high economic interest and the PA in Palestinian society. This path is not a real alternative. Let us not forget that Israel has made it very clear that it has no intention of negotiating with Palestine.

Is it politically profitable for Israel that Gaza should be a homeless prison in the hands of Hamas?

It is the worst of the evils for Israel. The international community has given Israel total impunity. No one did anything about last year’s military attack on Gaza, in which 2,000 people died. In other words, the political cost of the cyclical attack is lower than the construction of any other alternative, as the international community does not bring any cost or value to the lives of the Palestinians. That is why the BDS movement (Boikot, Divestment and Sanctions) is important. The BDS is the only effective structure for paying the crimes to Israel. It can influence more or less, but the only thing we have left is the boycott and the penalties.

The Palestinian left does not seem to raise its head.

It's trapped between Fatah and Hamas. Internal conflict is more important than the fight against occupation. Although the Left has a lot of strength, such as the Hebron or Al-Aida refugee camp, the bipolarity Hamas/Fatah prevents the Left from occupying a place at the national level.

For example, the Left now has strength in Gaza, but at the time of the first Intifada was a hegemonic power, even in the universities of the West Bank. Resistance was the place on the left, so Israel directed the blows to the movements on the left. Between Intifad 1 and Intifada 2, I guess they lost two-thirds of their paintings. The shortest path to death was the accession of Palestine to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PAHF). The Popular Front and the leftist movements were not pacifists, but they never took the guerrilla path. It was a popular struggle in which the movement of death, arrest, deportation… of militants was disabled. It is almost a miracle that today the movement is still alive.

And the Israeli left, does it exist?

The Jewish Left has been reduced to irrelevant levels. The accumulation of forces within Zionism has left him isolated and, as for the conflict, the left is currently a variable without influence.

The Israeli President, Benjamin Netanyahu, has attributed the intellectual authorship of the Holocaust to the Palestinians. Why?

He said that, in fact, Hitler did not want to end the Jews, but made him convinced by a Palestinian. The use of the Holocaust goes further. One historian once said: “All history is contemporary history.” And now we are seeing it in Europe. In conservative environments, it is said that Islam has always been the enemy. It is not a question of Islam being a short-term enemy today, but of Islam being an essential enemy of Christianity and Jews.

Henri Levy talks about the essential shock. It is so essential that it is said that the idea of the Holocaust is the intention of Islam or, worse still, the idea of the Palestinians. The cases of the stabbing in Jerusalem are therefore merely a continuation of the Holocaust, a consequence of the essential hatred against Jewish civilisation. In other words, they want to present reality upside down. The Jews are giving legitimacy to the extreme right that has stopped putting on the iodine. That is why, for example, Marine Le Pen expelled his father from the French National Front, who did not understand that at present the problem is not the Jews, but the Arabs. The same is true of the Austrian Freedom Party that was formerly held by Hyder. They are adapting history to the letter to make it politically profitable for them today. And this is not just a question of Israel and Netanyahu. Netanyahu is the only one who can say that, because if someone else had said it, he would have been considered illegal. If a German political leader said that Hitler was not guilty, he would be imprisoned immediately. That's denying the Holocaust.

What must happen if the Arab countries are to react?

The Arab countries are responding. In the Arab world there is no stability, it has collapsed. It's in transition, and nobody knows where. We do not know what will happen in Syria, what path Egypt will take… It is a very bloody transition. And that's not good news for Israel.

The majority of the European institutional left, as well as that of the Basque Country, have assumed the solution of the two states.

The problem of the Palestinian conflict is not arithmetical, it is a problem of regime. If the Zionist regime is not changed, the debate on two states is completely non-existent. Look at what happened in South Africa, democracy came at the same time as the regime was changed. That's why we talk about shared resilience. In addition to the Palestinian struggle against occupation and apartheid, the struggle for regime change must also be the Israeli struggle. This struggle must bring together the Israeli democratic forces, however small they may be, and also ethnic minorities. Being Ethiopian in Tel-Aviv is not an easy thing; this has been demonstrated by the demonstrations of the Ethiopians who have ended up fighting with the police. It's not easy to be a Jew of Arab origin. We need unitary resistance.

The BDZ initiative has a trajectory of ten years. How do you see it today?

Anyone who suggests a path without BDS would ask: “How do you want me to ask Israel to take responsibility for the number of deaths, injuries, prisoners and lost lives, because dying is not necessary to lose one’s life?” In the light of this, the international community says: “Well, you have to negotiate.” What to negotiate? ! The UN Court of Justice’s resolution is very clear. So where is international law? So 10 years ago, civil society appeared on the plaza asking for accounts. The BDS is a basic tool for any kind of future solution. BDS is essential, but not sufficient. We need new forms of mobilisation and solidarity; we need to bring more international solidarity brigades to Palestine, we need to create channels for increasing awareness, etc. But all of that can't be done without the BDS, without boycotting Israel.

What was the visit to the Spanish National Audience?

A bit surreal. It is located in an industrial estate of the suburbs of Madrid. It doesn't know very well whether it's the National Audience or the Mercedes Benz dealer. It's a very curious space. I went there to give explanations about the BDS. The Prosecutor's Office said the BDS campaign was an invention of ETA. Through my testimony I explained when, how and why the Palestinian civilian community called on the international community to boycott, disinvest and punish Israel.