US SENDS ‘VERY CLEAR MESSAGE TO ISRAEL’: INTERNATIONAL LAWYER
Washington, 29 Ramadan 1435/27 July 2014 (MINA) – Zbigniew Brzezinski’ strong criticism of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over the massacre of Palestinians in Gaza indicates a “fundamental change in policy” by the US government and is a “clear message” to Israel, an international lawyer says.
In a recent interview with Fareed Zakaria on CNN, Brzezinski, political scientist, geo-strategist, and former national security advisor to President Jimmy Carter, said Netanyahu is isolating Israel and “endangering its longer-range future,” Press TV quoted by Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA) as reporting, Sunday.
“This is not some third-rate stringer or third-rate pundit,” Barry Grossman told Press TV in a phone interview on Saturday. “We are talking here about a former national security advisor, current advisor to the Obama administration and senior member of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR).”
“We have to assume that he has chosen his words very carefully and that, indeed, they have probably been vetted by the Obama administration which is prevented by politics from expressing that which Brzezinski is saying,” the analyst said.
“There is every reason to assume that his recent statements are being made by design with the intention of sending a very clear message to Israel,” Grosman explained.
Brzezinski told CNN that Netanyahu’s strategy in the Gaza Strip will not succeed. “I think he [Netanyahu] is making a very serious mistake. When Hamas, in effect, accepted the notion of participation in the Palestinian leadership it acknowledged the determination of that leadership to seek a peaceful solution from Israel – with Israel. That was a real option. They should have persisted in that,” he said.
“Instead Netanyahu launched the campaign of defamation against Hamas, seized on the killing of three innocent Israeli kids to immediately charge Hamas with having done it without any evidence, and has used that to stir up public opinion in Israel in order to justify this attack on Gaza, which is so lethal,” Brzezinski added.
“I think he is isolating Israel. He’s endangering its longer-range future. And I think we ought to make it very clear that this is a course of action which we thoroughly disapprove and which we do not support and which may compel us and the rest of the international community to take some steps of legitimizing Palestinian aspirations perhaps in the UN,” he stated.
Grosman said that, “the substance and intensity of [Brzezinski’s] remarks directed at Netanyahu are a very significant development and signals the possibility of a fundamental change in policy by the Obama administration.”
“This is very significant. He berated Netanyahu in the strongest possible language,” he added.
Israeli warplanes and tanks have been pounding numerous sites inside the Gaza Strip and killing innocent residents of the impoverished Palestinian enclave since July 8.
About 1,000 Palestinians have been killed and more than 6,000 wounded since the Israeli military first launched its onslaught on the besieged Gaza Strip. (T/E01/IR)
Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA)
