[Music]
I
welcome to Sputnik orbiting the world
with me George Galloway and me gatri
blood is running down the cobbles of the
Via doosa in ancient Jerusalem a
nightmare of violence over the last
month has overcome occupied Palestine in
place of the normal levels of attrition
of targeted killings and near starvation
being suffered under illegal Israeli
annexation occupation and Siege after
almost half a century of occupation
during which the world has achieved
precisely nothing in bringing it to an
end the Palestinians appear to have
risen up to try and Shake It Off in
other words the third inata appears to
have broken out and thousands will be
outside the Israeli Embassy in London
today in solidarity with the occupied
people our first guest has Peerless
knowledge and experience in reporting on
this struggle he's a former foreign
editor of the guardian and now the
editor of the highly respected Middle
East eye David Hurst he joins us now
David thanks for coming on board the
Sputnik first of all is it an intifa who
has the power to declare it so or is it
just that if it looks like a duck walks
like a duck and quacks like a duck it's
probably a duck well with interfers as
you know from the first in second inter
fathers you can only really tell after
they've broken out and sometimes quite a
long time after they've broken out but I
think yes this is an interf it's an
inter because not because of the number
of deaths necessarily because there were
many more there were hundreds more in
the first two days of the second IND
father but because there's now a real
change of attitude it comes after the
death of the two-state solution it comes
after the death of any form of peace
process the peace process was actually a
settler process it wasn't a peace
process and now you've got these
incursions on Al and the alaxa compound
and people are saying enough we've just
had enough and this is coming from the
people it's coming from the streets it's
not coming from the leadership and
that's another important factor um this
isn't being controlled it is becoming
despite the Palestinian leadership and
despite divisions between Hamas and fata
the first and second intifadas had
semiofficial in the first case actual
official sanction from from the
Palestinian leadership then president
Arafat uh what's the attitude of the
current Palestinian leadership to the
events we're all watching at least if we
watch
RT well um there a good Latin expression
for for what abas is doing it festin
lente which means hurrying
slowly um he has speaking speaking in
some very fine words to the un uh
assembly uh about uh about nonviolent
protest about resistance what he's
actually doing on the ground is uh in
many cases actually helping uh the
occupation by by uh by his security
preventative forces which are stopping
the demonstrations uh from going towards
uh the lines of Israeli troops and he's
still arresting people and uh and and
there is still torture in jail well
perhaps come back to where all this
leaves him as we both know his term has
long
expired uh I think three quarters you
reported it I think three quarters or
more of the Palestinians want them to
step down uh but does that seem to
suggest that this is a generational
shift that the the youth that are on the
streets are in fact the leaders of this
intifada well they themselves say um
we've had enough of your words
and uh we're going to take things into
our own uh uh hands now that doesn't
mean um and they're making individual
decisions to pick up a dagger and and
and and and and and to attack um now
that doesn't mean uh that they haven't
thought about it and that doesn't mean
that there isn't real passion behind it
um but it does mean that uh it these are
individual decisions that are being
taken and at some point there's going to
be a real challenge to the Palestinian
leadership as to actually what they do
about it yes sorry but you say the
individuals but they must organize
themselves in some way on the street or
or even online well that's a very good
point there is um evidence of of of uh
an online campaign and online
communication uh but according to all
the evidence so far uh what's making it
particularly difficult for uh for for
the Israelis and for and and certainly
for their security organizations is that
most of the people involved in these
attacks have no known affiliations they
they don't have criminal records They
don't appear on any files that's what I
mean by not being organized well uh I
I've lived long enough to have known the
Palestinians when fata was completely
hegemonic support of about 80% of the
people the rest being leftists uh of
various kinds then the emergence of the
islamist trend which competed with and
then overtook fata but now we're in a
situation aren't we where most
Palestinians are probably not supporters
of either of those two
behemoths uh and as you say are probably
not affiliated with any organization
thus our lone wolves and thus are very
difficult to predict in terms of the
Israeli security response but what they
do want and I think there was one very
very telling photograph where there was
uh where there was a young woman uh in
in a fear and in genes giving stones to
a Hamas youth uh with you know with a
with with with with with a green
headband uh they were combining forces
and I think really what they want to do
on the ground and this could be too
optimistic of me but I think there's
quite a lot of evidence for it they want
a new leadership and they want a
combined leadership because the other
thing that fat and Hamas have been doing
uh particularly uh fata they've been
stopping a uh a Unity agreement from
working
um and I think the message from the
streets is we need a new leadership and
we need a unified leadership now
Netanyahu has his own problems on his
right he's got people camped outside his
door saying that unbelievably though it
sounds he's not being brutal enough in
the in the
Crackdown uh will that begin to change
his attitude to the events uh or uh is
there a danger in any way to his
continuing leadership
well he is a political Survivor and
however uh rightwing we think he is he
does actually represent the mainstream
of uh and that's his has been his 40
he's he's the Mr centerr and he keeps
shifting to the right as the centerr
shifts to the right but he's he's he's
one there and so he can always turn
around to the to the Israeli public and
say if not me who else so he's got that
hold that being said he's in an
extremely difficult position at the
moment because let's let's say for
instance how how he attacks abas and how
he attacks uh ramala he desperately
wants to say yes you're inciting the
violence it's because of you that these
kids are going out onto the streets
you're lying uh on the one side and on
the other hand he wants to keep the
Palestinian Authority in place for a
very good reason because they're
suppressing descent in the West Bank so
he's torn between these two completely
different forces now there's a consensus
inside this
studio uh that the two-state solution is
dead it doesn't exist that consensus
though everywhere or even in most places
a very large number of people still
cling to the possibility of a solution
uh with a West Bank Gaza and East
Jerusalem State tell us tell the viewers
why that is
dead well it's dead if you walk
or go or drive between Jerusalem and
Bethlehem or if you try and go on the
road from ramala to uh
northwards um just look around you see
how the whole landscape has changed
there are now 600,000 settlers in a land
in that 22% of Palestine that they were
talking about 200,000 of them in in in
East
Jerusalem uh the atmosphere has changed
it it is who is there an Israeli leader
who can uh get all these people back
does the green line exist most of the
things that we're talking about are are
are dead and gone there are there are so
many facts on the ground 20 years ago in
the Oslo optimism that's right and and
they're not there anymore and I don't
think there is an Israeli leader uh
capable of of basically dismantling all
that infrastructure over all the roads
um the system of water in whichever way
you try and manage it uh if you just
look on a map if you just look around
you if you look at the lights on the
Hills which are all the lights of
settlers uh there's no way that that's
going to go so what happens
next well um there's going to be uh I
think a very big conflagration I think
it I say this with absolutely no Glee uh
I'm I'm not wishing for anything for any
death of either any Jew or any
Arab
um but unfortunately and
alas uh the the the situation only
changes through
violence uh and and historically that is
actually what's happened and we are
going to go through I think a very
violent period uh it's certainly not uh
unifying all the Palestinians it's it's
it's getting a new group of people
involved in the ACT we haven't talked
about this but uh previous interfers
they were mainly carried out from the
West Bank and from Gaza this interf I
think the epicenter of it will be East
Jerusalem but there'll also who are uh
jerusalemites and as you know they have
a special ID pass that can be taken away
from them now but it will also involve
uh the 48 Palestinians the Palestinians
of
1948 um in the northern Villages now the
longer this goes on uh the more their
so-called loyalty to to the uh Israeli
state will be questioned and all sorts
of really nasty things could happen Livy
has already talked about this liberman
has talked about this they've talked
about the thing called Static transfer
which is where you um basically say that
your your village or or your town
belongs to another country and you're no
longer part of Israel I they will stri
be stripped of Israeli citizens
citizenship that that's one proposal um
and you could have curfew military
curfews this will be I think quite a
long struggle um I think what the world
has got to do is to sit up and say how
many struggles do you want these people
to endure how long Israel cannot do this
Israel cannot keep on and I think we've
really got to question uh uh the EU
Cameron uh Obama all our own leaders and
say listen mates what what what are you
going to do about this what pressure are
you applying to to to to Israel how for
instance are we still with this level of
violence still discussing the question
of labeling of goods from from from the
occupied territories I mean it's obscene
well lots of trouble ahead uh that's for
sure and if we're depending on David
Cameron for a solution I fear there will
not be one David Hurst thanks for coming
on the Sputnik coming up after this
break a guest close to my own heart a
survivor of the fascistic US organ ized
Massacre of millions 50 years ago in my
own country of Indonesia don't miss
it welcome back to Sputnik 50 years ago
exactly a US organized military coup led
by fascist generals overthrew the
elected government sounds familiar
doesn't it in Indonesia they imprisoned
the president sukarno and hundreds of
thousands of others and then massacred
perhaps 3 Millions more so carno's crime
was to be the leader of an oil Rich
nation which didn't tow the US line in
world affairs and sought instead
non-alignment Independence and equality
the murdered were described as
Communists though most of them were not
and the Indonesian Communist Party once
the third largest after the Soviet Union
and China was physically exterminated
and remains illegal to this day carel
budo came from a Jewish anti-fascist
Family in London who married an
Indonesian Man became an Indonesian
Citizen and then worked at the
Indonesian foreign office under sucaro
her husband was imprisoned by the
generals and so was she for three years
long after which her citizenship was
withdrawn and she was deported back to
the UK for 50 years now she's been
campaigning for justice in Indonesia and
the region and she joins us now Carmel
tell us what happened in September 1965
in
Indonesia at the end of September in
fact later almost into
October there was an
incident uh when a group of generals
were
killed uh when I woke up that morning I
should say I was living in a very quiet
residential area of Jakarta but when I
woke up that morning there were tanks
going up and down the street and it was
very frightening I thought oh well
something has happened here I didn't
understand I put on the radio and it was
not it was not beaming the usual program
it it was had been obviously taken over
by somebody else the Army then
declared that this killing these
killings were perpetrated by the
Indonesian Communist Party the
pki there was no proof no
idence what actually what actually
happened there has never been
investigated exactly who was responsible
for these killings and as a result of
that they began a huge Crackdown on
anybody who had any relationship with
the pki the PK the pki at that time was
was about had had something like I don't
know three three million members and
many mass organizations supporting so
you could say it was a movement of about
15 million people in the country of
course of that time were about 180
million
people so the Crackdown came and I
happened to be a member of an
organization that was seen as being part
of this group of
organizations of course I knew nothing
about what had happened except that it
did happened I didn't know why or what
was it all about um we were all declared
to be involved everybody was involved I
was involed involved TBA the Indonesian
word is
TBA as if I was involved I don't know
involved in what what did I do so um
almost immediately my husband was
arrested and he was put into the
prison Sal by prison and I started
trying to visit him there um but we were
not allowed actually to meet him it was
a very difficult situation there were a
lot of women outside the prison and a
lot of men inside but we were not
allowed to to to meet our husbands and
so
on and then a little later on in it my
husband was released and then rearrested
then released was kind of in and out and
I was always trying to get him released
um but then eventually in
1968 that's 3 years after that another
incident happened in Central Java and
the uh somebody came to the house and
started interrogating me and I didn't
know what it was about um so he said
well I think you have to come along come
along with me I said what is it is it
just for overnight or should I take some
clothing or whatever no he said never
mind it won't be long so they pushed me
into a my husband was actually at that
time he was in the house he just be one
of the releases he been a releas he was
in the house and of course my my
daughter was my daughter was saying
Daddy why didn't you go away they don't
know about you but he in fact he came
out so when they took me and they put me
into the truck he also came into the
truck they drove us to a a building uh
in the outskirts of Jakarta
and when I got to this building they um
they put me into a room a room maybe
about as big as this not very big and
there were eight women no bedding
nothing like that and he said get down
on the floor get down there so we were I
stayed in that room with these women for
about I don't know a couple of weeks
lying on like just a tiled floor we had
no beding at all very soon after this
incident this terrible incident s suano
who was actually still the president he
was deposed by
SAR um he was not actually killed he was
deposed by Zar and Zar took over
complete power uh it was a
very devastating situation because uh
under
too the situation was pretty no
Democratic not EXA completely Democratic
but anyhow he was a very charismatic
figure and very very popular but of
course there were problems in his regime
he was a lot of corruption especially
with his wife so on it was a lot of
corruption but the human rights
violations were just a few I didn't know
there was very little happening in that
way all of this was planned and
coordinated with the United States these
were not events that just happened
accidentally they they wanted to
overthrow myself I I know the I know the
US supported very much what was
happening and they provided for example
they provided lists of people that they
thought should be arrested
um the extent of the involvement at that
point of the US I'm not quite sure I
think it certainly was supporting the
the the Takeover and very happy to get
rid of suano because suano uh had come
out very strongly against what is it
imperialism and the west and so on so
they really wanted to get rid of
Zano now we I've used the figure three
million killed is that an accurate
figure I don't know how many I mean it's
some people say 500,000 somebody people
say more than a million the exact figure
of course will never be known because so
many V small villages and so on which
were said to be under the in favor of
the pki many of these Villages were
completely uprooted and destroyed and so
to get any idea of the exact number of
people who were killed is impossible
because it was just a huge Massacre you
were the only British woman in prison
there I no at that point I I thought I
was an Indonesian citizen because I was
married to an
Indonesian that turns out to have not
been
true um when after I had been held in in
prison uh a lawyer came they was trying
to help me to get out and also the women
who I shared uh imprisonment with they
also thought if I could get out I would
go abroad and it would be good for them
it would help them to to draw attention
to what was happening and so I I came
back to London um and this where we
started organizing a campaign at that
time we we called it the British
campaign for the release of Indonesian
political prisoners how did Saro manage
to wipe out the third biggest Communist
Party in the world the military you have
to understand in every village
everywhere in the country they were they
were military they were soldiers so
you if anybody protested they would be
killed or put into prison it was but did
the Communists fight back it was very
difficult because the the at at first
they tried to go underground and do some
activity there in in Central Java there
was a certain movement there the
Indonesian Communist party was not
prepared for this
they were thinking that they would if
they tried to get political power it
would be by the B by The Ballot Box they
were not they were not interested in the
armed struggle they thought they could
win by Through The Ballot Box do you
think that the IND Indonesian people
will ever achieve Justice For The
Suffering of that period until recently
it was very uh very dangerous for
anybody to to get up and set up an
organization and this if if it was for
example me they knew that had some
connection with the pki and they would
be they would ban this organization or
make it very difficult there were for
example there was an an occasion I
remember when um a lot of women had been
told that their husbands had been uh
killed in a certain area and they were
buried there and so the women came along
and they wanted to exume them and take
them and give them a decent burial
uh which is what what every family would
want to do but they were attacked by a
whole group of Muslim po uh a big Muslim
group and they had to of course they had
to end this operation they couldn't
continue it last question did you see
the film The Act of Killing yes was it a
proper depiction of what happened yes of
course
the The Act of Killing was showing the
The Men Who did who actually did The
Killing and in fact quite happy that
they had done this so it was you felt my
goodness what kind of people are they
there was such an ingrained
hatred um for anybody who was said to be
Alle alleged to be in any way connected
with the
pki they could just be bumped off they
were not ordinary people they were in
inhuman and they could be killed and
what you like so the ACT killing you get
that feeling this fellow he didn't
didn't think he was committing a crime
we he was doing something good for the
country to get rid of these nasty
people carel it's been an honor it's
been an honor to meet you thank you very
much for joining us on the
Sputnik and now it's your turn to tell
us what you think through the portals of
social media what's ratling G on the
topic of Palestine Raymond de says a
Trail of Tears thrust on defenseless
Palestinians by murderous Zionist with
the US Cavalry blankets and on the
subject of the massacre of 1965 in
Indonesia takes responds with a very
very powerful picture uh with the
pretext the US and Britain overthrow of
democracy in Indonesia it is uh
unbelievable the number of people who
were murdered but even more unbelievable
that nobody knows anything about it and
that's all you've got time for this week
which alas means that's the end of the
show you can stay in touch with us on
Twitter at rtor Sputnik or Facebook
Sputnik on Russia today it's goodbye
from me GTI and from me George Galloway
it's been marvelous