We Must Pull Financial Rug from Underneath Israel: Anna O'Leary (VIDEO)

Netanyahu and his ministers are in a big flux... (Video set to autoplay)

Salem-News.com's Anna O'Leary on Press TV

(TEHRAN / DUBLIN Press TV) - Press TV has conducted an interview with Anna O'Leary, a political commentator, from Ireland, about the global boycott of Israeli-made products in the occupied Palestine.

What follows is an approximate transcription of the interview.

Press TV: Share with us your thoughts on this recent campaign of boycotting Israel. Do you believe, given the fact that many international bodies remain silent with regards to Israeli violations, this is a positive step, in a way, of showing opposition and condemnation to the actions that the Israelis carry out in the occupied West Bank and in Gaza as well?

O'Leary: I’m delighted to be asked to comment on this because I’m very proud of Luxembourg, which is a very small country like Ireland. Luxembourg has a population of half-a-million people. They have joined the countries of Holland and Norway who have already put Israeli companies on their list and have stopped the state pension funds.

Luxembourg, their financial institutions have adhered to social responsibility for their investments strategies. They have published a list of 61 excluded firms that do not comply with their standards, and it is wonderful to see Israeli companies put on these lists.

Ireland led the way in the academic boycott of Israel and we see that spreading. It’s spread across the Atlantic to America. From each small step, others follow. Luxembourg today has added to companies.

Netanyahu and his ministers are in a big flux about it now. They have had discussions and they are talking about using lawyers and Mossad.

For all their threats, bluster and diplomatic posturing, the world is fed up with the myth that Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East, when in fact Israel is a cruel body of people engaged in the ethnic cleansing of Palestine.

A book written by an Israeli professor when he was at Tel Aviv University – he’s now in England – is Ilan Pappé, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine. I think everybody should read The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine.

Israeli ministers may discuss BDS, which is a form of peaceful boycotting-type of boycott that worked in South Africa. There is a blueprint for it. We know it works.

Netanyahu has been on Twitter. I have actually replied to him. He has said it was unethical to boycott Israel. Now I had to at that point send a Tweet to Netanyahu to say how would a war criminal like you be able to have the word “ethical” in your vocabulary?

This is because of Israel’s AFI group saying things like their association - and this is what the AFI group has been put on the list over, is their association of supporting construction of illegal settlements in the occupied territories, building illegally on Palestinian land, dispossessing the Palestinian people of their land and water, and limiting their food so as that they have enough to live but only enough to live.

The ethnic cleansing is what we’re all against: this crushing occupation, this high wall, these lies that they spread throughout the world with their media.

The Palestinian conflict is misconstrued often because it differs from other human rights issues in the fact that the public are swamped with their claims that Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East, and the US financial subsidies they receive for weapons and the 11 million dollars a day that America gives them all because of the power of AIPAC in the USA.

This makes for a massive imbalance in the financial, political and military terms as regards Israel. So, we need to pull the financial rug from underneath Israel the way we did it with South Africa. The financial rug must be pulled. Israel must be made accountable to the international community.

What they are doing is not being – they should be in The Hague! They should be brought to war tribunals. What they are doing to the citizens of Palestine is just so heartbreaking. It just so troubles us all to see children being terrified, murdered, unsafe in their own home, watching their parents being killed or drawn off to prison. And Israel has so many children in prison.

Thank you, Luxembourg. I hope every other country...is going to join with Luxembourg, join with Holland, join with Norway. The way forward is to put restrictions on Israel and let none of us buy their produce. When we go to the supermarket, we stand with the Palestinian people, please.

GMA/AB