Friday, November 30

Confrontation on the air

Israeli radio talk-show host calls on army to arrest Palestinian journalist for "incitement against Jews

…and anti-Semitism"

Al-Quds Press Office

East Jerusalem

An Israeli radio talk-show host on Friday, 30 November, called on the Israeli occupation army to arrest an outspoken Palestinian journalist for criticizing the Israel policies and practices "too harshly" and for "inciting the world against Israel and the Jewish people as well as for promoting anti-Semitism."

Samuel-Flatto-Sharon, an extreme right-winger, who also hosts a popular talk-show called "Flatto Bli Kheshbone (Flatto without accountability) called Palestinian journalist Khalid Amayreh, whom he was interviewing, the "most sinister anti-Semite ever."

"I have seen and heard about many anti-Semites and critics of Israel, but I have never seen a person like you," said Flatto, speaking in curmudgeonly manner.

Flatto accused Amayreh of publishing lies about Israel and Jews, telling the Palestinian journalist that "you belong to jail."

Retorting to Flatto's tirade, Amayreh reminded him that Israeli forces murdered more than 800 Palestinian kids and minors and hundreds of other innocent civilians in seven years and that Israeli soldiers routinely and nonchalantly kill Palestinian civilians in Gaza and the West Bank.

"You surely know that these are incidents, and we don't do kill people intentionally as Hamas does," responded Flatto.

Amayreh retorted by arguing that "mistakes happen once, twice, ten times. But when the killing of civilians occurs on a daily basis, it means it is policy.

"Besides, killing knowingly is killing deliberately, and when the number of victims is so high, even intent becomes irrelevant."

Upon haring this, and before Amayreh could complete the sentence, Flatto shouted "You are a liar, a liar a lair. You are the enemy of the Jews you are full of hate for Jews."

Amayreh then reminded Flatto that these figures came from Israeli Jewish sources, such as the Israeli human right's organization, B'tselem.

However, Flatto, running out of argument and becoming increasingly nervous, told Amayreh that "B'tselem is a liar like you."

Moving to another subject, Flatto asked Amayreh how he could compare the Israeli occupation army's "defensive actions" in Gaza and the West Bank with Nazi actions during the Second World War.

"You have been saying pretty nasty stuff against us. Are we shipping Palestinians to gas chambers and concentration camps."

In response, Amayreh said " You are not shipping them to gas chambers. You don't have to, you are killing them in the hundreds and in the thousands using classical means.

Besides, we have to remember that the holocaust didn't start with gas chambers and concentration camps such as Auschwitz and Bergen Belsen and Treblinka. It started much earlier with relatively innocuous things, such as a racist book, the promulgation of racist laws targeting Jews and others, a Kristallnacht, and harassment of the perceived enemies of the Germany motherland.

"These are the same things that are happening in Israel today. Don't you hear how your fascists leaders and officials are relating to the Palestinian people these days. So, are we to wait until we see gas chambers and concentration camps in Nablus and Hebron.

"In fact, you are already morphing Gaza into a concentration camp by blockading 1.4 million helpless human beings and barring from accessing food and work. Isn't that very similar to what the Nazis did at Ghetto Warsaw."

Flatto got even furious upon hearing this. He began ranting noisily, calling Amayreh a Nazi, a person full of hate for Jews, a person who should be dumped in prison immediately."

"How could you make these wicked lies. We are not carrying genocide against people. We give you food and work. Is this how you are thanking us?"

"First of all, what you are doing in Gaza is very much a silent genocide, at least a slow-motion genocide. Every day, people die in Gaza because you wouldn't allow them to travel to Egypt or the West Bank for medical care. How would you describe this if Jews, not the Palestinians, were the victims?"

"Atta Meshaker, Ata Meshaker" (you are lying, you are lying," a raving Flatto shouted, interrupting Amayreh, ostensibly in order to prevent listeners from hearing him clearly.

"How can you believe what you are saying. You are just lying and lying. How could you describe us as Nazis," Flatto ranted again.

"I didn't describe ordinary Jews as Nazis. Jews who value justice and human decency are our allies and partners for peace. My problem is with fascists like you who murder civilians and call it 'defensive action' and who adopt hateful racism as their mode of thinking and mode of action and then call it 'Jewish state.'"

"Are you against Jewish state. You have a lot of Muslim states. Syria is defined as a Muslim state," asked Flatto.

"In Syria, an undemocratic country, every Syrian, regardless of his religion and ethnicity, is viewed as a full citizen. And Syrian state belongs to all Syrians. It doesn't call itself a Sunni state, or an Alavi state or a Druze state, or Shiite state. But Israel insists that Israel be a Jewish state, although a quarter of its population are not Jews."

"You see Amayreh you are full of hate, you are a liar, a dirty Arab liar," Flatto shouted again.

"This is all you can say…you have a problem. Your tongue functions much more swiftly than your mind does. Instead of dealing with facts, you are just calling me a liar.

"Besides, what is a Jewish state? Are you telling me that non-Jews who are citizens of Israel and whose existence on this land preceded and predated you by many hundred of years don't have the right to equality? What kind of ugly racism is that?" retorted Amayreh.

"You can now return to your donkey room…by…" was Flatto's last phrase.


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