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Prime minister Justin Trudeau spoke today to Israeli defense minister Benny Gant in a statement Trudeau’s office said it was stressed that Israel needs to take quote all possible measures to protect civilians and minimize casualties that after Trudeau told Israel earlier this week to exercise maximum restraint the world is witnessing this
The killing of women and children of babies this has to stop for more on trudo statements we’ve reached Palestinian Canadian lawyer Diana Buu she’s the former Palestinian Liberation Organization spokesperson and she joins me now Diana welcome back to the show thank you thanks for having me uh the prime minister’s call for maximum
Restraint by Israel caused quite a reaction here domestically and and provoked a a response from prime minister Netanyahu I I wonder if it’s resonating more broadly in Israel and with the Palestinians no not at all look that we’re hoping and wanting and expecting to hear from the Canadian Prime Minister
That he calls for complete and total ceasefire but instead he’s taken this Middle Line Road which uh for the Israelis means that they can continue business as usual and for Palestinians means that this process of decimating Gaza is going to continue um so it’s not been heard it’s not resonating at all
And this is where this is why it’s so crucial so important for world leaders to now stand up and say say enough C Gaza cannot sustain this and the whole point of the International System is to prevent this type of of decimation it’s not to it’s not to Foster it if it’s not
Resonating more broadly over there why do you think prime minister Netanyahu and the opposition leader uh were so forceful in their response to what the Prime Minister had to say I think that the big the big issue is that they’re taking their cue from the United States and when you hear hear
A president who is saying full steam ahead who has people in uh saying finish them when it comes to Gaza and so on um it displays a lack of world leadership and this is where I would hope that Canada would separate rather than join the chorus of this we’ve already heard
The the the French uh come forward and say that this is enough is enough we’ve already been hearing from the United Nations that this needs to stop as well all 18 agencies that operate in Gaza are saying that this is amounting to genocide and must stop and so this is
Where we see that it’s up to the world to come forward world leaders to come forward and be forceful in their statement and say stop not not ease up not be more precise but to Simply stop the I it seems though we’re not going to see that from the Canadian Prime
Minister the US president or the British prime minister in the short term I who knows where this goes in the future but we have seen them more forcefully call for protections of hospitals you know for for for greater Precision on civilians the Prime Minister here is
Getting a lot of grief for saying uh people are seeing the killing of women and children and of babies in Gaza that’s caused the most forceful uh push back how is that being perceived over there if at all he’s right look the 62% of the people who’ve been killed in the Gaza
Strip are women and children almost 50% of them being children and uh and so this is not a a attack on Hamas this is a war against Palestinians in Gaza when we’re approaching a death toll of 12,000 that’s just from bombings God only knows how many more are going to die as a
Result of starvation and and so this is why we are seeing that it’s time for them to stop now it’s not just a question of of not attacking hospitals but we’ve seen that Israel has attacked 50% of Palestinian homes that more than 1.5 million out of the 2.2 million
Palestinians have fled to the South now this is the place that is the most densely populated on Earth and uh imagine that it’s now been cut in half with 1.5 million people fleeing to the South they can’t handle that this is why it’s absolutely imperative for this to
Stop I believe that if they understand what it’s like to live in Gaza what it is that Israel is doing which is effectively carpet bombing when you see 6,000 bombs dropped per week on a tiny little space that is barely barely the size of Toronto um then you can
Understand the the depth of of Destruction that is happening now it’s this is what the world system was designed to do it was designed to make sure that the most vulnerable people in the world are protected and instead we’re giving cart blanch to Israel to continue to bomb a people who are
Refugees who are stateless and who are now homeless as well I I World opinion I don’t know what where World opinion is but certainly public opinion in Canada has shown a shift towards supporting a ceasefire with 65% in a recent poll suggesting they wanted to see one uh
Called even a majority opinion right now in the United States uh suggests that a majority of Americans uh would like to see a ceasefire uh called the political leadership is obviously not there a and they point to things like what the Hamas leadership did on television in Lebanon
Where they said we’re going to do October 7th again and again and again and again how do you move for forward when when when Hamas is making statements like that threatening to repeat the atrocities of the 7th of October you’re absolutely right that there’s a disconnect between what people
Want and what the Pol political leadership is doing and it’s not just now but it’s always been this this way and I was somebody who was very deeply involved in negotiations and when I was involved in the Israeli Palestinian negotiations the big push that I kept
Saying to people was that if you want to end violence the only way that you can end it is by ending the causes of violence people aren’t violent because they want to be there there is violence because we see occupation that people have been denied their freedom and it’s
This equation that Israel must understand that they’ve lived all of these years in a system in which they believe that only they can only be safe if everybody else particularly Palestinians are unsafe and that equation was shown to be false this is why I think it’s so important for the
World not only to be pushing for a ceasefire but to address the underlying causes of violence and that is 75 years of ethnic cleansing of Palestine 56 years that PE Palestinians have lived under military occupation that we can’t just keep kicking the can yet another year yet another year yet another year
To another Administration another prime minister another US president the time is now and if it it doesn’t happen now I’m afraid we’re just going to see the worst emerge and I I really do believe that we’re going to look back on this in 2023 and ask ourselves why is it that
The world leaders didn’t stop when they could have stopped this there there is a question hanging over all of this uh of what happens when Israel does stop what they’re doing in Gaza the day after question that’s there Hamas is threatened to keep doing this again and again and again obviously Israel will
Not accept aaza where Hamas is in control if you were to get the ceasefire that you want and then convers ation begin on on those next stages who who can credibly speak to the world for the Palestinians because Hamas is not going to be welcome at any table and and the
Palestinian Authority as we talked about last time has deep credibility issues who is the person or group or group of people to to speak for the Palestinians in the next phase of wherever this goes that’s an excellent question and the answer is it’s up for Palestinians to
Decide sure the the the essence of self-determination is that Palestinians and their people get to choose who their leaders are Palestinians have lived for many many years with everybody else deciding who speaks on behalf of Palestinians and and I really firmly believe that it’s up to Palestinians to
Decide in 2006 there was a democratic election the world didn’t like the outcome of the election but at the end of the day it was a democratic election many countries around the world even witnessed it and and if we go down on the path of always saying that
Palestinians don’t get to choose their leaders Palestinians don’t get to choose their future Palestinians don’t get to have freedom what is it what is the message that we’re saying I firmly believe that when this ceasefire is over the first thing that needs to be done of course is to rebuild Israel also needs
To be held to account and I firmly believe that it’s up to Palestinians to DET determine their own future this is no longer the case where the United States gets to decide Israel gets to decide world leaders get to decide it’s up to Palestinians to be able to decide
Once and for all Diana Buu thank you for your time today thank you
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau spoke to Israel’s former defence minister Thursday and Trudeau’s office said it stressed that Israel needs to take ‘all possible measures to protect civilians and minimize casualties.’ The meeting came after Trudeau said Israel should ‘exercise maximum restraint’ in its war against Hamas. Former Palestinian Liberation Organization spokesperson Diana Buttu says Trudeau’s comments are not enough and Canada’s government should call for a ceasefire.
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