Yanis Varoufakis and Francesca Albanese on Israel, Palestine and Genocide

[Applause]

[Yanis] Well, Francesca Albanese, the
United Nations rapporteur on Palestine,

it is not only a personal
pleasure to be talking to you today,

but I want to convey

on behalf of our MERA25 friends and
members that are watching this

their appreciation, our joint
appreciation

for everything you've been
doing so courageously

over months and months of
this unfolding genocide,

which will stigmatise humanity
for so many years.

So thank you on behalf of everyone,
not just on my behalf.

Let me ask you, we are
having this conversation now

less than 24 hours after
the announcement, finally

of an agreement between
Hamas and Israel,

to affect a ceasefire.

What are your feelings about this?

[Francesca] I don't know, I don't know.

Really I'm still processing it,

I feel, I feel so happy to see
the Palestinians cheering,

especially the kids are looking forward to
the return of a peaceful normalcy.

This is on the one hand.

I also mean, I also know that for many
Israelis, this is the end of a nightmare.

But is it going to be the end of the
nightmare for the Palestinians?

For the Palestinians, first of all, we are
talking of the Palestinians in Gaza

and people saying, I mean, I was listening
to the outgoing president of the US

saying, oh, now the Palestinians can
return to their homes, to their life.

Yeah where have you been for the
past 15 months President Biden?

For many of them
there are no more houses,

and for many of them the houses,
whatever, even the rubbles will be empty.

The entire, hundreds and hundreds of
families have been exterminated.

And again, the genocide has happened.

I don't know how you feel, Yanis,

but somewhat, something, I say that,
but I'm still processing what it is

something has broken this year.

Again, this was not a war;
this was a genocidal war,

and all these images of all these people,
all these children,

killed, amputated, brutalised, starved,
left in flooded tents, frozen to death