The Palestinian National Initiative is a political party that presents itself as an alternative to Fatah and Hamas. franceinfo met its leader, Mustafa Barghouti.
Mustafa Barghouti is a Palestinian doctor and activist. He launched the Palestinian National Initiative, a political party that presents itself as an alternative to Fatah and Hamas. Unlike most Palestinian political factions, the INP does not have an armed wing and practices peaceful resistance to the occupation. franceinfo met him in the West Bank.
franceinfo: Do you really think that the Israeli army can win this war?
Mustafa Barghouti: In my opinion, they will achieve nothing by killing more Palestinians and will only make more and more Palestinians, especially young Palestinians, angry and also willing to fight the occupation. The only way out is not military force. Einstein said that insanity is to keep doing the same thing and expect different results. This is Israel’s sixth war against Gaza. How many wars have they waged against the Palestinian people? Twelve wars so far. How many more will we need? The only way out is to accept the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination and independence. The shortest path is to expel illegal Israeli settlers from the occupied West Bank, allowing Palestinians to have their own state. We will never give up.
Do you fear a third intifada in the West Bank?
There is already a low intensity intifada. What does Intifada mean? People talk about an intifada by comparing it to the first and second intifada. I think there was already an intifada before this war started in Gaza. Many people unfortunately think that the story began on October 7, but they fail to see that in the last eight months, before October 7, Israel had killed 248 Palestinians in the West Bank. During these eight months, Israel continued to attack the Al Aqsa Mosque. During these eight months, Israeli extremists continued to attack Christian clerics and people who came to pray in Jerusalem churches. The message was: we will normalize with all Arab countries. Netanyahu therefore told us: your cause is over, I will normalize with Saudi Arabia, this is the end of the cause of the Palestinian people. So why wouldn’t the Palestinians resist?
How can we still believe in peace negotiations after what happened on October 7?
Because there are no other alternatives to this. When negotiations take place for peace, it happens between enemies. This doesn’t happen between friends. However, I think that if there is a war criminal here who should be brought to justice, it is Netanyahu, not only because of the atrocities he is currently committing against the Palestinians, but also because he is personally responsible for the failure of the peace process. This man wrote a book in 1994 against the Oslo Accords, against the peace agreement between Palestinians and Israelis and against the creation of a Palestinian state. He turned Israeli public opinion against Yitzhak Rabin, who signed the Oslo Accords. This man is therefore responsible for the death of Yitzhak Rabin. And he ensured that no peace process took place. Since 2014 he has been in government most of the time and since 2014 he has not authorized any meetings with the Palestinian leadership, any negotiations of any kind. He is therefore responsible for what we see today.
Is the two-state solution still viable in your opinion?
I wrote an article in the British newspaper The Guardian on May 15 in which I said that the Israelis had already killed him. But I tell you, after what happened and knowing that it is so difficult today to convince people to live together in one state: yes, it would be possible provided that Israel is ready to expel all settlers from the occupied West Bank. This is what we asked for, 50 years ago, 60 years ago. They don’t want a single state. They don’t want two states. What do they want? When you have a government with a person like Itamar Ben Gvir (Minister of National Security), Bezalel Smotrich (Minister of Finance) who are both settlers. Mr. Smotrich does not hesitate to call himself a fascist homophobe. He says we should fill the West Bank settlements so that Palestinians lose all hope of having their own state. Palestinians will then have one of the following options: immigrate, which means ethnic cleansing, or accept a life of subjugation to Israelis, which means apartheid, or die. What do the Israelis want us to do? Living in ghettos and continuing to push us out of Palestine? In 1948, 70% of Palestinians were expelled. No refugees were allowed to return, although the United Nations conditioned its recognition of Israel as a state on the implementation of UN Council Resolution 9194, which stipulated that all refugees must be allowed to come back. Did they allow those who were deported from here in 1967 to return? Never.