1. How long have you been serving in the Czech Republic and where were you on a diplomatic mission before Prague?

I have been serving in Prague since September 2014. Before Prague, I was stationed in Sarajevo. A truly beautiful city with a fascinating culture, like Prague. But in Sarajevo it was amazing to see mosques, churches and synagogues standing side by side.

2. What places have you visited in the Czech Republic and what are your favorite?

I visited many cities like Hradec Kralove, Olomouc, Brno, Pilsen, Karlovy Vary and others. Czech cities usually have incredible cultural heritage, beautiful architecture and welcoming people. I love them all especially in spring.

3. Which is your favorite place in Prague?

I love Old Town. It’s truly amazing. All those small streets and cafes. Great atmosphere.

4. What is life like in Palestine? What is the situation?

The situation hasn’t changed for decades. My people are living under a brutal military occupation which has slowly but surely stole basically all the land and resources, especially water, under our feet. There has been a talk of annexation, but the West Bank has been de facto annexed already by the settlements. With around 700 000 settlers in strategically placed settlements fragmenting our land, they prevented a possibility of viable Palestinian state. They keep building new settlements and transferring more Israeli settlers, which is a war crime. In the same time they are demolishing our homes with a pretext that they did not have a building permission. Well sure, because, the occupying power does not issue building permits for the Palestinians, only for the settlers. They demolish even schools for our children and uproot hundreds of thousands of our olive trees and steel our water to make our lives impossible. With absolute impunity they shoot and kill our kids who protest this injustice every week.

And Gaza? Gaza has been facing 15 years of inhumane blockade. Israel was even counting the calories of humanitarian aid they allow to Gaza to keep them on a verge of starvation. Israeli army shoots fishermen when they try to go on the sea, or farmers when they dare to work their land close to the border where is fertile soil. Eighty seven percent of water in Gaza is undrinkable, contaminated. I cannot even begin to describe for you the suffering under this blockade and repeated bombings wiping out whole families. I will just tell you, the UN estimated the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza made the place unlivable for people many years ago. Still people are trying to survive there. They have no choice. And the world has forgotten them. The aim of all these brutal policies is clear, they want us to leave, but we are not planning to run.

5. Seems like there is no solution to this conflict. Do you think there is a solution? Would it be one state or two states?

First of all, it’s not a “conflict”, it’s a colonial project with military occupation that has created apartheid to make sure one group’s supremacy. That is what the human rights organization’s reports are saying including Israeli B’Tselem, Amnesty International or Human Rights Watch and even UN human rights experts. When you realize that, the solution is very simple. Stop the injustice, the occupation, colonization, dismantle apartheid. The problem is Israel thinks it cannot exist without it. The world must push them as they pushed South Africa to accept the concept of equal human rights. But it will not happen without international pressure. We cannot negotiate a viable peace from a position of defenseless, occupied people, when even a superpower is supporting and arming the occupier. It is the imbalance of power which is preventing the solution. Israel has to be treated as every other state under the international law, not a state above it. During the so-called peace process Israel doubled the number of settlers on the West Bank. Oslo was an empty promise. The aim of Israel wasn’t peace but preventing it, preventing the two state solution.
In Camp David we were only offered a protectorate. It may have seemed as a “generous offer” to the occupier, but not to us. Plus, we were supposed to forever give up on any rights of our people who were ethnically cleansed from Palestine in 1948. Would any other people accept such conditions?
So now there is only a one state solution, the question is how long the world will accept an apartheid solution.

6. How things changed with the new Israeli government?

It is an apartheid and military occupation on steroids. For us its nothing new, its more brutal, yes. What is new is that they are open about their racism and aims to either expel or wipe out Palestinians. Full annexation of the West Bank is what they are going for, but that was always their aim. This has been the aim of Zionism since 1948. Media keep calling them “extremists”, but it’s the norm we have been living under for decades. The only difference is, that they are arrogant enough to say it loud. They are proud of their more and more aggressive steps towards achieving annexation. And they are opened about their dream of another Nakba, expelling Palestinians from their land. What is also different now and what is causing so much international attention is not this extra brutality towards Palestinians, but the fact that they are technically dismantling democracy even for the Jews.

7. How is the current demographic situation in Israel?

There is almost the same number of Jews as Palestinians living in historic Palestine. That is why they want to keep the apartheid, because if the Palestinians could vote, they would lose their majority. They could not pass discriminatory laws anymore. And they have over 60 such laws as documented by Adalah, the legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel.

8. How is the current situation of Israeli settlements in Palestine?

As always, expending. Now the settlers are becoming more and more aggressive with support of the government and the occupying army, which was the case even before, but now it’s just more loud and more brutal. The recent pogrom in Palestinian village Huwara, which some Israeli commentators compared to Kristallnacht, was widely announced. Over four hundred settlers came to burn Huwara down while the Israeli army just watched. And Israeli minister Smotrich even called for the village to be “wiped out”. So, judge for yourselves.

9. Tell us about Yasser Arafat.

Regardless, if you agree with his policies or disagree, we consider him the father of the nation. He was a leading force in restoring Palestinian identity and putting the Palestinian issue back on the agenda of the UN. In Palestine, it’s hard to find a person, of my age, who would not have a picture with Yasser Arafat. He was just natural with people and people loved him for it.

10. Please what is driving the Palestinian economy?

We have natural resources, but they are largely being exploited by the occupier. Stone, agriculture, tourist industry ect.. In Gaza they had a huge furniture and fishing industry, and agriculture. If you only ever tasted the strawberries from Gaza. Now, because of the blockade, it has been all devastated. The Israeli army is even sending planes to spray Gaza fields with pesticides so the crops would die, but they are also poisoning the soil, and water like this. And the West Bank is similar. In 2015 the World Bank estimates that restrictions on access and limiting Palestinian production in Occupation Area C cost the Palestinian economy $3.4 billion annually. We would mostly export agricultural products, but Israelis will leave our cargo to sit at their ports for weeks, so our products would get bed. They will just say it’s needed for a “security check”, and that’s it. However, if you pay a lot of money to an Israeli merchant, the cargo can go.

11. How do you see unity among Arabic countries?

I see incredibly strong unity among Arab people, it was very visible at the World Cup. Palestinian flags were flying everywhere in Qatar. And if you heard some of those interviews with people there, not only Arabs actually, they all have Palestine in their hearts. It was so moving to watch and listen to those messages for Palestine. One older man when asked about Palestine, he just started crying. Arabs feel our suffering. And nobody wanted to speak to the Israeli journalists. They were not able to make a single interview in Qatar. They thought, that because of the Abraham accords, they can normalize relations with the Arab people in the region. They made a mistake. Normalization of occupation is not a way to peace, but only more injustice.

12. Is the war in Europe affecting you? If so in what manner?

Of course, its effecting everyone everywhere, we live in a globalized world. What it made more visible, is the special treatment Israel is getting in the interntional arena. This double standard on human rights and international law is diplomatically unsustainable. More and more people are finally beginning to recognize this.

Czech Version of Interview

Interview mit dem Botschafter von Palästina – S.E. Khaled Alattrash