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CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: what is your side — and I’m talking to you, a member of the Israeli government — doing to de-escalate this now? Because it doesn’t sound very de-escalatory in the voice of the acting prime minister or indeed the defense minister, Benny Gantz.
TZIPI HOTOVELY, ISRAELI AMBASSADOR TO THE UNITED KINGDOM: Hello, Christiane. I’m speaking to you from London as the Israeli ambassador. I’m representing the policy of the government of Israel. And, at the moment, Israel is under attack. All our big cities are under big fire. Over thousands of rockets were fired into Israeli cities. On my personal family story, I can tell you my mother was in a shelter last night. For the first time for many years in the center of Israel, Tel Aviv, cities you’re very familiar with, Israeli Parliament was evacuated, because rocket attack. Those kind of things, any sovereign country cannot tolerate. And we’re doing everything that we can in order to protect our people. Israelis deserve to live in peace.
AMANPOUR: OK. Yes. And, as the secretary of state said, everybody deserves to live in peace and to be able to defend themselves. That’s not in question. The question is, how is it going to de-escalate? Will the Israeli government accept a U.S. envoy, as the secretary of state says is coming? Or how do you think — who has the best chance of helping both sides to de- escalate this right now, if Israel wants to? Or do you believe the policy is to keep hammering Hamas until, as in the words of your policy, they reestablish deterrence?
HOTOVELY: Well, our policy was always to de-escalate, in the last few days, what Israel has been doing in Jerusalem, to do everything in our power in order to reduce the tension and to make sure that law and order will be kept in our capital city. But, unfortunately, what we have seen — and it’s very important to understand the political background of this horrible violence that is now being attended to Israeli citizens and civilians. We need to understand the background. The background is the fact the Palestinian Authority has decided to cancel the Palestinian election. On the other side, Hamas wanted to take control on the Palestinian leadership. And because they were disappointed from this Palestinian decision, the radicals, Hamas, a terror organization recognized by United States and by United Kingdom, made a political, cynical decision to hurt Israeli citizens, to use Jerusalem as an excuse, and actually to target children, women and men in Israel in order to achieve political aims. We don’t want to see Middle East…
AMANPOUR: Right. Ambassador…
HOTOVELY: .. that Hamas is the leadership, the legitimate — of the Palestinians.
About This Episode EXPAND
More than 40 people have been killed since the beginning of Columbian anti-government protests. Police brutality in Columbia continues to escalate and neighboring countries look for answers.
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