Mustafa Barghouti, the Secretary-General of the Palestinian National Initiative political party, made the comment in a lengthy interview with Iran's Arabic-language Al-Alam television news network on Monday.
“Israel’s security failure lies in its inability to confront the Palestinian resistance,” Barghouti said. “The biggest failure is the political failure because the Israeli projects have failed. The first project is to use normalization to pass the 'deal of the century'. Normalization was not an influential factor and could not marginalize the Palestinian cause."
"The second failure is the talk about economic peace as an alternative to real peace. Of course, here the failure is two-fold, because the Palestinian people are not ready to accept the continuation of the occupation even if their situation improves. On the other hand, there is no improvement, and on the contrary, there is deterioration in economic matters. Also, the idea and theory of reducing the conflict failed. This [project] too has failed miserably,” he noted.
The senior politician blasted the current bout of Israeli atrocities against Palestinians, saying, “What you see today are provocations, killings, repression and abuse, which have reached the point of complete insolence and criminal ferocity, as we saw in the incident of the martyrdom of Ghada Sabatien, a 46-year-old woman with six children. They shot her not only in cold blood, but also left her to bleed to death. This crime is unparalleled.”
Earlier in the month, Sabatien was shot by Israeli forces near the city of Bethlehem and lost her life after she suffered a torn artery and massive blood loss.
Asked whether the Palestinian resistance has become a source of confusion for the Israeli occupation forces, Barghouti said, “Israel is developing repressive systems to confront the Palestinian resistance, and the Palestinians are creating new forms of resistance that Israel does not know how to control, including the individual resistance, which they have no recipe for and have no ability to control.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Barghouti said the so-called two-state solution to Palestinian issue has failed and is not accepted by Palestinians anymore. Barghouti said the cost of occupation and racism is too high for Israel, adding that the resistance has tipped the balance of power in favor of Palestinians.
“They are discontented with the Palestinian resistance because the resistance contributes to changing the balance of power for the benefit of the people,” he said.
'World must act' Barghouti also criticized global inaction in the face of Israeli crimes, asking how so many sanctions can be imposed on Russia in just a few weeks while Israel has gone unpunished for over 74 years.
“If there is an intention to prevent the ongoing annexation and Judaization, we demand that the world impose sanctions on Israel and now there is a great opportunity that must be used,” he said. “The world must be told that what we see now is international hypocrisy and what We see are flawed double standards. You can impose six thousand punishments on Russia within two weeks. Regardless of the issue of the current war, six thousand punishments and no punishment on 'Israel' in 74 years while it practices ethnic cleansing and the longest occupation in human history."
Israeli forces have repeatedly attacked Palestinian worshipers at the al-Aqsa Mosque compound site since early April, with the onset of the holy month of Ramadan which coincided with Jewish Passover.
More than 150 Palestinian worshipers were injured when Israeli forces stormed the compound in the holy occupied city of al-Quds’ Old City last week. The forces have kept up their violations on the flashpoint site, besides cracking down on solidarity protests throughout the occupied West Bank.
The clashes in al-Quds had sparked fears of another armed conflict similar to an 11-day war last year between Israel and Gaza-based Palestinian resistance groups, including Hamas.
Israel waged the war last May in response to Palestinian retaliation against violent raids on worshipers at al-Aqsa Mosque and the regime’s plans to force a number of Palestinian families out of their homes in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of East al-Quds.
According to Gaza’s Health Ministry, 260 Palestinians were killed in the Israeli offensive, including 66 children and 40 women.