Matthew Chin

Re­porter

matthew.chin@guardian.co.tt

Six months in­to the Is­rael-Gaza war in which more than 30,000 Pales­tini­ans have been killed, Is­rael’s Am­bas­sador to T&T Itai Bar­dov has ex­pressed con­cern about mis­in­for­ma­tion about the con­flict be­ing cir­cu­lat­ed in this coun­try.

Com­ment­ing on the pro-Pales­tin­ian views be­ing ex­pressed by many in this coun­try, Bar­dov said: “I think there’s a lot of mis­in­for­ma­tion utilised by pro-Hamas, or pro-Pales­tin­ian el­e­ments, to dis­trib­ute in­for­ma­tion that is re­al­ly un­true.”

Among those who have re­cent­ly com­ment­ed on the con­flict is Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley who, in his Eid-ul-Fitr mes­sage, called for a cease­fire in Gaza. Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so ex­pressed con­cern for the Pales­tini­ans.

How­ev­er, the am­bas­sador, who is based in Pana­ma, said his con­cern is about views be­ing per­pe­trat­ed by ex­trem­ist el­e­ments in the coun­try.

Not­ing that a small num­ber of T&T na­tion­als had joined ISIS, Bar­dov said: “We know there’s an ide­ol­o­gy. It may be with a small group, but it should be a rea­son for con­cern.”

But while he not­ed the in­creas­ing calls in T&T for a per­ma­nent cease­fire in the Is­arael-Gaza con­flict, par­tic­u­lar­ly from the lo­cal Mus­lim com­mu­ni­ty, Bar­dov said he has al­so re­ceived many mes­sages from T&T cit­i­zens ex­press­ing their sup­port for the Jew­ish state.

He said he re­cent­ly con­front­ed a Caribbean leader on the no­tion that Is­rael is com­mit­ting geno­cide.

“In re­gards to the word ‘geno­cide’ which is so eas­i­ly used when it comes to Is­rael, I spoke with a leader from one of the Caribbean coun­tries, and I asked, ‘Why do you call it a geno­cide? When you know that the num­bers com­ing out from Gaza are all based on the Gazan health min­istry, which is Hamas’” Bar­dov said.

The am­bas­sador’s com­ments fol­lowed an un­prece­dent­ed at­tack on Is­rael by Iran on Sat­ur­day with more than 300 drones, cruise and bal­lis­tic mis­siles.

The at­tack was a reprisal for Is­rael’s airstrike on the Iran­ian con­sulate in Dam­as­cus that re­sult­ed in the deaths of some of Iran’s high­est-rank­ing rev­o­lu­tion­ary mil­i­tary guards.

Bar­dov said it was still be­ing con­sid­ered by Is­rael’s war cab­i­net as the coun­try is col­lab­o­rat­ing with Arab states that are afraid of Iran.

“We are con­sult­ing the in­ter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty, al­lies, the Biden ad­min­is­tra­tion, but al­so coun­tries in the re­gion, Arab coun­tries who are very afraid of Iran and what Iran is ca­pa­ble of do­ing, he said.

“If it wasn’t for Is­rael’s ca­pa­bil­i­ties to­geth­er with a re­gion­al coali­tion that man­aged to pre­vent the ma­jor­i­ty, nine­ty-nine per cent, of the pro­jec­tiles that were launched against Is­rael, we would’ve seen a very dif­fer­ent re­sult.

“Re­mem­ber this is the Mid­dle East. The law some­times is dif­fer­ent. If Iran sees no re­ac­tion to what it did, this might en­cour­age them to do it again, maybe in a big­ger way and we have to do every­thing we can to make sure this does not hap­pen be­cause if it does an es­ca­la­tion to the sit­u­a­tion will be so quick and so big, it will have glob­al, not just re­gion­al, ram­i­fi­ca­tions.” he said.