Knesset Member: Gaza Crisis “Could Not Happen” Without U.S.

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CHIEF INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Now, as we reported earlier, there are loud and differing voices within Israel on the so-called day after the war. We heard the extreme settler view earlier. And left-wing lawmaker Ofer Cassif is just as passionate about opposing that and opposing Netanyahu’s handling of the war, stressing the need for a political solution. And he joins Michel Martin now to explain why and how he survived the recent effort to impeach him.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MICHEL MARTIN, CONTRIBUTOR: Thanks, Christiane. Knesset Member, thank you so much for speaking with us.

OFER CASSIF, ISRAELI KNESSET MEMBER: Thank you for having me. My pleasure. An honor.

MARTIN: Before we get into recent events, I wanted to go back a little bit to last month. You’ve been very critical of the Netanyahu government. You have argued, and you have made no secret of the fact that you think that this government has been engaging in many sort of anti-democratic efforts, trying to silence dissent, silence any criticism, cracking down on public demonstrations that would be customary in a democracy. How did you find out — and I understand that this is your fellow Knesset members who would move to impeach you, but how did find that they were moving to impeachment you?

CASSIF: Well, there is a law in Israel that was enacted in 2016 that allows a majority of 90 members of the Knesset out of 120 to impeach another member of Knesset if one is accused in either being supporting racism or supporting an armed struggle against Israel. Now, after I signed this petition, which I guess we will discuss later about, I realized that one member of the Knesset, a far-right member of Knesset, began in getting signatures from other members of the Knesset in order to begin a motion to impeach me. So, that’s why I knew about it. And the rest is for history, more or less.

MARTIN: The specific action that you were accused of is in relation to your decision to support the petition to the International Criminal Court that would have investigated Israel in relation to its actions in Gaza. You know, South Africa has asked for Israel to be investigated. And you said that you feel that this is an appropriate thing to do. As briefly as you can, why did you feel that that was important to you?

CASSIF: Well, there are two main things that — first of all, you know, I do not trust any government to investigate itself. But it’s not necessarily only the Israeli government, but any government. I think that the basis of democracy is that anyone should cast doubts on one’s own government. Since 1949, the State of Israel itself joined to this convention on genocide and actually recognizes the authority of the ICJ in investigating such accusations. So, for me, it was very clear that the ICJ is the authority to investigate the ongoing in Gaza and not the Israeli government itself. That was one thing. The other is that in the appeal of South Africa, as well as in a petition that I joined, and eventually, by the way, there were almost 1,000 Israeli citizens who signed this petition. There was a very clear call to stop the war. We all know that the death toll of Palestinians in Gaza is more than 30,000. And there are also Israeli soldiers and hostages. We want everyone to live. We don’t want victims anymore. So, it was very clearly for me. Because the government of Israel is not interested in the lives of anyone, neither the Israeli, let alone the Palestinians, so I find — found myself obliged to appeal to an international body such as ICJ.

MARTIN: The effort to impeach you failed. It did receive a significant number of votes, but not enough to obviously move forward with the impeachment. You clearly have not been cowed by this. I mean, this week you gave a speech on the floor of the Knesset in support of the Biden administration’s sanctions against settlers in the West Bank. Why do you believe that that is the right course of action? Why do you believe that it is appropriate for the administration to place sanctions on these settlers? Because, as you know, that’s — it’s very controversial for a number of reasons. Many people think it’s sort of minimalist. Some people think it’s the wrong people. Some people think it’s a band-aid. It doesn’t really address the situation. Many opinions. But why do you think it was an appropriate course of action?

CASSIF: I may accept all the things you said, but still, it doesn’t rule out the sanctions. I agree that the main, you know, body that should be sanctioned in this Israeli government, they are responsible for this. The government is responsible for the ongoing programs that settlers carry out against Palestinians in the West Bank. Look, I want to be very, very blunt and very, very clear, there is an ethnic cleansing going on in the West Bank before the massacre of 7th of October. I’ve been — literally three or four days before the massacre, the terrible massacre, the (INAUDIBLE) in the massacre that Hamas committed, in which I personally lost my friends. So, it’s very important to say that I – – we totally condemned it. Because, again, some people believe that if I’m against the wall and against the occupation, that means that I support the crimes of Hamas. Absolutely not. So, I want to be very clear about that too. So, three or four days before the massacre committed by Hamas, I visited the Jordan Valley, some pastors, you know, communities of Palestinian ones in the West Bank. And I realized then that already four communities were totally eliminated. They had to flee because of the ongoing daily progress committed by settlers under the auspices of the occupation forces. We are talking about a size, a territory, doubled in the City of Tel Aviv. And ever — and since October 7th, it rised into Palestinian communities that literally perished. There’s an ongoing thing ethnic cleansing.

MARTIN: What are you saying? What are you saying? You’re saying that in the West Bank — we’re not talking about Gaza now. We’re saying in the West Bank.

CASSIF: I’m talking about the West Bank.

MARTIN: You believe that the settlers are making an effort to drive Palestinians out by force.

CASSIF: Successful efforts. Successful efforts. More than 20 communities, Palestinian communities of innocent shepherds, poor people that I visited. I know many of them personally. Good people have nothing to do with, you know, violence or whatever. They are assaulted on a continuous basis, a daily basis for more for at least — for years, actually. It’s been more than — exactly one year since I first sent a letter to Yoav Gallant, the defense minister of Israel. And I said in that letter, as a member of the Knesset, I said to him, there are vocals going on by settlers against the Palestinians in the West Bank. Please stop it. You have to stop it first because it’s criminal. And secondly, because it’s going to blow up the old regime. Everybody is going to pay the price. There’s going to be a bloodshed that we’ve never experienced. I said that for seven months before the massacre of October 7th. And ever since, I sent, I guess, another 10 letters of the same kind. Up until now, I haven’t got even one reply from the minister. One reply.

MARTIN: Do you think the Israeli public sees what you see in Gaza and the West Bank?

CASSIF: No. They thought — the media in Israel voluntarily, by the way, it’s not, you know, something that the government has been doing or forcing the media to do. The media, apart from very few, totally hides or ignores from the ongoing in Gaza and in the West Bank. Nobody actually knows about it. And the vast majority don’t want to know about it. It’s because it’s very hard to see a villain when you look at the mirror.

MARTIN: The polls in Israel show high support for Israel’s war in Gaza. In January, there was a group, the Israel Democracy Institute, which I think is a respected research institute, said that 56 percent of Israelis polled in January said continuing the military offensive was the best way to recover the hostages. Yet, the prime minister, Netanyahu, is not popular. That same poll found that only 15 percent want Netanyahu to be prime minister once the war is over. How do you understand that?

CASSIF: Well, many people in Israeli could blame or at least some of the responsibility for the massacre of October 7 on Netanyahu. And just be so, he responsible. He is responsible for his long-going policy. He said explicitly in 2019, and I quote him almost word by word, he said, “Those who oppose a Palestinian State,” like he does, “must weaken the Palestinian Authority and strengthen Hamas.” He said so. He said so. Even Smotrich in 2015 said, and I quote, “The Palestinian Authority is a burden. Hamas is an asset.” He said so. They wanted Hamas to be strong as part of the classic colonialist divide and rule. And they want the beacons of Hamas to be stronger in order to find an excuse and saying that there’s no one to talk to. They wanted it. They passed — Netanyahu himself, for more than 10 years, allowed millions of dollars to get to the pockets of Hamas from Qatar. It’s not a secret. Everybody knows that. He is responsible. And people — because of that many Israelis don’t want him as a prime minister. And just be so, they say, you are responsible. You are guilty. Some even say you are guilty. At the same time, many of them think that the war must go on. Of course, I’m not there. I have my own criticism, but we do not agree about the war or the assault. There are many that do agree with me, especially among the families of the hostages, not all of them. Many of the families of the hostages and the victims who were butchered by Hamas understand that this assault on Gaza will not deliver neither security for the Israelis. No, let alone release of the hostages. More and more people begin to understand that. And I believe that the atmosphere is shifting slowly, gradually, but it is shifting because of that — of this situation.

MARTIN: So, let us turn now to the U.S. rule here. First there was the senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, a senator from New York. The — I would say the sort of highest-ranking, most prominent, you know, Jewish elected official in the United States said that the Netanyahu government should go, that the prime minister is not serving the interests of the people. This caused a huge reaction. And then, according to the White House, President Joe Biden called Prime Minister Netanyahu, just this week, to warn against this planned military operation that we are told is coming in Rafah, saying that a major ground operation there would be a mistake. What do you make of these developments, particularly the White House? Do you think that this is consequential?

CASSIF: Look, I must say I’m very critical of the White House and then of Biden’s administration, because, actually, without their consent the assault on Gaza and this terrible death toll would have never occurred. I mean, there is a kind of — you know, if you allow me to use some concepts from psychology, there is a kind of dissonance cognitive. Because, you know, dissonance cognitive is when one consciously clinging to two contradictory or more contradictory moments. And that’s what I see in the behavior of President Biden. Because on the one hand, he speaks about the dire situation, the grave situation of the Palestinians in Gaza. They are starving there. So, it is a starvation caused by Israel. And, of course, no medicine, no hospital, spiritual destruction, death toll, et cetera, et cetera. That could not happen without the support of the United States.

MARTIN: Why do you say that?

CASSIF: Because — I give you two examples, which for me are the main ones. First of all, every time there is a motion in criticism of Israel in the Security Council of the United Nations, the United States vetoes the decision. That’s a support which I do not accept. I want to be very clear. It’s not a support for Israel and the Israelis. It’s a support for the Israeli government which is against the Israelis. I am — as an opposition, I am committed to the Israeli public. And I’m trying to do my job. And part of my job is to stand still against the government if the government is wrong, let alone sins. And the Biden administration, in supporting the government of Israel, is acting against justice, against the Palestinians, but also against the Israelis.

MARTIN: Except that public opinion, as we’ve discussed, does not support this government per se, but it does support what the government is doing. Knesset Member, your views are not in the majority.

CASSIF: First of all, you may be right. That doesn’t undermine my obligation, you know, to raise my voice and to represent the thousands and hundreds of thousands of Israelis who do support my view and let alone people out of Israel. But we — I guess that we both would agree that polls are mainly for statistics, but not for political decisions.

MARTIN: So, the White House has said that Mr. Biden asked Prime Minister Netanyahu to send a delegation of intelligence and military officials to Washington to hear, firsthand, the White House’s views, particularly about this planned incursion into Rafah. We are told that the government — the Netanyahu government has agreed to send such a delegation. Does that offer any hope to you?

CASSIF: I don’t know if you’ve heard how Netanyahu explained sending the delegation. He said that he’s been doing that for — and I quote, “for respect,” because he respects Biden, Mr. Biden, not because he wants to achieve something or he’s ready to, you know, refrain from operating in Rafah. I think that to say that invading to Rafah is wrong, it’s an understatement. It’s going to be a carnage. It’s — the death toll that’s going to be there, the bloodshed that’s going to be there, it is going to be even more disastrous than what has been going thus far.

MARTIN: Before we let you go, clearly you remain as outspoken as ever. Do you feel that you are opening up more democratic space, you know, more space for public criticism, or to sort of maintain these democratic traditions of sort of public dissent?

CASSIF: You know, you probably know this story that just after the American — United States invaded Vietnam, there was one person who used to demonstrate in front of the White House. And every time he was asked, what are you doing here alone? You know that you’re all alone. Everybody supports the invasion of the assault of Vietnam. And he used to answer, according to the story, he was told by many that he was not going to change society. So, he used to say, perhaps I’m not going to change society, but I’m standing here in order to make sure that society doesn’t change me. But eventually, going back to this story, we know that this guy probably did change society because we know what happened later. So, answering your question, by using this story, I do believe, not only me, but thousands of people — we went to demonstrate in front of the American Embassy, you know, a couple of days ago, in calling for the United States to recognize the Palestinian State. So, it’s not only me, it will be very egocentric to say it’s me. But people like me, and me together, we are the hope for both peoples of this land, including the Israelis.

MARTIN: Knesset Member Ofer Cassif, thank you so much for speaking with us.

CASSIF: My pleasure. Thank you. Have a nice day.