while the us is really genocidal war on the gaza strip roars ahead, the genocidal death doll is averaging a couple hundred daily, meanwhile there's another onslot that israel regime forces have been conducting, and that is in the occupied west bank where at least 370 palestinians have been killed since october the 7th. isn't this another aggression against palestinians? in this edition of the spotlight we will look at how eyes should not be taken off the occupied west bank where israely atrocities like in gaza have been ongoing for decades and how israely... officials want to cleanse the west

bank of most palestinians just like in the gaza strip. let me introduce our guests for this edition of the program. larry johnson is a former cia analyst joining us from brandington, florida. also joining us is alberto garcia watson, political analyst and activist us from malaga over in spain. gentlemen, welcome to you both. larry johnson first over to you. i have to mention how this is become uh it's extraordinary that may maybe um we're becoming numb when we hear these deaths that's taking place i mean we're looking at the the death doll of a around 26,00 uh or up to 27 thousand but we're looking at uh how over 200 palestinians have been killed again in the span of 24 hours. uh

by the regime forces and and then 10,00 children uh so far killed and 7,00 women, these are happening, this death tholl is happening a rather continuous and frequent pace, what what do you think about this when you when you hear this type of death though? of well, i'm not trying to minimize it, but i want to point out that the reason we're able to pay such attention to this is because of social media primer... which is good, buse you go back in history in the past like when the nazis wiped out the wars ghetto, they did similar things, but nobody saw it, it wasn't, it wasn't on social media every day, and now these the images of these dead children, these babies, the women that are being slaughtered wantedly, that's spreading around the world, and so that social media has...

become if you will powerful weapon on the side of the palestinians to rally global support. now that's said, the thing we the only country we've seen that stood up to actually try to do something to stop the slaughter are are the hoothis in yemen. everybody else talks a good game. erdouan and turkey is particularly regreous in this aspect in my regard. the talking condemn what the israelies are doing, but they... 'don't do anything to bring it to halt and meanwhile the united states is enabling the slaughter, so it's uh, the the images are going to keep piling up until i think, friday at least, i we're going to get action from the international court of justice, and i think that will bring some additional pressure on israel to stop, do you said friday, that's when it's going to be announced, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's an interm uh announcement that they said they were going to make, so let me ask you uh, if i may uh let's johnson, let's

say that announcement is made uh, do you think that this is going to impact uh the lives of palestinians on the ground whom are getting decimated and are dying by the day? yeah, yeah, no, i think it will, not immediately, let me ask, alberto garcia, that that question, go ahead, sorry about that, that's all right, well, but actually, i'm not very convinced that whatever is decided on the on friday is actually... change anything on the field, i happen to have visited the gas strip several times and peaceful times, let's say peaceful times, they never lived on the peace and the gaser trip and the conditions in which the population over two million people live is absolutely like in a prison is like they lived in alatras no way out um with everything. restricted the

entring and the exiting of people and and and and whatever products are needed, mean just potato chips and chocolate is forbidden. to enter the gaza strip, that's for for an example, no, so i i don't think that actually whatever is socited on friday is going to make the uh israeli authorities to change their program and their project, which is actually ethnic cleansing, that's part of the project of a great israel that goes from the the river nile all the way to the euphratus river in iraq, and they haven uh... actually the manage that possibility by weakening all these countries in the in the area with the help of the united states, so basically and what actually our friend, our colleague in the states had mentioned that on friday it would determine anything, i don't actually think it's going to change anything on the

ground, united states is going to keep on supporting this slaughter, all these people that are getting killed, over 200 people per day are killed with american weapons and united. states does not want to have a sice fire, so it will prolong in the time until something else happens, but not definitely it would not be a choice of israel, indeed, well something else is happening, and uh, larry johnson, that's what's happening on the occupied west bank, i mean since october the 7th, we're looking at uh the figures that we have over here, over at least 370 palestinians have been killed there, um, including more than 99 children with more than 4,250 injured, you know the ice can't be taken off, what's happening there? um and this is uh has been is somewhat mirroring what's happening at the in the carnage in the gaza strip but a very much lower pace though it's been happening for decades uh what do you think about the fact that things are have spiraled i should say uh out of control there when it comes to the regime forces israel and

what is doing to the palestinians there? well the crit the critical difference is uh israel is bombing indiscriminately with fixed wing aircraft in gaza they're not doing that in the west. bank and and i think part of the reason for that the west bank is that they've got about 700,00 uh settlers illegally occupying palestinian territory, so they they would be worried about causing collateral damage among their own people, at least now they're concerned about it, they weren't concerned about that on october 7th when the israeli military killed a significant number of israeli civilians and then blamed it on hamas, look this... "israel with its ultra zionist extremists, the the smotrich, the itmar, bengavirs and even now netanyahu, they they've embarked on a religious crusade to exterminate palestinians from all of this

territory that israel claims as its own, they have zero interest in working out two-state solution, they don't want to live with palestinians, they don't want..." to accommodate palestinians in any former fashion and that's why they are blaming uh or labeling all palestinians as terrorists, it's just complete guilt by association, instead of instead of concentrating on those who carried out the attacks on october 7th, they've gone towards indiscriminate mass punishment, and uh, you not, i think i think it's ultimately it's going to destroy israel, well when you have uh, since you've mentioned bengaver uh i need to ask you this, alberto garcia, how uh, given the fact that he's actually settler himself, uh, he recently said to the board of police officers to shoot any terrorist that they, he calls him terrorist, that they uh see even if they don't pose a threat, which is violation of the rules of engagement, and he said this,

quote, you have complete backing from me, when your life is in danger or you see a terrorist, even if he does not endanger you, shoot, i have your back, hair on your head, harmed is worth 1,0 terrorists, later. he retracted that saying that you know my words were uh they were misquoted uh, but you when you have this type of uh character inside uh uh the the israeli regime making these types of statements and going ahead with actually believing what he says should be the case um what kind of future is it the kind of future that i guess there said that it's going to hurt israel to the point that it may become an existential threat to the regime itself uh actually when we talk about it we're talking about a former member of the kan movement which actually moved brooklyn new yorker called a bar goldstein to commit massacre in

hebron mosque in 1994 killing 29 people uh that movement was considered to be a terrorist organization until not to long and this itavier has even poster of this criminal bar goldstein in his living room and he makes it public everyone sorry for that and basically this this person is actually very much needed uh by benhamin netanyahu likes modric to be able to carry on with this government because any anyone any of these extremist leaders that give up on this government will make this behamin netanyahu uh call for new elections and he needs to govern this uh they complete four years because he knows that otherwise is going to be charged as he's already charged. for corruptions on many many accounts and he will be actually detained and arrested, so he

wants to prolong this government with this extremis and he's going to prolong this war as far as he can take it, not actually believing that he's going to win it, because and h and over 110 days none of the objectives uh have been reached, he has not been able of rescuing one single of the hamas israeli captives. and he hasn't got rid of the hamas al khassan brigades which actually have kept very much of their military capacity as we could see just a couple of days ago with the killing of 24 israeli soldiers so uh netanyahu is going to try to prolong and time is staying in power uh doing as much damage as he can do and as very much i'm very well said by our colleague in the states um they do not believe and solution that's out of the question, they never did, not even uh, jisak rabin ever believed in it,

even when he signed the oslaw court with with arafat and shimon perez and bill clinton in the white house, so therefore i just see that bnyahu is gonna try to find a way to continue and end his uh government as far as he can take it and do as much damage as he can in the in the gas strip. well, one of the places that the damage is happening uh, if you want to call it call it that in terms of the word being used damage here, which is lot more than that, is is what's happening in the occupied west bank, and larry johnson, you mentioned the fact that the difference uh being between the occupied west bank and the gaza strip is that you have the regime forces there that are uh bombing the gaza strip via air, this is something that's now happening in the west bank uh based on the un human rights office, there's a sharp increase in air strikes and military incursions which we know in terms of the refugee camps. um and also the abductions, 6200 um is what uh we

have based on how many people have been rested in the occupied west bank um something needs to be done in order to stop that from becoming another gaza strip but um oh no i i agree with you on that what yeah so so what can be done mean you know you have the it's interesting you have the us react to these settlers uh and also the eu but not the same way they react to the palestinians in the gaza strip uh that they should... to have a visa ban or what have you? i'm curious as to why that approach is taken regarding the settlers and not uh the life the lives of palestinians in the gaza strip, but again your views on what's happening there in the occupied west bank? well, i mean let's face it, the the palestinians are considered subhuman, they're not real men, they're not real women, they're they're you know untermench as far as the israelis are concerned. i'm not saying that there are no bombings aerial bombings in the west bank, but it it's it's a fraction. "it doesn't even begin to compare with what's going on in gaza, the israelis are leveling gaza so that

it is uninhabitable so that nobody can live there can return. what they're doing in the west bank more often than not is they're taking in the buldosers, they're blowing up houses where they have control over the perimeter uh, and then within all this i come back to what i said at the outset, the only country that's doing anything..." substantively to try to put pressure on israel are the hoothis in yemen. erdogan in turkey could do lot right away. cut off the supply of oil to israel, shut it down. without oil they can't continue running the war machine. but they won't do that because there are too many people around aradan that are making money off of this. so, the the financial incentives to continue the war are significant. and the problem for the palestinians is they don't have any money, they have no financial resources, they're not

sitting a big pool of oil, you, they don't control a large stock of gold, they're a bunch of poor people and therefore we can kill them and get rid of them, and no big deal. well, since we talked about money, what are we looking at alberto garcia when it comes to israel itself? mean it's um, it's not doing well obviously economically um is trying to sustain uh economy which basically is uh on borrow time at this. point, whatever is left of it, because you're not having, you're having the major industries uh suffering, especially the tech sector, not to get into that conversation, but basically they uh did not anticipate the cost. this point i think has crept up to $60 billion, not sustainable based a economy that's whose wheels are not turning in a matter of speaking. um, of course, your your thoughts on this, but it appears that the us is probably going to be there to back them up in order for them to sustain and endure this uh genocidal war that's that is being exercised. do you think that that's going to be the case along with the massive obviously military

support that the us is giving as well? well, i'm not very sure about that, we're talking about. was spending over 260 million dollars per day in the war in gaza without even reaching the objectives that they first uh thought they would, the economy is going down the drain, and we're talking about united states now having primarily primary elections for their candidates, the republicans and the democrats and biden cannot afford at this point. uh um spending that amount of money, investing that amount of money in a fail project like it is israel at this point having elections just in a few months, because they might lose the elections, so i'm i'm very much aware the this continuous spending of money when actually you don't even see the the results that were expected

uh to happen in the first weeks of the of the conflict where the israeli army expect... to be able to finish with the hamas military structure, the the the the brigades, brigades of hamas and to be able to do like they did in in in uganda when they freed in in tebe airport all these captives from this palestinian pro-palestinian supposedly terrorists that had kidnapped this plane with with israelis, all the jewish that were actually rescued from ethiopia, this is not going to happen, they're not going to be able to make a movie out of this situation at this point, because it's so obvious for the rest the world that was going as a genocide, i mean international criminal court is is going to define most probably on friday, not on

friday, very very soon that what's going on is something that you cannot portray in a movie. as as an achievement indeed. well, when we want to take a look at the most recent proposal that uh um netanyahu has given uh larry johnson for uh, they call it pause, whether it's a pause or sease fire, supposed to happen in face stages, i believe, uh, for the captives to be released. um, it's very interesting uh, at the time that this came, because it came exactly within that 24-hour period, we had one of the biggest losses. of israeli regime forces uh, which was total of 24, which by the way, israel under reports how many soldiers, but regime forces, but you had hamas come out and say that that amount anyways, um, do you take that as a sign that israel has realized the writing on the wall and wants to maybe wind this down or is that a ploy? knowing that

hamas and the resistance groups have said there will be no agreement a... fire, the war has to end, this genesidal war has to end, but given that israel knows that they would reject it, they put it out there to say, see we tried, but they rejected it. i think it's a ploy, it's true that the events have turned against netanyahu and the israelis, the war is not going as they had anticipated, and there was some wonderful karma, and here they were wiring another building, they've been, they've been doing this for weeks, they go in and they... fire these various buildings, the university, churches, hospitals with explosives and then detnate them, and they sit back and they laugh and they celebrate, so you know, karma caught up with them, it fell in on their heads as they were trying to blow up another one, so i was frankly i was mildly amused by it, it couldn't have come

sooner, but that said uh, you know, why would hamas want to enter into? any agreement with the israelis at this point, the israelis, they release few hostages and they let then the israelis let few hamas people out of jail, and then they go out and round up another thousand people, put them in administrative detention. this is, you know, i think hamas finally is awakening to the fact that there is no negotiating with the israelis on this, this current israeli crowd are such hard over extremists. that the they don't see deal, because the concept of deal is you're willing to reach an agreement that can be mutually acceptable to both sides, the israelis don't recognize. that the palestinians have a side that can be legitimately considered, that's the thing the world needs to get hold of. moving to how we're looking any type of political solution.

many um have pushed this two-states solution. iran has proposed a referendum, that is how they view this to be something that's fair to the palestinians, which sounds reasonable, nevertheless, it's not entertained at all when it comes to the israeli regime overall. whether it's netanyahu and uh of course uh you have it and smotric telling netanyahu if you agree to anything like that uh there won't be any type of came in place um so what what are we looking at there? well this moment two state solution is something that has been buried by the israelis and the americans already for years, it hasn't been a continuance and the uh so-called accords decided in in... and the white house of the oslaw accords, nothing has been respected, over the 70% of expansion of the settlements

have taken place in this period of time, um, the fisherman for example and that i know personally because i went out with fishermen uh supposedly in the gas sea they were allowed to go fishing 20 miles out and not only they actually allowed to only fish in the two and a half miles from the coast, which it's actually not fish left, but just just just about everything that concerns the two state solution, nobody believes that in palestine, nobody believes that definitely in the gasa strip and i spoken with lot of people in the gasa strip, the two state solution is is is not a choice, it's not a possibility, especially when you have over f and a half million uh... palestinians refugees abroad that are not allowed to return even though there are resolutions the united nations that imposes on israel the

return of these palestinians so it's at this point it's not other choice but one nation a one nation where all jews and christians and muslims palestinians israelis or whatever you want to call it can live together and each of them as a citizen is one vote that can decide what kind of uh regime or democracy they want to have, but it's not possible at this point with the amount of settlers, over 750,00 settlers living in the west bank terrorizing the population of east jerusalem and having these conditions in which the gas strippers at this moment is it is impossible, it's a laugh actually to talk about this. unfortunately we fresh out of time we going to end it there, thank you very much. for that berto garcia watson, political analyst and activist on malaga spain. larry johnson, thank you, former cia analyst, brandonton, florida. with that we come to an end for this edition of the spotlight. thank you for being

with us from the team, it's goodbye.

the headlines israel steps up its aerial and ground strikes on juan today after targeting a un shelter housing displaced palestinians in the same city in southern gaza. a senior un official describes as tragic the situation in wartorn gaza strip, saying palestinians are in dire need of basic immunities. and the yemini army says it is engaged with us warships off the country's west coastating an american naval vessel with ballistic missiles.