Transcripts For PRESSTV Documentary 20240703

Of exert its leverage to stop this policy from going forward. The danger is that uh a wider war in the region will occur and israel might welcome the extension of the war especially to iran and so. It is not necessarily unhappy about this widening of the uh theater of of combat uh which will force the us into a decision to alter its policy or to intensify it and by intensifying it would mean uh extending the battlefield beyond gaza to include uh lebanon and possibly parts of iraq and uh most dangerously iran. Okay, and uh propalestin demonstration there in istanbul, as i was talking to uh richard fack in istanbul, um rallies have been going on everywhere in the world and uh these are the images that uh we get access to and we uh air them here for you on press tv, the moment we get them, so uh from baghdad, let me bring in uh sadal mutalabi, is a former political advisor to the iraqi government, good to have with us, sad, so lets begin with your initial assessment of the situation in gaza as we speak, and i have more questions for you. Yes, thank you very much. The Prime Minister of iraq yesterday was very clear in the summit in cairo, explicitly showing the iraqi conscious and the unanimous vote, as one would could say, of the position of iraq regarding the atrocities of the israeli regime, of the zionist regime against the children of gaza. And in general against the people of palestine, so the Prime Minister was very clear in uh pointing out of the crimes that committed by that regime, and he was very clear in saying, no one has the right to determine the fate of the palestinian issue other than the palestinians themselves, and the point of. Uh pushing the palestinian, the gazan into sinai and uh to create another neckback, create another exidus for the palestinians, so israel can annex gazas trip other than what they have already annexed in the west bank, so the position of iraq was very clear, that echoed within the Iraqi Resistance by um number of attacks on asad, the american base and in harir in in kurdistan, that was message, the intention wasnt to as far as i understood, the message wasnt to hurt the combatant in the those two american bases, but to send the message that we are near and you are cl. Of position and that of the government of iraq and the Political Parties, the different Political Parties are in concert with what the Prime Minister said, and we stand fast with the rights of the Palestinian People and we condemn every action taken by the zionist regime, and we also condemn the american and the european stands in giving the israelis, the zionist a green light. To commit more atrocities against the children of palestine okay thank you in bag capital uh let us uh go to South Lebanon we have our correspondent mariam salah there mariam tell us about the whats been going on the exchanges between hezbollah forces and the israeli forces. Well its been a long two weeks of course we have continuous uh operations from the resistance from the lubanese side, while we also have uh israeli shelling also onbordering villages and several villages as well, of course today we did have uh some at least three operations uh for hazballah, one was against very large uh surveillance tower uh for the israelis uh that was. On one hand and we also had another strike uh from hazballah against one their markava tanks as we were told and also another infantry that was targeted uh by hizbullahs fighters and their guided missiles of course hizbullah has proven to have antitank, antiarmored vehicle uh missiles, they also have several missiles that can reach deep into uh the the towers and the espinaal devices and everything that the israelis have actually put on all along the wall let me give you an idea about what was behind us, we are in the town of kfarkila, that is one of the towns that is right on the border, and you can see that there is wall that was built by the israelis couple of years ago, they Start Building it, they wanted to continue all along uh the border of course that goes from the settlement of matulli in the village of khiam and the village of odyssey all the way down to the town of farkila, this uh this wall continues and they had plans actually to build it all along uh the border, of course lebanon contested several areas, including this specifically here in uh cafarkilla um this but and they have also raised several complaints, they have issued complaints to the United Nations Security Council about the building of the wall since they are saying that this lies and many parts of it do lie in lebanese territory now you can probably see there are certain blue barrels that are being put, those are the technical blue line that was drawn by the United Nations of course. The israelis continue to trespass all along the time from the 2006 war until uh now we still of course hear that and we can see of course there and we can hear actually the surveillance planes hovering over our heads all day and all night uh actually and of course the tensions continued with the fact that the israelis used to claim that there were tunnels for hazballah so their fear is not only the fact that hazballah can strike with their rockets or that hazballah can launch guided missiles against their um their posts. Which we are seeing, of course, this is one of the posts that was, the matuli post that was also targeted by hazballah several days ago, uh, they also have fears that has bella house tunnels that go way into occupied palestine and that they not dont know where they can come out, and they of course fear a certain attack to the northern galilei. Let me give you uh a take generally about the casualties that we have so far for the israelis, that is just until now of course it is increasing, it is adding up, day. By day what we know is that we have at least 40 Israeli Soldiers uh either dead uh killed or wounded we also have some 12 merkava tanks that were completely destroyed as Hizbullah Says they were destroyed almost completely we have around four uh troop carriers uh that were also Armored Vehicles that were also destroyed some 47 espionage devices and cameras uh that were taken down by blah some even with with hunting guns, not even rifles and there are around 143 um civilians, as they say israelis that needed psychological therapy uh as a result of the their fear and their tension and the fact that they are really in now and and basically fearing any sort of attack from from hizballah, you have 123,0 Israeli Settlers that had to evacuate the entire area so basically what were seeing is all this evacuation from the civilians, well at the same time here on the lebanese side, you dont get that uh very often. Now of course theres another issue thats important, we know that the israeli Prime Minister, but jamen netanyahu visited uh the israeli troops uh on the northern sid in northern galili, he said uh some words that we leban, weve gotten used to, basically its a redundant uh statements that we hear from the israelies that they say if hazbullah decides to enter the war, although hazballah hasas said they already in this war, he said if decides to enter the war, then therefore they will hit and strike with a with a force that they cannot even uh begin to understand as he said, he said that the. Hazballah and lebanon will long for the second lebanon war, he called it, the second lebanon war is for the israelis coined the as the 2006, 33day war in 2006 they will say that that is nothing compared to what might happen if israel decides to strike lebanon, of course hezballah has said that they have are keeping to the their capabilities, they are not saying what capabilities they have, but they also said that they will be ready to defend lebanon, they will be ready. To also support the Palestinian Resistance inside palestine, it and the Palestinian Resistance inside palestine in gaza, specifically they say, they have to be victorious. We heard this from more than one um official. What that means is that hazballah will not allow any sort of defeat for the Palestinian Resistance, that is on one hand, and also on the other hand, they will not allow for the israelis to basically cross the lines which have been forced after the 2006 and the rules of engagement that hazballah has forced. The israel is to keep so far, we dont have israel escalating its moves and escalating its challenge towards the civilians, but of course the situation is basically its its escalating bit by bit, but still on the same path, the same, if you may say policy from hazballah, launching targets, specific targets and hezballah is known to have basically long endurance, something much which the israelis dont have, and we saw this in the 33day war, the israelis basically were whether in their media or from their troops, we know that they were afflicted heavy losses from hazballah whereas hazballah when they lose marters, and we also have five fazball marters today, for them this is considered just part of the long war that they are ready to basically take on and that would be just part of the victory and they believe of course with their ideology for hazballah they believe its either marterdom or victory, so they are ready of course endure for a longer period of time than the israelis and thats this has. And proven in all the past wars were in the first invasion of lebanon and the 2006 war. Okay, thank you so much uh for that explanation maria, our correspondent life for us in South Lebanon giving us uh information on the latest situation there, and as we were speaking, protest rallies were going on in istanbul, in the different parts of the world in European Capital cities, and let me go back to baghdad sadal is uh there standing by uh, we talked about the message that these uh attacks by iraqi uh Resistance Forces have, theyre not going to hit anyone for now, thats a different message, so do you expect those attacks to go on as this war on gaza, this proportion of war on gaza thats taking lots of civil lives going on, well the uh continued attack of the. Sign is on on gaza has never stopped and today there also number of atrocities and number of civilian deaths and children actually today number of children were killed right and as we speak there are explosions in the background yes live images in ghaza sorry for the interruption yes go ahead please yes so as for stopping the israelis or finishing their operation i dont think they will uh um stop the the action today or or soon, because i think they have the full support of the americans, and that full support allows them to continue their atrocities, i dont believe that there will be a widening of the conflict into the middle east, because that means an immediate drop of 24 of. The World Crude Oil immediately that will disappear, the American Interest in the region, not only in iraq, but in the whole region will be under threat, that will alienate the arab nation and the islamic nation, as we see now, there is a Media Victory for the palestinians, we could see now number of capitals in the world, now blaming the israelis, blaming the. Americans for the continue, continued atrocities against children, so there is new era here, and the israelis and the americans are trying very hard to counter. Attack that by their their organization, their media organization, spreading lies about the palestinians, spreading lies about hamas and other organizations, but i think the people in the in the in the world, theyre becoming with the with facebook and other uh social media outlets, i think the people are becoming more aware, the world people becoming more aware of whats happening in palestine, and they beginning the. Began to understand the plight of the Palestinian People and to understand the injustice uh that committed by the zionist by the israelis against the Palestinian People and against the region in general, so i think the israelis will not stop, and i dont think hizballah will will add more to the skirmishes that are taking place now, unless israel decide to, they decide. To widen the conflict, and seriously believe that will not be in their interest or the interest of the United States have already announced and the military commanders have announced that they are widening this, they have announced this today, and they are saying they are making the situation right for going on and moving to the next stages of the war, thats what they are saying in their own words, so uh, what do you expect . What kind of a response do you expect to come from the iraqi side . Well the iraki side were not directly uh connected or linked to the conflict, but i seriously believe that there is media going on media war going on in in israel and as far as we know as far as we heard that the israelis have postponed the attack. On gaza, the entrance, the entering into gaza by uh their troops, so i think that will be the point, if the israelis enter gaza, then we can expect a different scenario. Iraq, we support the palestinian nation, we support the arab and Islamic League in any position that we take, and iraq is have given a confirmation of they will honor any decision. Taken by the islamic nations or the arab league or the Islamic League and will be part of any Decision Making and will take part positively in in any decision that is that will be taken. Okay, thank you so much for that satdle metaby in baghdad. Lets go back to uh richard falk now, hes in istanbul, and the rallies are also underway in he. Istanbul, a large turkish city, as uh, im going to put my next question to uh richard, richard, uh, the western media and also western officials uh have been really expressing their full support for the israeli regime, some of them funding it directly like the us, is big military package again, mr. Biden is asking uh, americans representatives, actually to. Package in addition to what the us is actually funding and providing to israel on annual basis, and the mids of this, it doesnt seem that the western media and their leaders have been successful spreading all those lies regarding hamas fighters and the palestinians especially in gaza, and do you see still we have every day we have more and more rallies, israeli actions and pouring out their sentiments regarding the apply to palestinians in gaza. Yes, i think, i think the media has been persuaded by these demonstrations to take a more balanced view, and that more balanced view includes portraying the demonstrations around the world. And the images of suffering and devastation in gaza that are being caused by Israeli Military attacks, the hospital attacks were particularly provocative in terms of alienating Public Opinion from what israel per claims to be doing. In gaza, so that you have a growing intensity on the part the those people in america. That dont want this policy to continue, dont want the government policy of unconditional support for israel to continue, and are increasingly demanding a diplomacy of favoring ceasfires, favoring the un playing an Important Role in trying to bring some. Of order into the relationship and stop the slaughter, but whether that is sufficient to influence government policy is unclear, in the vietnam context, one might remember, it took many months, maybe even years for public outrage about the vietnam war to alter. The policies the government, so that there is a divide between what washington does, and what the American People want done, right . Now richard, israelis, have been insisting that they are ready for this ground evasion, they are going to take the war to next stages in their own words, so if that happens, if this war goes on, and already have. Some uh fronts opened up by hezballah by iraq giving warning, iran also been really given them stern warnings, so if the ghaza war goes on and then even newer friends could open up in response the israeli yotrocities, then what kind of ramifications of this spillover of the war in the region should we expect . Well to begin with, i think uh there would be an induced a very serious global recession, that that would be highlighted by the disruption of oil supplies and the increase in prices of oil, and that would affect the most vulnerable and poorer societies that are already stressed. By the spillover from the ukraine war, so it it would generate economic crisis of great proportions, and this may lead uh influential groups in the United States and elsewhere to be more cautious about escalating the present scope of the conflict. In addition to this, it will intensify the expressions of opposition and outrage throughout the world, and how that plays out politically in the United States and in europe and elsewhere, remains to be seen, but its definitely a prospect. Yeah, live images from sao paulo, brazil a different cities in brazil to. Coming out in support of palestinians and condemning uh israeli actions against them, so uh richard, europeans have been suffering already from you know their own crisis on home turf, uk, having to deal with the cost of living crisis, high energy prices. Brussels others uh countries in europe, they have all been already suffering and some of them affected by the pandemic, some of them from ukraine. War, and uh, if this war goes on, so uh, who would you imagine would suffer the most . Well, thats hard to say, of course, you must start with the people of gaza and the palestinians, but in europe, the countries that are most dependent on importing and exporting to the world trade. Trade system, also the countries that have the most stressed internal economies and that seems concentrated in the former soviet uh block countries of eastern europe, i would think the western western european countries, although suffering, as you suggest, they have more capabilities of coping with increased stress and could you imagine a situation where the european leaders and american leaders uh changed their standpointts regarding the Israeli Palestinian conflict . I cannot imagine them openly changing it, but somehow alter policy in order to pursue these practical goals. I think. It the uh us in particular, but also the other leading nato countries have so committed themselves to the israeli policies that it would be awkward and embarrassing for them to uh admit the mistakes they made and by by backing israel in its excessive response to the hamas attack, but i do think that if any kind of responsible statecraft, emerges in these important countries, it will lead to an altered policy and the exertion of maximum influence on. Israel to uh back off the intended escalations of the present situation, and in the midst of all this chaos and the bloodched what will become of the prospect of a of palestinians having their own country, having their own capital and governance system . Well, strange things happen in the world, and uh in our in the period of the last 50 years and one can imagine an abrupt shift in policy in which the israelis overall do what the south africans came to do and that is to uh release marwan bargudi from prison. who is would be natural leader for the Palestinian People, and to say that they want to live in some kind of peaceful coexistence that would envision a palestinian state, thats a farfetched vision, but as i say, the situation is so terrible,