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.

Yeah, they're still here, so what.

[Yanis] Well, a whole population has
been placed on death row

for the first time
since the Second World War.

But there is also another dimension,
I just had word from the West Bank

that settlers under the cover of the IDF
are attacking villages now.

as we speak!

This is not a ceasefire in Palestine.

It's a ceasefire only in Gaza
from how I understand it.

And remember, the original
idea of Ariel Sharon

was to move out of Gaza

in order to annex and complete
the occupation of the West Bank.

So from your perspective,

the United Nations perspective,
reporting on Palestine,

can you comment on, you know,
what the Gaza ceasefire means

for Jerusalem, for the West Bank
more generally.

[Francesca] Yeah, yeah, Yanis,
you need it,

because as I answered the first question,
I said this is only for Gaza,

there are some striking features
in the agreement.

There is the liberation of, I think
1,700 prisoners; they are all from Gaza.

But what about the thousands of people
who have been kidnapped?

Palestinians who have been kidnapped,
arbitrarily detained, tortured;

this includes children. this includes
journalists and teachers,

professors from the West Bank.

Since the very beginning
I've written about that.

This is why I've said we need to look at
Israel's intent,

in terms of totality of conduct

and totality of crimes against
the totality of the Palestinians

in the totality of the land that Israel
illegally occupies and claims as its own.

Have you heard anyone talking about
withdrawal of Israel's presence,

civilian and military tangible and
intangible, material and immaterial

because this is what the ICJ has asked,
has ordered in July last year

and the General Assembly has given
a deadline to Israel is doing that.

And no one is talking about that,
and this is the point: West Bank.

West Bank is the place where
the colonial erasure is advancing,

through other means and through other
crimes and through other actors.

Because there you have the Israeli army

the settlers, armed settlers,

and now you also have the repression
from the Palestinian Authority,.

[Yanis] It was poignant that you said

that not all the Palestinian hostages
are going to be released,

especially not the ones from West Bank.

And by the way, I'm talking about hostages
so that I can be symmetrical.

There are Israeli hostages and
there are Palestinian hostages.

There are no conflicts or prisoners;
they are hostages;

they are the hostages by an army
of occupation.

My thought, as we were speaking,

my thoughts wandered in the direction
of the family of Marwan Barghouti,

who's been in prison for decades now

precisely because Israel does not
want any leadership to emerge

within the Palestinians that
are representative of the Palestinians

and which can actually
pave the ground for peace.

because Israel does not want peace.