Israel: ultimate goal is ‘eradication’ of Palestine or ‘apartheid’, says former US colonel

Israel’s “ultimate goal” is the “eradication” of Palestine or some form of “apartheid” according to retired Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, the former chief of staff to the late US Secretary of State Colin Powell. The 77-year-old, who in recent years has become a critic of US foreign policy in the Middle East, made the remark during an interview a few days ago with Zain Raza of AcTVism Munich, a grassroots media network.

When asked what the “end goal of Israel” is, Wilkerson began by recounting the occupation state’s 2008-2009 military offensive and invasion of Gaza. Dubbed “Operation Cast Lead” by the apartheid state, the three-week long onslaught on the besieged population killed at least 1,383 Palestinians, including 333 children.

“I had a student at George Washington University who was in the IDF [Israel Defence Forces],” said Wilkerson as he spoke of his exchange with an Israeli soldier who participated in the operation. “At a briefing of his battalion he was told that the object of that operation was to kill every Palestinian in sight, it didn’t matter who they were or what they were. They needed to teach the Palestinians in Gaza a lesson.”

Wilkerson went on to express his own views on Israel’s criminal practices towards the Palestinians. “That was the standard operating procedure; that’s what they’ve been doing ever since. Every time you shoot a rocket at us, we will kill 1300 of you; men, women and children it doesn’t matter. And you will kill two or three of us. OK? We will live with those odds”.

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Israel’s “ultimate goal,” explained Wilkerson, is the “eradication” of the Palestinians. “I’m convinced that’s their ultimate goal, eradication and/or apartheid. Now they’re very, very close to apartheid in the entire region. They’re already at apartheid in the West Bank. To a certain extent in Jerusalem.”

Describing what he called “a special kind of apartheid” in Gaza, Wilkerson said: “You own it all, we will just keep you there, and we won’t let you do anything and we will come in periodically and kill you. Especially if you let the more active agents in Hamas do something to us, or the Islamic Jihad or whatever.”

That’s Israeli’s policy, Wilkerson concluded, “and eradication is not too strong a word.”