It's the Real News Network.
I'm Sharmini Peries coming to you from Baltimore.
Despite the massacre of 17 unarmed demonstrators on the 30th of March, which was on Palestinian
Land Day, Gazans continued their mass but peaceful struggle to return home.
Since then at least 14 more Palestinians were killed by Israeli military.
Among them was the journalist Yasser Murtaja.
The Israeli Minister of Defense Avigdor Lieberman said that the killing of Murtaja was justified
because he allegedly was operating a small drone in order to take pictures.
Lieberman added that there are no naive people in Gaza Strip.
This is going rather viral.
There are no demonstrators there either, he said.
Anyone trying to cross the border are members of the military wing of Hamas.
Hussein Madi was a 14-year-old boy killed on Friday by Israeli fire.
His mother Eman Madi spoke about his plans for celebrating his upcoming birthday.
He was very kind to me.
He would always ask me to prepare the food he likes.
He had asked me on his birthday that we go out and buy clothes for him to go out and
eat together at a restaurant.
Hundreds have been injured, and some are struggling for their lives in hospitals in Gaza.
On to talk about all of this with me is Shir Hever.
Shir is a Real News correspondent based in Heidelberg, Germany.
His recent book, "The Privatization of Israeli Security," was published by Pluto Press in
2017.
Shir, good to have you with us.
Thanks for having me, Sharmini.
Shir, every statement made by the Israeli officials on the Great Return March, including
the one made by Minister of Defense Lieberman, contains the word Hamas.
Why is it so important for the Israeli officials to mention Hamas again and again, and what
is the actual role of Hamas in these demonstrations?
Hamas is the bogeyman of the Israeli government, and Prime Minister Netanyahu compared Hamas
to ISIS and to Boko Haram.
And they keep repeating this lie as if Hamas is organizing the demonstrations, which it
never has.
T he organizers are not members of Hamas, and they have nothing to do with Hamas.
But they lie is constantly repeated.
I think it's very interesting to see that after the Land Day massacre, which was also
on a Jewish holiday of Passover, and the Israeli media started to say well after Palestinians
were killed, now Hamas is taking over the demonstrations.
But that's very interesting, because just a few days before they said Hamas was organizing
the demonstrations.
So first Hamas organizes them, but then Hamas had to take over them because they were actually
organized by somebody else.
I think this only proves that they are just repeating this propaganda spewed by the Israeli
government and the Israeli military.
And the reason that the Israeli government tries to portray these demonstrations as if
they were organized by Hamas is because Hamas believes in armed resistance to the Israeli
occupation, and military uprising.
And therefore the demonstrations would be associated with an armed group, and that would
create the image the demonstrations are a violent uprising, which they are not.
And that's why the Israeli government really tries to push that message forward in order
to justify the killing of unarmed demonstrators.
Shir, what is a position of Hamas as far as these demonstrations are concerned?
Do they support it?
Then of course there's the issue of Fatah, as well.
Where are they as organized representatives of the Palestinian people in terms of these
peaceful demonstrations that are going on?
Well, in 2007 that was the first time the Palestinians tried to organize such a march
of return, they called it the March of Freedom back then, from Gaza to have a mass protest
and cross the fence into Israel.
And in 2007 the Hamas party actually stopped demonstrations.
They were very worried about it.
And Hamas has a very good reason to fear these demonstrations.
Because, like I said, the Hamas party believes in armed resistance to the Israeli occupation.
And they believe that no other form of resistance has a chance of succeeding.
And they're saying Palestinians are alone in the world.
We have to use our guns in order to become free.
But the demonstrators and organizers of this demonstration are saying no, there is another
way.
And the nonviolent way may be even more effective.
And if they are indeed successful in having a mass nonviolent demonstration that challenges
the Israeli occupation and gets a lot of international attention and international solidarity, that
challenges the very reason of the Hamas party to exist.
So the Hamas party are very worried about this.
But at the same time they cannot overtly criticize the demonstrations, because obviously that
would put them on the side of the Israeli occupation.
So they did issue an official statement supporting the demonstrations, but they're keeping their
distance from the demonstrations.
Meanwhile, the Fatah party is split on this.
Because on the one hand the Palestinians, and I, and I would imagine most of the members
of the Fatah party, are very hopeful about the mass nonviolent struggle that will challenge
the occupation and maybe make a little crack in the occupation.
On the other hand, there is a conflict between the Hamas and Fatah parties, and some senior
members of the Fatah party are using these demonstrations as a way to jab at Hamas.
And they're actually taking the Israeli lie, as if Hamas is organizing these demonstrations,
and saying, oh, Hamas is sacrificing their people and sending them to these demonstrations
to die so that Hamas can get points.
And of course that's just repeating the propaganda of the Israeli government.
I think it's shameful to hear this from some members of the Fatah party.
And I would say the rest of the parties, especially on the left, are very much supporting the
demonstration and very much hopeful of the power of nonviolence resistance.
Shir, what is the character and the nature of the people that are organizing this peaceful
demonstration if they're not Hamas?
Well, there are 20 people, and they come from many different political parties.
And I think two or three of them are actually members of the Hamas party, but not particularly
senior, not representing the party there.
The others are from every other political party that exists in Palestine, and also just
civil society activists, people who have some contact with the rest of the world . I think
that's maybe the most important characteristic, because they really believe that the world
will not stay silent.
That their protests will be seen by the world and that people will respond to it and take
some action and to challenge the Israeli occupation and to make it accountable.
Now, the international community, which makes up, you know, Arabs and Palestinians who are
in the diaspora, who've been organizing in other parts of the world, they're also very
active.
And they're active at this time because the demonstrators are unarmed.
It is a nonviolent protest which takes place within the Gaza Strip.
With its gaining momentum and the swelling that's going on in terms of the international
attention, why doesn't the Israeli government just ignore it?
Why respond to it with so much force and with attempts to break up the march?
It doesn't make any sense.
Yeah.
There's a famous quote by Gadi Eizenkot, an Israeli general.
And he said, we don't do Ghandi very well.
And he said this in an interview today.
He's the commander, the commander in chief of the Israeli army.
And what he meant by that is that when Palestinians use weapons to try to resist occupation the
Israeli army is well trained and equipped to deal with armed resistance from Palestinians.
And they have every possible advantage in terms of artillery and armor and airplanes
and bombs, and so on.
But when Palestinians do this kind of grassroots non-violent protest and they get the attention
of the international community, then really the Israeli government starts to panic and
the Israel army doesn't really know what to do.
And what they already managed to achieve very clearly with this demonstration is to prove
to the world that Israel is still fully occupying the Gaza Strip, because Palestinians are not
even able to demonstrate within their own territory.
So it's so clear that Israel controls every centimeter of the Gaza Strip.
But that's not the end of it.
Palestinians, when they come near the fence, and, and do kind of civil disobedience, and
try to break through, which they haven't tried it yet, but at some point they may be able
to do so if they have enough mass of people coming near the fence.
That is a nightmare scenario for the Israeli government.
It would be a collapse of the entire system of control of checkpoints and walls and fences
that the Israeli government is building.
And not just building, but also exporting to other countries.
So for the Israeli government this is a crucial point.
In the last couple of weeks we've seen Palestinians crossing the fence into Israeli territory.
Actually, the fence has a lot more holes than people think.
And they get arrested in Israel.
And many of them are carrying weapons, but the weapons are wrapped so that they cannot
access these weapons.
They cannot use them, actually.
They bring the weapons because they know that if you're caught in Israel holding a weapon
you go to jail, but you don't have a weapon you're sent back to Gaza.
These are people who are actually starving.
The Gaza Strip is in a state of humanitarian catastrophe.
There's not enough water.
There's not enough food.
People say, well, I'd rather live in prison but at least survive than die in Gaza.
And so they smuggle across the border to be arrested by the Israeli forces.
When, when these stories are published in the Israeli media there is a state of panic.
They say we cannot just close the borders, close the fence and ignore that these people
exist.
And if a protest, a nonviolent protest, tries to break through the fence and make themselves
known and utilize their very basic rights to reunite with their families in the West
Bank, to import and export so that they can have a functioning economy, that's something
that completely undermines the Israeli strategy of control, of divide and conquer of the Palestinians.
And so, so they, they just cannot ignore it.
We're going to continue this conversation we are having with Shir Hever about the demonstrations
going on between Gaza and Israel.