Interview by: Kourosh Ziabari

The carnage in Gaza and the attacks with white phosphorus weapons will eventually isolate the Zionist regime in the international arena.

In an exclusive interview, American journalist Hannah Mermelstein condemned the Israeli atrocities and called for an immediate and unconditional ceasefire and the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza to allow humanitarian assistance to enter the Strip.

She is the co-founder and co-director of Birthright Unplugged Association, which takes mostly Jewish North American people into the West Bank to meet with Palestinian people and to equip them for returning to their own communities and work for justice; moreover, it takes Palestinian children from refugee camps to Al-Quds, the sea, and the villages their grandparents fled in 1948, and supports them to document their experiences and create photography exhibitions to share it with their communities and with the world.

Ms. Mermelstein contributed to many international outlets, magazines and TV stations with her documentaries, reports and live broadcasts from the occupied territories of Palestine. Her Gaza pitches appear on USA Today, Boston Globe, Counter Punch Electronic Intifada and Canada Free Press.

Ms. Mermelstein was in Gaza from the commencement of the blockade in June 2007 until she was forced to leave in late 2007.

“I'm sorry. I want to repeat this over and over again; and in between being sorry and ashamed to be American, I want to yell and scream and act against the massacre and against my government that is helping it to happen.” She [also is] irritated, “I have been so frustrated to see that over and over again, it is the U.S. and Israel against the world. Many Palestinians I speak to say that Israel controls the U.S. I do not believe this. The U.S. has far more power than Israel, and if it wanted to stop Israel, it could.”

The American peace activist then quoted a fresh anecdote from one of her Palestinian friends whose entire house has been demolished by the Israeli army in the second day of conflict: “In the recent days, I have been in touch with my friend, Summer, who is a university student and has never left Gaza. On the second day of the invasion, her house was destroyed and her family displaced. Her dad was injured and her brother was almost lost under the rubble,” she added dejectedly, “As far as I know, everyone in her family is still alive, in Beit Lahia but I am worried about her prospect, constantly.”

Ms. Mermelstein analyzes the reasons [for the] biased media coverage of Gaza and the censorship of Israeli crimes in the occupied Palestine from a different point of view: “I am hesitant to attribute the mainstream media's actions as solely a result of the Zionist lobby in the U.S., though that is a big factor,” She spots “the truth is, I think many people in power in the U.S. see the support of Israel in their own interest as well. Weapons manufacturers, other big companies benefiting from occupation and the whole military industrial complex in U.S. has an interest in having a European-style country in the middle of the Arab world.”

“If the U.S. at some point comes to the conclusion that it is not in their interest to support Israel, then we will see conflict between certain forces in the government, and AIPAC and other Zionist lobby groups. But until that time, I think we can say their relationship is mutually beneficial,” she added.

Answering a question regarding the background of U.S. citizens' reluctance to search for realistic and impartial news sources in order to get correct, undistorted information, Hannah Mermelstein said: “In terms of media, there is a lot of good independent media, and one of the great things about the internet is that most of us can get almost any information we want. The problem with most Americans is that they are lazy. They will not seek out information beyond what is told to them from mainstream sources.” Meanwhile, she says: “But there are also mostly misinformed people, who once [they] get the idea that there is a problem, have the instinct to try to fix it. So, for example, when I go and give talks around the country, people understand and believe me and often ask what they can do. Our task is to motivate people to seek out the good media sources on their own and take action on their own. Democracy Now is a sample of non-aligned, independent daily program in U.S.”

She believes that global community needs to support and grow the Boycott/Divestment/Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel. “Palestinian civil society called for this, modeled on the movement against South African apartheid. There have already been many successes and the movement is growing. I do think this is the only way to stop Israel.” Mermelstein emphasizes.

In her interview with the Tehran Times, Mermelstein clarifies the disparities between Judaism as a religion and Zionism as an occupational, expansionist notion that is inflicting a batch of pains and burdens to the world: “I absolutely agree that Judaism and Zionism are too often equated mistakenly. I myself am not religious, but I do have a Jewish identity. Historically, Judaism has meant a lot of different things, many of which involved fighting against colonialism and oppression. Now the Zionist movement has too successfully hijacked the Jewish identity and told Jewish people and the rest of the world that the only way to be Jewish is to be Zionist. “

“I watched the news for only an hour yesterday, and cannot get the images out of my head. Parents crying over dead children, injured children being rushed to the hospital in ambulances, taxis, or on foot, the interview with a 16 year old boy whose mother and four brothers were killed in the attack on the Samouni family in the Zeitoun neighborhood last week.” Mermelstein asks “Were there 30 people killed there? 70? Accounts vary, mostly because the Israeli army will not allow journalists or ambulances to approach the neighborhood. One young EMT, exhaustion and trauma written all over his face, explained to Al Jazeera how he and others were able to enter a few houses yesterday and pull out the injured only after parking the ambulance 2 kilometers away from their intended destination and passing by 9 dead bodies on the road. Are these bodies counted in the 935? What about those in the houses the EMTs did not reach?”

“More than 935 people in Gaza are dead so far, with thousands more injured. Taking the total population into account, this is equivalent in U.S. terms to about 200,000 Americans. That's right, two hundred thousand Americans dead in less than three weeks.”