Israel’s Ehud Barak feels ‘no guilt’ over killing of Palestinians during start of Second Intifada

Occupied Palestine (QNN)- Former Israeli occupation prime minister, Ehud Barak, has said he feels no guilt over the killing of Palestinian citizens of 1948-Israeli occupied Palestine during the start of the Second Intifada in 2000.

In an interview with Israel’s Yedioth Ahronoth on Friday, Barak said the situation in 2000 was akin to a “zoo” while “riots took place throughout Judea and Samaria,” using the name many Israeli settlers give to the occupied West Bank.

“As far as the Arab citizens of Israel who were killed, I have no guilt,” he added.

Barak, who was Israel’s prime minister between 1999 and 2001 and also defence minister under former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu from 2007 to 2013, previously apologised in 2019 for the killing of the Palestinian citizens of 1948-occupied Palestine under his premiership in 2000.

The second intifada, commonly referred to by Palestinians as al-Aqsa Intifada, erupted in September 2000, after then-Israeli opposition leader Ariel Sharon stormed the Al-Aqsa Mosque in occupied Jerusalem with heavily armed Israeli forces. It ended in 2005, leaving more than 3,000 Palestinians dead.

Protests broke out in October 2000 among Palestinians across 1948-Israeli occupied Palestine against Israeli occupation police brutality and in solidarity with Palestinians facing violence in occupied Jerusalem and the besieged Gaza Strip.

The occupation police shot dead 13 unarmed Palestinians in the wake of the demonstrations, which are usually referred to as “riots” by Israeli media.

Barak told Yedioth Ahronoth that the Palestinians were “the elephant in the room” in Israeli politics.

“This government is not ripe for a political process, nor are the Palestinians. But Israel cannot be at the same time Jewish, democratic, and dominant in Judea and Samaria,” he told the newspaper.

“Israel must recognise the two-state idea because we are deteriorating toward a country with a Muslim majority, and this is the central threat to Israel.”

(Source / 19.02.2022)