‘ISRAEL stands out as a beacon of democracy,’ Israel’s PM, Benjamin Netanyahu, arrogantly claimed on the Andrew Marr Show yesterday.
This came when Marr challenged Netanyahu on the reported abuses of rights of Palestinian citizens living in Israeli-occupied territories. Marr went on to note that ‘you’ve used the word “an entity”, a Palestinian “entity”. Are you suggesting that what the Palestinians might get is as it were the status of a kind of self-governing territory inside a greater Israel?
Netanyahu said: ‘I think they should have all the powers to govern themselves and none of the powers to threaten us. Which means that it has to be…’ Marr interjected: ‘Falls short of a full state, in other words?’
Netanyahu: ‘Well, I’d say the reality in the Middle East which is peppered with failed states and pre-failed states and collapsing states means that if we withdraw our security control from an area what happens invariably is that militant Islam comes in, whether Daesh, ISIS, or Hamas backed by Iran.
‘Either one is horrible. Horrible not only for us, horrible also for the Palestinians or the Lebanese. You just heard Hariri, the Prime Minister of Lebanon resigning. He said basically it’s because Hezbollah took over, which means Iran took over.
‘And I think this is a wakeup call for everyone. It says what the Middle East is really experiencing. It’s experiencing the attempt of Iran to conquer the Middle East, to dominate it and subjugate it. And I think when Israelis and Arabs and it’s all the Arabs and the Israelis, agree on one thing people should pay attention. We should stop this Iranian takeover. For your interests too.’
Marr said: ‘One of the big supporters of Palestinian rights in this country is the new leader of the Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn, who has said in the past for instance that we shouldn’t allow free access for whom he calls “Israel’s criminal politicians” to come into this country.
‘He might very well be Britain’s Prime Minister before long, what would that do to relationships and should you not pick up the phone and talk to him directly?’ Netanyahu replied: ‘Well, first of all the British people decide who they want to govern them, but I hope that there will be a continuity of British policy with Israel because here’s something people don’t know.
‘That cooperation has saved many lives. Many Israeli lives, many, many British lives. Because we have an intense cooperation between our security intelligence agencies and it is protecting Britain and it is protecting Israel and it’s something I hope will continue in the future.’
