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00:00have been discredited.
00:02We really are looking, as I keep saying,
00:05at an unprecedented sort of collapse
00:09of some of the most important democratic institutions today,
00:12whether it's political parties or it's
00:18the fourth estate, which is simply
00:20failing to function in the way that it should.
00:24And I think Gaza really has come as a huge shock
00:28to many, many people who have witnessed
00:33the conduct of the Western press in the last year.
00:40Right.
00:42And the same press, if I would say this,
00:48they're using the numbers.
00:49And it's almost as if the people in Gaza
00:52have been reduced to basic numbers, the death
00:57toll, the fatality count, and the number of injured.
01:01That's it.
01:01So do you think that reduces the severity of what
01:06is going on, when all you see, or most of the times, what
01:11you see is it's about how many people have died today, 20, 30
01:15today, 50 tomorrow.
01:17That's how it is being reported.
01:19How would you, like if you were to do this?
01:21I think I would like to resist the conclusion.
01:24But unfortunately, it's just too clear.
01:31Large parts of the Western press,
01:34and that includes some of its more prestigious legacy
01:39periodicals, simply do not see the Palestinians as human.
01:45And I think that really accounts for this gross discrepancy
01:53that you notice, that a single hostage found dead or executed
02:00by Hamas gets a front page mention.
02:04And the dozens of Palestinians killed every day
02:09are simply a statistic.
02:11Right.
02:13And this has been going on for more than a year now.
02:17So it's very clear that Palestinian lives really
02:24do not matter.
02:25They don't matter to even some of the more liberal journalists
02:33working in New York and London and Paris.
02:37It's not just far-right agitators or demagogues
02:43who are indifferent to Palestinian lives.
02:47It's also some of the more liberal and so-called centrist
02:51intellectuals and journalists.
02:56Right.
02:57Here, I would also want to know your opinion or thoughts
03:01about when you talk about Palestine as a color issue.
03:04I mean, I have read a few books on Palestine.
03:09I had never seen it as a color issue.
03:11And to be very honest, I thought it was more about expansionism
03:16about one group against another.
03:19But you point out that George Orwell, who
03:21is one of my favorite authors, also pointed it out.
03:25And so did Gandhi, I think.
03:28So could you explain or talk about this particular aspect?
03:33Well, I think it was a color issue.
03:35It was identified as a color issue at a time
03:39when most of the world was dominated
03:45militarily and politically by white European and American
03:51powers.
03:52And so the liberation of Palestine
03:57was seen essentially in terms of anti-colonialism
04:01or anti-white supremacism.
04:05And that issue became less important in the 1960s
04:11and 1950s.
04:12So many post-colonial nations emerged.
04:15White supremacy seemed to receive a setback.
04:20Even Israel started to establish relations
04:22with many African countries, good relations, many of them.
04:26But I think it's become clearer since the late 60s
04:30when Israel became a colonial power
04:32that Israel, in many ways, is closer
04:37to the white supremacist regimes than it
04:40is to any Asian or African nation.
04:44And so the color line that was very apparent
04:47during the anti-colonial struggles has reemerged.
04:51And today, we can see this very clearly,
04:55is that the biggest supporters of Israel
04:57today are white supremacists.