Are you concerned with the ongoing coverage of the conflict by some media outlets? Recently, the BBC has been questioned over its Gaza documentary’s Hamas link...

Yes, it is. And there are few problems that most people don’t know when it comes to covering the Middle East. First of all, there are, of course, those networks from within the Middle East that are doing a lot of propaganda for the radical Islamists. Al Jazeera is one of them. And there are many others. And this is a challenge, to us, to the Western world, to the civilized world, because these values that are being promoted by these channels are, promoting violence against, non-Muslims. And that’s problematic. In addition to that, you have many outlets in the West which are completely biased because the reporters that work in these networks, especially those that cover the Middle East and they do the coverage in Arabic, are also part of this network. For example, it is pretty well known that the BBC in Arabic, has many people affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood that are working there. So the material that you see coming out from BBC in Arabic, is problematic. Another problem that we face is that in many cases, terrorist organizations in the Gaza Strip are portraying themselves as journalists, while at the same time serving terrorist organizations or even being members of terrorist organizations. So we saw the example with the BBC movie for, the BBC piece in which one of the children that were being covered, there was a relative, his father was a Hamas leader, Hamas operative. And, people many times do not know how to make the difference, they do not verify the stories and believe the propaganda coming from the terrorist organizations without checking it thoroughly. So these are all problems that we have to face. We are pretty outnumbered when it comes to the challenge, because Israel is one country, we don’t have many means of communication, and they are not spread all over the world. So we don’t invest in that enough. And even if we would have invested, it wouldn’t be enough to pair with the huge number of outlets you have in the Arab world and in the Muslim world.

What do you have to say to the sympathisers of radical Islamists?

What I can say is that we have one advantage against radicals: that we love life more than they love death. Okay, so this cult of death, pretending that because of the fact that they don’t mind dying for the cause gives them an advantage is actually a huge disadvantage because in Israel, for example, because of the fact that we love life and we sanctify life, we are ready to do a lot in order to defend it. We are not ready just to sacrifice our life for the country for no reason. We want to live in a prosperous country. We are going to defend our families. We want to defend things that are important for us, and we don’t have anywhere else to go. Therefore, we have a huge advantage towards radicals. And we have to engage together to work in order to work with people, to deradicalize the societies. And this is one of the challenges where we’re facing now in the Gaza Strip. Since Hamas took over 18 years ago, they have been radicalizing the education system in a systematic way, teaching each and every child in the Gaza Strip that their role is not to live in peace or to build Gaza, but to destroy Israel and to kill Jews. This has to change because unless the education system changes, nothing will change in the future, and we will have a very grim future. So we have a challenge together, to work for moderation, to work for, to defeat radicals.

Is Hamas a threat to India as well, especially due to its Pakistan connection?

Unfortunately, terrorist organisations work in networks and many times they find ways to support each other in a way that is detrimental for many countries, not just for our region. So the fact that, for example, there was a meeting only a couple of weeks ago in the areas that are under Pakistani control in Kashmir, of leaders of Hamas tells you something about how these terrorist organisations are inspiring each other. Apparently, they are cooperating in order to achieve their common goal which is to terrorise us and to terrorise you. This is something that we have to take into account.

What advice would you give to Indian leaders who support the Palestine cause?

I’m not in the role of giving advice to anybody. I think that we have a common goal. We want to live in peace. We believe that people in our region deserve to live in peace and that we can satisfy the aspirations of everybody as long as they are not trying to destroy or to completely erase the other side. So, those Palestinians that want to live with us in peace and that are ready to recognise our right for self-determination, we will recognise their rights for self-determination and we can negotiate a peace deal. But those who refuse that and only want to seek Palestinian rights without recognising our rights and using illegitimate means to do so, this has to be completely refuted. Our expectation is that any peace-loving leader or party, wherever they are, in India or outside India, will join us with this quest of creating a better world that is free of violence.