Paris Lost Credibility Supporting Israel: Ken O'Keefe (VIDEO)

France supposedly is very supportive of the Palestinians? Well, this is absolute nonsense unless we consider shallow talk with no actual meaningful physical action behind it, substantial; and it is not.

Ken O’Keefe

(LONDON / TEHRAN Press TV) - Press TV has conducted an interview with Ken O’Keefe, a former US Marine from the city of London, to further discuss French President Francois Hollande’s newly adopted pro-Israeli foreign policies.

Ken is a Salem-News.com writer and also host of the new television program, Middle East Show on 'The Peoples Voice'. His outspoken style both incites and inflames the defenders of Israeli apartheid which remains prevalent in the so-called Jewish state.

What follows is an approximate transcription of the interview.

Press TV: Well, Ken O’Keefe let us do somewhat of the recap here, regarding the relationship between France and Israel.

I mean it is interesting, it is pretty much a seesaw, erratic relationship in pattern. Francois Mitterrand, the relations improved then; then we have the French President Jack Chirac where the relationships declined and then came Sarkozy, a warming of ties and of course with Hollande we are seeing that warming of ties being buildup on that.

Why do you think that there has been this erratic pattern there, regarding France and Israel and different presidents that it has had?

O’Keefe: Well, because politics is nothing but a stage and the players will all change their scripts a little bit every now and then and right now it seems useful for France to play a different role than it did for the most of the last ten years.

The gentleman in New York, with all due respects, said a couple of things that deserve responding to.

One: France supposedly is very supportive of the Palestinians? Well, this is absolute nonsense unless we consider shallow talk with no actual meaningful physical action behind it, substantial; and it is not.

France is part of the European Union which is doing 28 billion Euros a year in trade with Israel, so it can say whatever it likes about settlements being unhelpful and so on, but that is all just a bunch of rubbish. It means nothing while they continue to do 28 billion Euros a year plus, in trade.

Also he said that France is concerned with nuclear proliferation. Well, how is that possible? Israel, as we have seen in the report that you just did, is not having its nuclear plant inspected, it has the worst kept nuclear program secret in the world with hundreds of nuclear weapons and Israel has stated, in many different ways, its willingness to literally destroy the planet if it feels its security and existence is threatened.

Ultimately Israel also has a long track record of committing massive crimes against humanity and war crimes including such things as torturing individuals including minors, executing humanitarian aid workers in international waters and dropping white phosphorus and using experimental weapons in Gaza.

So how can we not consider Israel to be a serious threat to the international security when it clearly can commit such horrendous crimes and it has a nuclear weapons program?

So these things are beyond hypocrisy and we need to see that.

Press TV: Well, Ken O’Keefe let us talk about more truth as Fredrick Peterson wants. The French president in Ramallah called for a total halt of illegal settlement activities and you talked about the EU; I am assuming that perhaps that falls under the so-called Middle East Quartet of which we do not really hear France coming out, slamming the illegal settlements because it appears that they are hiding under this Quartet with EU being part of it making these announcements.

So why does he feel, the French president, while he is in Ramallah, to call for a halt but yet prior not be vociferous about this, not being more proactive in voicing this opposition?

O’Keefe: Well, I would go one step further but let me thank the gentleman for bringing up the truth and let me share some truth with you.

The truth be told, the so-called War on Terror, which my birth nation and yours instigated, is a farcical war on terrorism in which countless people have been killed, millions of refugees have been created, millions of orphans have been created and all this based on a false pretext that Muslims were responsible for 9/11 and everything that stems from that, including the hardship that the Palestinians have had endured for falsely being labeled as unreasonable, un-peaceful and ultimately Jew-hating terrorists, is so, so destructive that it is hard to measure it.

The truth be told, that Israel was founded on terrorism, whether it is Stern Gang, the hotel in Jerusalem they bombed, the Lavon affair, the USS Liberty, in which Israel, our supposed ally, attacked a Navy ship and killed 34 American sailors in cold blood and attempted to the best of their ability to sink that ship and kill everyone including hitting the life rafts, which were put in the water when the ship was close to sinking.

This is Israel for you. It has also committed atrocities in Sabra and Shatila; as I mentioned it bombed people with white phosphorous and used the experimental weapons in Gaza in 2008, 2009 and again in 2012. Ultimately it has a long list of incredible crimes that have been totally unpunished because my birth nation, the United States, has protected it, hand and foot; especially in the Security Council, with vetoes and this is the truth; and the truth is that the Palestinians have been dealing with this for decades and they have been left abandoned not only by the Western nations but by the Arab nations, disgracefully so.

And this is the bad, bad reality of what the Palestinians have been dealing with. And to be neutral, falsely neutral, in this context is to be untruthful at best...

So I will not be neutral in this circumstance, I will very much side on the area of the truth and the truth is that Israel is a criminal state, which has committed so many crimes that can hardly be counted. We would need hours and hours to even begin to list them.

And ultimately if you want to talk about the marine corps; let us end with some real truth. Smedley Butler the best marine who ever lived, which I am sure you know him, winner of two Congressional medals of honor, wrote a book that I recommend every single marine alive, especially every marine and every service member in the United States, who swore to uphold the US constitution, read; “War is a Racket”, by Smedley Butler.

Because there was a marine with some real integrity and honor and truth telling ability.

Press TV: Well, Ken O’Keefe Fredrick Peterson my question was: Why all the noise on Iran, yet they are friends with Israel which has stockpiles of nuclear weapons? He (Fredrik Peterson) included in that framework of his response that they are getting attacked with, I think it was missiles that you said Fredrick Peterson.

Ken O’Keefe why do not you tell us some truth behind what is going on regarding that part of the statement as our guest Fredrick Peterson said that Israel is in a region that it feels like it is threatened.

O’Keefe: Well, you know, the first thing that should be said is that nothing I said is untruthful. So if truth is important then I would expect to see some acknowledgement of the truth of what I said.

The bombing of the King David Hotel, the Lavon Affair, the USS Liberty, experimental weapons and white phosphorous being used on civilians in Gaza, executing humanitarian aid workers in international waters, we can go on and on and on.

Yes, the Palestinians have also responded with some criminal activities but in truth you cannot blame the victim whose land is being stolen, whose people have been imprisoned, whose innocents have been killed, whose children have been violated, whose people have been tortured.

You cannot blame the victim for lashing out in such circumstances and the truth is that Israel was formed on the back of terrorism; it was formed in a way that was totally disrespectful of the Palestinian population. I had family members that fled in 1948, they had a choice of course, stay and possibly die or leave and live and many chose to leave and live.

So the truth is that the hypocrisy could not be any more stark. The United States and France, for that matter, are in no moral position to be judging anybody.

If we look truthfully at the record of violence over the last several decades, no one compares to the United States of America and Britain and Israel. Of all nations on this planet, no one comes close to amount of violence and state-sponsored terrorism and to this day, the United States continues to execute innocent people with drone strikes in the most cowardly fashions in places like Pakistan and Yemen and of course in Afghanistan and ultimately the United States has had its most impressive bedfellow in Britain and also in France and the European Union, protecting them all the way.

The United States is not is not an honest broker any more than France is and the proof of the hypocrisy is in fact what has been repeated more than once and that is that Iran has the most heavily inspected nuclear program on the planet, an invasive program which probably feeds information to Mossad that is used to execute the scientists who worked in the nuclear program, while it is being inspected in the most invasive of ways; while it is enduring sanctions which is harming the people of Iran; Israel continues to have favored nation trading partner status and reaps massive rewards of trade between the US and the European Union and ultimately no punishment is meted out against it while it produces nuclear weapons, chemical weapons and biological weapons and uses many of these weapons, including experimental weapons against civilian populations including massive amounts of children.

That is the truth and you may say what you want to say; again, but you will not be able to come back and condemn anything I have said that is in any way untruthful. Everything I have just said is truthful.