i raise it with my anger and love, love of my land, anger as your dead, wounded by hatred, i'm breathing, breathing, breathing, the magic perfume of my homeland palestine. wonded in love, my hands turn around the branches of the olive tree, seeking peace, seeking peace, but as long as the pillows of our children are drenching blood, as long as you have the storm crown of evil force, i'm a flame. in thunder and tornado, and i cry out,

i cry out, oh my god, i pray you, i miss you, oh my son, i pray you,

hello and welcome to press tv spotlight. i'm marizia hashimi, thanks so much for being with us. oh, as the fatalities of palestinians now are over 27,00 in the continuance israeli genocide on gaza. the united states congress is said to vote to increase washington's support for the regime. next week, the house of representatives will vote on advancing more than 14 billion more dollars in military aid to the zionist regime. so is it that washington's and to the

zianist genocide is to up the anti and give the regime more weapons and support in order to kill more palestinians? well we will look at this and other questions on this spotlight. i like to welcome my guest to the program. peter, former british ambassador to a syria out of manchester and charlotte kate's international coordinate. of samadun palestinian prisoner solidarity network out of vancouver. well, i'd like to start off with charlotte. thanks so much for being with us. now charlotte, nearly 27,500 palestinians have been murdered since october, with many instances of massacers, torture, and crimes against humanity. it's so mind-boggling that this genocide is continuing. your thoughts on why the world has failed. to stop this

genocide? one of the things that's been very clear since october 7th and beyond is that the imperialist powers like the united states, britain, france, germany, canada, are lined up arm- in arm to prevent the palestinian people and their resistance, and the resistance forces in the region from realizing their goals of the liberation of palestine and the liberation of the region. from us imperialism and that they see in the growing strength of the resistance forces an existential threat to this regime of plunder, domination and subjugation um which they've imposed upon the entire region for decades and indeed centuries, and so when we talk when we are saying this we're not just seeing like a failure on the part of world agencies, we're seeing very um explicit and deliberate genocide being carried out by the zionist regime in league with these with these

states, with these countries that are fully complicit in this ongoing genocide and are doing everything possible to make it last longer and be worse for the palestinian people. i mean, this is why we're seeing. the united states and its allies bombing yemen, iraq and syria. this is why we're seeing the the united states talking about shipping $14 billion dollars of new weapons to the so-called israeli regime top of the $4 billion dollars that they already send on annual basis. um, but now on the other hand, what we're seeing is an unprecedented level of resistance involvement from forces in the region, and we're also seeing an unprecedented level of popular support for the palestinian. an absolute abhorance of this genocide being conducted by the zionist regime. i think more people than ever around the world recognize today that zionism is racism and are willing to go out in the streets or willing to take risks, to get arrested, to protest, to organize to face

down um zionist intimidation and smear campaigns, because people cannot sit by and allow a genocide to take place, especially in their name and with their tax dollars. yes, indeed, and and you you talked about uh with the united states and giving more weapons, would you say in reality that it's the united states which is actually at war with the palestinians? well, you know, yes, the united states is at war with the palestinian people, and it has been, i mean, for over 75 years, the us has always uh backed and supported the zionist colonization of palestine, um, it took over as the primary sponsor of the zionist colonial project in the region, and it has armed. and funded it since that time. i mean, us officials have, routinely referred to the zionist regime as essentially an aircraft carrier for the united states in the region, said if there isn't an israel, we'd have to create it, um, and and why, why would you have to create it in order to serve the interests of the united states, to divide the

arab people from one another, to divide the peoples and nations of the region from one another, and to impose this essentially, this military garrison in occupied palestine in the heart of the... region and so this has always been a us war on the palestinian people, um, this has always been an imperialist war on the palestinian people, and that's why it's the us's weapons that are causing the destruction and devastation that we see today, and it's also the us's weapons that are being destroyed by the palestinian resistance. now hopefully our other guest peter will be able to join us, so far we don't have him, but i'm going to stay with you charlotte, you you talked about on the one hand - well, hopefully we join peter. join us in in a minute, he's just coming in and hopefully everything will be okay, we'll test the audio and everything, but uh, staying with you a bit more, charlotte, you had talked about actually uh, that you've seen - on the one hand we talked about uh the united states and what is doing, on the other hand, you talked about the resistance and how

you haven't seen uh so much uh as far as people becoming more aware of the palestinian situation, i want to talk about your personal experience because you are an activist in canada and what you have seen since october 7th there. well, what we've seen is a really sustained mobilization and just a really large scale anger and commitment to continue to act, and a real outrage at the canadian government, at canadian officials and institutions that continue to behave in mechanism that is completely complicit with the genocide, while the vast majority of... people here are demanding that they stop doing it. mean, the time after time, poll after poll show that the majority of canadians at the very least want a ceasefire in the us and israel to stop bombing and attacking gaza. so what does the canadian government do? instead it goes and and participates in the us-uk assault on yemen.

um, you know, goes about defunding unrad. these are not things that are supported by people on the ground. and that's why every single weekend, and for that matter. every single day, there are demonstrations of those of people in all of the major cities and hundreds of people in many towns, um, throughout canada, people fundamentally are appalled by the very reality that they see of what zianism is, okay, and that's quite amazing, especially in the cold of the of canada right now, that's actually quite impressive. well, peter, i'm glad you join us, peter, in november congress allocated $14.5 billion dollars more for the... israel genocide now set to vote to give even more uh money to the israeli regime. i mean, why is this the case when the us itself has a growing poverty problem and a crumbling infrastructure, and their own people are definitely under pressure, so your thoughts

on that side of things? it's a very good question, and many americans themselves are asking that question, why is america? uh funding israel to the tune of the billions and billions of dollars to carry out the genocide, while folks back home in america hardly have enough to... to live on and the infrastructure is crumbling um and the answer of course is politics and money um especially an an election year. the bottom line is that biden and all all the leading candidates are dependent on the pro israel lobby. if the pro israel lobby turns against them, they are finished. and so it it goes on time after time, this is not about american interests,

it's about israeli interests, the ordinary people don't get a say, especially when the the mass media, the mainstream media are so one-sided, just today, new evidence has emerged as how biased cnn is, from the very top, ordinary journalists are protesting because they're not allowed to report impartially, but they get orders from the very top of cnn to present only the israeli point of view, so it's no wonder that american support for israel is so one-sided. well, let me just jump in here, peter, you said something interestingly, interesting that because of an election year, one would think because it's an election year, then actually if the people really had power to elect who they wanted, that the genocide would be stopped immediately since the

majority of people are not pro-genocide, and that because it's an election year, they would more try to, the politicians would try to appease the people more, but what you have said about the israeli lobby, um, do you think that that just really says who controls not only the elections, but washington politics in general? uh, well... when all the candidates are pro pro israel, the people have no choice, the choice is being pro israeli, very pro israeli, or most pro israeli, you can't be pro palestinian in in the us presidential and congressional elections, it's very simple, the the ordinary people have no choice, but the the poles show that many younger. people in particular, and in particular, people who would lean towards

the democrats are disgusted by biden's effective support for for genocide, and it may well be the case that they will simply abstain, that they will vote with their feet by staying at home, and this is something that even beiden has to pay attention to, and this is why america pretends. pretends to be concerned about palestinian lives, pretends to be supporting a palestinian state, that is just to appease those young democrats who are not going to vote for for biden, but it's all uh fair. well, charlotte, if the mentality in the west is to support genocide, is there a middleground that people in west asia and the global south can have with this perspective? or basically are we a continuous crash course with the rulers of western hegemany and the

global south? well, we're on a crash course with imperialism and zionism, and it's really clear that, you know, but but one of the things that's actually hopeful is that we're seeing these very large numbers of thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions of people in the heart of the imperial core. saying no, we stand with the global south, not only saying, we want to cease fire now, but we support the palestinian resistance, and this is something that's increasingly clear, and what that means is that it's not possible for these states to for too long sustain this ongoing war machine targeting the palestinian people and targeting everyone in the region, but the fact is is that these imperialist forces have shown time and time again that rather... than you know attempting to sort of preserve some form of minimal peace in the region, well

where they engage in pressure campaigns, but they sort of pull back the attack dogs of the zionist regime from like this extreme genocide, they're not doing that, they've had months and months and months to do that, and rather than do that they're um passing bill to send $14 billion dollars more weapons to continue the genocide more effectively with more bombs and bullets and destructive for. so there's no mechanism by which these forces become supporters of peace and justice and a future for people in the region, instead they... have to be defeated and they're on the road to being defeated. well, peter, it is not only gaza, but also the occupied west bank, which is experiencing extreme violence from the zianist regime, young and old, male and female, arrested, tortured and killed by the regime. now with this type of entity and this type of violence against the people, what option does the palestinians have except

resistance against this apartite regime? how do you see it? personally, i feel they are being given no option other than on resistance, um, i myself, when i was a diplomat in the british foreign office, worked on the middle east peace process in the early days and high hopes were alive then and and for number of years afterwards, but for at least the last 10 years it has been. obvious that peace talks, the middle east peace process is just theater, just a sharad, not serious, in fact it's been just a cover for the israelis to increase their land grabs and and to absorb more and more of the west bank, you cannot blame the palestinians for

concluding in these circumstances that... talks about two state solution is just a cover for the israelis to grab more land, for the settlers to come in ever greater numbers and and talk of going to international courts, it's good in a way, but it's not going to deliver palestinian rights, so you can't blame palestinians if they feel they have no recourse, but take up arms or to support resistance groups like hamas, you said, peter, staying with you, you said that uh, it's been the last 10 years specifically that you haven't believed that the the goal is actually peace, what about from the very beginning of the peace talks, so you think from the very beginning, it was a plot by the regime and just to delay the inevitable,

which was for them to steal more israeli property, well history. oreans will argue about this, certainly i had the impression being heavily personally involved right at the beginning, but it was serious that on the side of the israelis at that time, in particular rabin, there was a serious intention to move forward towards allowing a palestinian state to come into existence, but we know what happened to rabin, he was assassinated by... israeli fanatics um, then more or less altered the peace process and made it eventually into just a cover story while they got on with occupying and annexing quietly annexing the the west bank, but in first few years there was, i think genuine

hope, but those days are long gone, there is nobody like that today, there is no partner for... in israel today. okay, well charlotte, do you think the israeli regime can recover from this genocide? it has committed and it's total military failure in gaza, where none of its goals have been met. in the long run, no, absolutely not. i mean, this genocide that's being carried out as part of the deathnell of the zionist project in occupied palestine, and we're seeing this also in the way that while palestinians. have come together, united, forged a strong, very strong sense of national unity, um, uniting around the resistance, standing together against the genocide. what we see on the ziano side are every politician for themselves, every political figure, scrambling for influence and power. um, we see the blatant fascists,

bengavier and smotric uh, you proudly declaring how they're planning to steal more palestinian land in the next. next days we see netanyahu determined to kill as many palestinians as possible so that he remains in power and out of jail. um we're seeing this and the absolute exposure of the reality of what zionism is and what colonialism and palestine means everyone around the world. now for so long the zionist regime has maintained this illusion of the impenetrability and the strength of its army and its military. that can't be defeated, but what we're seeing right now is that the palestinian resistance um under siege for over 17 years with weapons. that they've manufactured themselves um defeating this so-called uh undefeatable army, instead, all that designs are able to do is drop bombs and kill civilians, and that's a reality of dying

project, settler colonial project that is failing and coming to its end. well, peter, uh, do you think with the us supported genocide that not only has washington lost credibility worldwide, but it is being scrutinized more by its own citizens as they... question the country's militarism can and could ultimately cause the more pressure inside of the united states itself uh i'm not optimistic i have to say because of the um the deep forces which control us politics um i mean congress is the the best parliament that that you can buy. senators, congressman, it is well known, are easily bought, and this situation is not going to change, whatever

the people want is secondary to the forces that support militarism, and of course the the arms manufacturers play a huge role here, and this this this complex. identified by president eisenhower 70, 80 years ago when he spoke about the the military, industrial complex which americans had to beware of, well it's still there today, only expanded to include the media, a big high high tech and and academ universities, yes indeed, indeed, well charlotte, there are no sanctions on israel and no fly zones that have been implemented to stop his genocide, what the regime has is the total support of the western front of hegemmany, when this is the

reality, what would you say is the responsibility of the anti-genocide front? the responsibility of the anti-genocide front in all of its forms and all of its places, whether that is the resistance that's fighting on the ground, whether that states that are working to hold the zionist regime accountable at international courts, and whether that's our popular movement on the streets around the world is to do everything possible to bring this genocide to an end and to support the liberation of palestine from the river to the sea, and that means confronting not only uh the zionist regime for its direct genocide on gaza, but the united states, britain, germany, france, canada, and all of the partners in the attacks on. on the attacks on iraq and syria, on the attempts to fundamentally destroy the region's ability to stand together and stand

for itself and be free of colonialism, hegemony and external domination, and this is responsibility of all of us, that means building our boycott campaigns, that means getting in the streets, that means confronting arms manufacturers like palestine action is doing, every single person can play role in a united front against genocide that's stands across the globe and stands together with the palestinian people and their resistance on the front lines of struggle. well, thank you both for being with me on the spotlight. peter ford, a former british ambassador to syria out of manchester, charlotte kates, international coordinator samadun palestinian prisoner solidarity network out of vancouver. and thank you viewers for being with us on another spotlight. thank you for myself and other true right here in tehran. hope to see you right here next time. goodbye.

headlines, israel continues to target hospitals housing thousands of displaced people in southern. gaza as death regime's genocide nears 27,600 and israel's indiscriminate strikes on southern gods to kill another journalist, increasing number of media workers killed by the regime to 123. new york's prime minister once again calls for the withdraw of all foreign troops for iraqi territory, including the northern region of kurdistan.