Israel’s killing spree could bring Palestine to cusp of another Intifada: Kevin Barrett

Kevin Barrett, also an author and radio host, made the comments during Press TV’s Monday edition of Spotlight program, days after a Palestinian youth was shot dead at point-blank range by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank town of Huwwara near Nablus.

“Obviously, there are very good reasons for the Palestinians to be angry right now, with genocidal [Itamar] Ben-Gvir joining the new [Benjamin] Netanyahu government and with the upswing in the slaughter of Palestinians, and it is as if the Zionists are deliberately willing to up the ante and they are provoking an Intifada (uprising),” Barrett said.

He compared the current situation to “having a tiger by the tail,” owing to the fact that the Israelis cannot stop the imminent Intifada.

“They cannot really win militarily, and they cannot execute all the Palestinians, [which is] what Ben-Gvir would like,” he said. “Ultimately, there are a whole lot of rockets behind them. The Islamic Republic of Iran has their back. So something has to break here and we’ll see what it is.”

Israeli forces have been carrying out overnight raids in the northern occupied West Bank, mainly in the cities of Jenin and Nablus, where new groups of Palestinian resistance fighters have been formed.

Since the beginning of 2022, Israeli troops have killed more than 200 Palestinians, including 50 children, in the occupied West Bank and East al-Quds as well as the besieged Gaza Strip.

This episode looks at why Israel has ramped up its spree of killings, and whether we are on the cusp of another intifada.

During Netanyahu’s previous term, over 3500 Palestinians were killed by Israeli occupation forces, including 799 children and 342 women. His role led to the destruction of over 8000 Palestinian homes, leaving over 12,000 homeless.

Ben-Gvir is regarded by many as the most notorious ally of the Netanyahu regime. The militant Israeli settler is known to have had a picture of Baruch Goldstein in his home enjoying pride of place.

Baruch Goldstein is famous for his attack, killing 29 Palestinian worshipers in the Ibrahimi mosque of al-Khalil in 1994.

Highlighting Israeli forces’ impunity, Barrett said Israeli troops’ “typical behavior” is to act as if they have the “carte blanche to execute Palestinians in cold blood.”

This is what has been happening since 1948, he said, making a reference to the Deir Yassin massacre which took place when around 120 terrorists from Zionist military groups attacked the Palestinian Arab village of the same name, killing at least 107 Palestinians.

And now, they have been emboldened to do more of this, he lamented.

Barrett went on to say that top Israeli officials are not only “tacitly” allowing the murders committed by the troops but also “actively encouraging” them. He slammed the “bloody-mindedness and genocidal intent” of the Israelis.

“Ben-Gvir actually called the killer of the most recent close-range execution-style murder of the unarmed Palestinian a national hero,” he said.

On normalizing ties with the Zionist regime, Barrett pointed to the “huge gap” between the “sold-out elements among Persian Gulf oil states” and the people of the region and the Arab world, who do not agree with the normalization of ties with the Israeli regime.

He described Ben-Gvir’s shaking hands with Emirati Ambassador Mohamed Al Khaja during the United Arab Emirates reception in Tel Aviv on Thursday as “bizarre” since Ben-Gvir is an anti-Arab racist who basically feels that “the only good Arab is a dead Arab.”

Israel and the UAE normalized ties in 2020, during Netanyahu’s previous term as prime minister, as part of the US-brokered Abraham Accords.

Barrett said the “split between the people of the region and the leadership is ultimately going to a much more open and intense conflict.”

Making a reference to the ongoing FIFA World Cup 2022 in Qatar, he said the event has turned into a show of Arab people’s disgust against the Zionist regime and the manifestation of the solidarity of nations with the Palestinian cause.