Mohammed El-Kurd: belief

Transcript context

…Do you, in your mind and in the way you see this region, draw distinction between the people in power versus the regular people? So, you mentioned the Palestinian people, is there something you can comment on, on Hamas and the PLO? Do you see them as fundamentally different from the people? What does Hamas do well, where do they fall short? I think governments, wherever globally, are different from people. No government is a true reflection of its people. I think this is even true in the case of Arab countries that normalize with Israel. In many of the cases they are unelected governments. I think the Palestinian authority continues to fail. I think there are subcontractors of the Israeli regime through their security coordination. And also, I’d like to use this as an opportunity to comment a little bit on the analogy thing. Not to stray away from the question, but the Palestinian Authority two years ago killed an opposition activist named Nizar Banat. It was a horrendous crime, and I was in Ramallah with the people protesting against the Palestinian Authority. And at some point they had their batons, the Palestinian Authority Police, and they beat us with it. And many of the people in the crowd were liking the Palestinian Authority to Zionism. I think people, this is what people do, when they are confronted by a great evil, they liken it to some other great evil, and this is where the Hitler analogy came from. Again, I don’t think it’s the best strategy moving forward, but I refuse to be criminalized for a little sentence. So, to linger on those in power. One of the criticisms towards Hamas and PLO, towards the Israeli Government, at least the current coalition government, is that there’s a lot of incentive to sort of perpetuate violence to maintain power. There’s a hunger for power and maintaining that power amongst the powerful. That’s the way power works. So, is there a worry you have about those in power not having the best interest of its people? So, those in power, the PLO, Hamas, not being incentivized towards peace, towards justice.…

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