Ambassador of the State of Palestine, Abdullah M Abu Shawesh, spoke to The New Bengal Gazette editors Syed Abubakr and Sumit Singh on the United States-funded Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza. Over 65,000 Palestinians have been killed so far, and almost half a million Palestinians are trapped in famine, marked by widespread starvation, destitution, and preventable deaths.
Ambassador Shawesh speaks out on Trump’s UNGA address, the recent wave of recognition of the Palestinian State, the change in India’s stand, and the Modi-Mahmoud Abbas relationship.
Question: President Trump spoke at the United Nations General Assembly, and I quote: “We have to stop the war in Gaza immediately”. He also said that he has been deeply engaged in trying to secure a ceasefire. Your comments on the latest remarks by the US president, especially in the backdrop of record funding by the US to Israel since the onset of the war.
Answer: We used to judge people based on their attitude towards our struggle, not based on what they used to say or the rhetoric that they used to tell. When it came to President Trump, this is his second term as the President of the United States. In his first term, he’s the one who recognized Eastern Jerusalem as the eternal capital of Israel, which is completely against their stand as Americans themselves, or the long-standing American policy. President Trump is the one who closed our office in Washington, DC.
President Trump is the one who closed the funding for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), which is the United Nations entity that supplies and provides assistance to the Palestinian refugees. President Trump is the one who cut the funding for the Palestinian Authority. President Trump is the one who has cut the funding for East Jerusalem hospitals, and President Trump himself is the one who inaugurated or created what’s so-called the deal of the century: nothing in this deal is related to the peace process.
When we see his new term, he’s the one and his administration is the one that banned the Palestinian leaders from attending the current United Nations General Assembly, and if someone intends to end the war, first and foremost, they should stop supplying the Israeli occupation with all the weapons that guarantee and amplify the ongoing genocidal war on Gaza.
All of what he mentioned in his UNGA address is just rhetoric. We need to see implementation at the practical level. He used to say that he was the one who would end the war. Let us also remember that he’s the one who mentioned at the very beginning when he assumed his office that he was going to expel the Palestinian people. And he asked Egypt and Jordan to take the Palestinians so that he could take Gaza by force to build what’s called the real estate project, Riviera of the Middle East. So, Trump cannot talk about peace in Gaza as long as he is doing all of these devastating acts.
Watch the full interview here:
