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Since I had plenty of time on my hands I decided to spend a few hours to type out the interview and let me tell you, it was well worth it!
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"Galloway: 'The Violence Will Go On'
George Galloway has spoken out in support of Lebanon, saying he believes Hizbollah is justified in attacking Israel. The Respect MP also lambasted media coverage of the war and said the UN resolution means nothing."
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Transcript done by Evox
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Reporter: Joining me now is a man not known for sitting on the fence, who passionately opposed the invasion of Iraq, and now he feels that Hezbollah is justified in attacking Israel. The Respect MP for Bethnal Green is in our Central London studio. A very good evening, good morning rather to you Mr. Galloway; how do you justify your support for Hezbollah and its leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah?
Galloway: (Chuckling) A preposterous way to introduce an item and what a preposterous first question. Twenty four years ago on the day my daughter was born, and I've just celebrated her twenty fourth birthday, I had to dash to the maternity hospital to see her given birth from a mass demonstration in London against the Israeli invasion and occupation of Lebanon. Israel has been invading and occupying Lebanon all of my twenty four year old daughter's life. The Hezbollah are apart of the Lebanese national resistance who are trying to drive - having successfully driven most Israelis from their land in 2000 - Israel from the rest of their land and to get back those thousands of Lebanese prisoners who were kidnapped by Israel under the terms of their illegal occupation of Lebanon. It's Israel that's invading Lebanon. It's Israel that's attacking Lebanon; not Lebanon that's attacking Israel. You've just been carrying a report of ten Israeli soldiers on the boarder getting ready to invade Lebanon and you ask us to mourn that operation as if it were some kind of war crime. Israel is invading Lebanon and has killed thirty times more Lebanese civilians than have died in Israel...(Interrupted)
Reporter: (Interrupting) You put your finger on the button though didn't you?
Galloway: (continuing) ...so it's you who should be justifying the evident bias which is written on every line on your face and is in every new ounce of your voice and is loaded in every question that you ask.
Reporter: Right. You put your finger on the button though didn't you when you said that Hezbollah was set up back in the 1980s in order to remove every Israeli soldier from Lebanon, so as you said it achieved that in 2000, this is a setback...
Galloway: No it didn't. This is a key point that you are concealing from your viewers. Israel was forced out of most of the South of Lebanon in 2000. It still occupies a part of Lebanon since 2000... (Interrupted)
Reporter: (Interrupting) The Shebaa farms area which is subject to this latest UN draft resolution.
Galloway: (continuing) ... and it has thousands of Lebanese prisoners have been kidnapped by Israel. Hezbollah and the Lebanese government want them to be released.
Reporter: (Interrupting) I spoke just a moment ago to the Israeli foreign ministery spokesman who said that the three Lebanese who have been captured - perhaps you'd like to use that word - have been before a judge and been through a court of law.
Galloway: No, Anna it's not those, these are not the prisoners. Oh please have a slightly longer memory than four weeks. I'm talking about the thousands of prisoners taken during the eighteen years of Israeli occupation - illegal occupation - of South Lebanon. These are the prisoners that have to be released in exchange for the Israeli soldiers that were captured at the beginning of this wave of the crisis.
Reporter: Can I ask you about a report that's in today's Sunday Telegraph which showed that Iran has given Hezbollah long range missiles capable of targeting any part of Israel. Iran according to this Iranian MP who helped found Hezbollah has also said that Iran has given the organization authorization to target Tel-Aviv. Can you blame Israel for wanting to destroy those missiles?
Galloway: This is preposterous. America has given Israel missiles than can target not just every city in Lebanon but every city in the Arab and Muslim world including Iran. Why should America be allowed to give long range missiles to Israel including hundreds of nuclear missiles, but Iran is not allowed to give missiles... (Interrupted)
Reporter: (Interrupting) Because it's giving it to a terrorist organization.
Galloway: But they're not a terrorist organization; only in the mind of Rupert Murdoch's Sky, and the Times, and the Sun, and The News of the World... (Interrupted)
Reporter: (Interrupting) Oh come on. I'm going to stop you there Mr. Galloway
Galloway: (Continuing) ...They're not a terrorist organization. It's Israel that is a terrorist state... (Interrupted)
Reporter: Describe terrorist organizations. One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter, we know that perfectly well.
Galloway: Precisely..
Reporter: In most people's eyes they are deemed to be- (interrupted)
Galloway: No they are not!
Reporter: They have a choice didn't they, let's understand this, like the IRA, to take on politics.
Galloway: No, No! No they are nothing to do with the IRA. Listen Anna, you're right- one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter... (Interrupted)
Reporter: (Interrupting) I'm saying they have a choice to absorb the idea of politics.
Galloway: (Continuing)...are we going to shout over this?... (Interrupted)
Reporter: (Interrupting) They got two Hezbollah cabinet ministers.
Galloway: (Continuing)...Anna, one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. You are totally wrong in saying that in most people's eyes Hezbollah are terrorists. In most people's eyes Israel is a terrorist state! It's the fact that you cannot comprehend that fact that leads to the bias which runs through all of your reporting and every question that you've asked me in this interview!
Reporter: Can I ask you one question? I was relating to the IRA and Sinn Fein, they have decided to embrace politics. Hezbollah had the chance to embrace politics. They've ..(Interrupted)
Galloway: What are you talking about? They are already in politics. They are the people of the South of Lebanon.. (Interrupted)
Reporter: (Interrupting) That's what I'm saying. If you listen to me I'm saying they have two cabinet ministers already. They had a chance to do that. Why did they need to capture and kill Israeli soldiers on the border. Surely this sets back their ambitions to be a political force inside a democratic Lebanon.
Galloway: Look. Because Israel occupies their country and holds thousands of their compatriots as kidnapped hostages in their dungeons. It's really very simple, except if you think only in a clock that goes back four weeks. If you know - and you are old enough to know better- that the origins of this conflict are not four weeks or four years or fourteen years, but are decades old. You want people to think that the crisis started when the clock started ticking on Sky News. (Interrupted)
Reporter: (Interrupting) No I don't. I don't at all.
Galloway: (Continuing) ...Unfortunately the people in Lebanon know differently.
Reporter: Yea. I want to ask you one final question. Do you think that the four weeks that we've seen as you mentioned, the twenty six days of this crisis, has set back Hezbollah's ambitions, not only... (Interrupted)
Galloway: (Chuckling) Hezbollah is winning the war... (Interrupted)
Reporter: Let me finish. Let me finish! Would you mind let me finish please? Not only are Israeli soldiers over the border in sizeable numbers but also there claims to be a good political organization to help a democratic Lebanese government with the Syrians who've also now left an independent state, that is also come to blows as well.
Galloway: What a silly question! What a silly person you are! Hezbollah is winning the war, you can see it on the other half of the screen! Hezbollah is more popular today... (Interrupted)
Reporter: (Interrupting) That was not my question!
Galloway: (Continuing) ... Hezbollah is more popular today in Lebanon amongst Christians, amongst Sunnis, amongst Shiites, amongst all Arabs, amongst all Muslims, than it has ever been. It's Israel who's lost the war and Bush and Blair for politically organizing the war, who've lost politically... (Interrupted)
Reporter: Ok.. Let me -
Galloway: (Continuing) ... This is a defeat for Bush, and Blair, and Israel. Everybody but you can see it!
Reporter: Let me separate out that question then. Is it a setback given that Hezbollah was set up in order to get Israeli soldiers off Lebanese soil, that there are now more Israeli soldiers on Lebanese soil than there were twenty six days ago?
Galloway: Well, they seem to be getting a bloody good hiding on the other half of the screen that I'm watching. Maybe you can't see it, but I'm watching them getting a bloody good hiding in the war. So if that's a success, then I'm not sure what a failure would look like. The reality is that this conflict would go on. The United Nations resolution solves nothing, gives Lebanon nothing, gives the prisoners in Israeli dungeons nothing, and my erstwhile colleague was just saying Israel has just kidnapped even more Palestinian politicians, cabinet ministers, members of parliament, and thousands of others held in Israeli dungeons; and this war will continue until the overall settlement is reached. That settlement must mean Israeli withdrawal from all occupied territory that it currently holds since the war in 1967, the release of all political prisoners, and a state for the Palestinians with East Jerusalem as its capital. No justice, No peace. You're not going out of business as a newscaster in Jerusalem any time soon, believe me.
Reporter: Well as usual you have prompted a huge e-mail response with for and against you Mr. Galloway, so we'll leave it there. I have to say that some people might find it offensive when more families are mourning their dead, to hear you say that it was -
Galloway: You don't give a damn! You don't give a damn! You don't even know about the Palestinian families! You don't even know that they exist! Tell me the name of one member of the seven members of the same family slaughtered on the beach in Gaza by an Israeli warship? You don't even know their name! But you know the name of every Israeli soldier who's been taken prisoner in this conflict. Because you believe -whether you know it or not- that Israeli blood is more valuable than the blood of Lebanese or Palestinian. That's the truth, and the discerning of your viewers already know it.
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