If Netanyahu has his way, Israelis will continue to live in fear

Former French prime minister Dominique de Villepin has called for an immediate end to Israel’s 'war' on Hamas.

The continuing 'war', he said in a TV interview, is a threat to not just Israel but to peace in the region and beyond. He made the following points in the interview, conducted in French, which was translated and shared on social media by @RnaudBertrand. Some excerpts from the interview:

• Mr Benjamin Netanyahu could control Gaza, but it would change nothing. There will continue to be terrorist attacks, Israelis will continue to live in fear.

• This is yesterday's war because 'war against terrorism' has never been won anywhere. Force is not the answer, vengeance is not the answer. The answer is justice.

• The world must prevent Benjamin Netanyahu from continuing his suicidal logic that will make Israel a besieged state. They can besiege Gaza, but they will be besieged in turn.

• (It is in) Israel's interest is to have a responsible state at its side. And this responsible state — let's stop splitting hairs — must clearly be the West Bank, all of the West Bank. It must be Gaza, with access between the two territories, and East Jerusalem. The problem, and this is the whole point of Benjamin Netanyahu's escalation, is that Benjamin Netanyahu does not want it.

• The end of war must confer to the Palestinians a state where they can live, a viable state, a true state, which can build itself and which will be all the more at peace...

• Israeli settlers will have to leave the West Bank and Gaza. When France left Algeria, there were a million French who had to leave Algeria. Today there are 500,000 Israelis colonising the West Bank, and there are 200,000 in East Jerusalem. That is the price of security for Israel!

• Benjamin Netanyahu failed on 7 October, and his second failure is to have encouraged a policy of occupation and colonisation, which continues at this moment in the West Bank and constitutes another threat to Israel if a second front were to open.

• Neither force nor vengeance ensures peace and security. What ensures peace and security is justice.

• Israel has the right to self-defence, but self-defence does not give an indiscriminate right to kill civilian populations. When you target an ambulance, you can always imagine that there was a terrorist in one of the ambulances… But (the) more you kill, the more terrorists you create… What Israel achieves is exactly the opposite of what they wish.

• The Palestinian people are also hostages, held by Hamas and by Israel. Hamas, we all know, cares little for the Palestinian people.

• Benjamin Netanyahu is waging a war to do everything so that the political solution does not come to the table. And this is where the international community, Europe, the United States, must tell Benjamin Netanyahu that this war is not acceptable.