this is for palestine, gaza, this is for the child that is searching. why do you think little boys are throwing stones at tanks and wel never really know how many people are dead? girls while they sleep in their bed, israel is a terror state, the terrorists that terrorize, i'll testify my television, televise, i'm telling lies, how many more resolutions have to be violated, how many more children have to be annihilated, this is not a war, it is systematic genocide, for whatever they try, palestine will never die free palestine, hello, i'm chris williamson

and you're watching palestine declassified, broadcasting twice a week, we're the only tv show that's dedicated to investigating and exposing the israeli regime's global war against solidarity with the illegally occupied people of palestine. in today's show we'll be revealing the role of the diamond business in sustaining israel's economy, how it supports zionist extremists, its links to illegal settlements and the way in which it's bank rolling genocide in gaza. the tifrabo chakra has been. looking into the history of the diamond industry's links to designist entity and she filed this report. the diamond industry is vital to the israeli occupations economy. year-on-year, diamonds are israel's biggest export product. in fact, the zionist entity ranks in the top five countries in the world for diamond exports, despite israel not having a single diamond mine. so where does israel get its diamonds and how does this industry contribute to? in this possession.

the diamond industry in israel goes back to before the neckber in 1948. israeli diamond tycoons have long been involved in exploiting of resource rich african countries, extracting their rough diamonds in corrupt deals. the diamonds are then brought to the zionist entity where they are cut and polished before being sold to markets in europe, the united states, hong kong and beyond. dan gertler, who has become a billionaire through his deals in the congo, is one of the most... prolific and notorious israeli diamond tycoons. gertler comes from one of israel's long established diamond families. his grandfather, mache schnitzer, was a founding member and the first president of the israel diamond exchange in 1947. gertler first appeared in the congo in 1997, where he was able to gain a monopoly on the country's diamond industry through deal he made with congo's president at the time, lawrence cabilla. gertler gained the monopoly in exchange for providing to... $20 million to

cabila to help his war efforts during the second congo war. gurtler lost his monopoly in 2001 when lawrence cabilla was assassinated and his son joseph cabila assumed power. despite their friendship, the new congolese president was pressured to end gertler's monopoly. gurtler's company only paid $3 million out of the $20 million dollars that were promised and a 2001 un report concluded that gurtler's monopoly had encouraged smuggling. and resulted in a significant loss of tax revenue for the congo. however, the loss of the diamond monopoly was only a minor setback for gertler. the tycoon was able to make new arrangement where he could buy stones from congo's state-owned diamond miner, but gentler also began to expand his operations, taking advantage of congo's copper and cobalt industries, which are notorious for the use of child labor and other human rights abuses. at different times. gurtler has been

sanctioned by both the trump and biden administrations in the us because of corruption allegations. today gurtler holds ownership in two construction companies registered in canada called green park and green mount which have been used as fronts for the construction of illegal israeli settlements in the west bank. so, in addition to exploiting the congo to help build his own fortune as well as the israeli economy. gurtler is also directly associated with the expand. occupation of palestinian land in the west bank. joining me in the studio as usual is our residence expert david miller. david is academic and a former professor at bristol university and he's now a non-resident senior research fellow at the center of islam and global affairs at istanbul's am university. he's also a co-director of the lobby and watch dog spinwatch and he's a leading british scholarly critic of israel. i guess contributor today is kambali musabuli and i spoke to him earlier via skype. mari is a

leading political and cultural voice in the a democratic republic of congo, and he's been actively involved in campaigns and movements advocating for justice, peace and human rights in the region. his focus is on recognizing. and addressing systematic inequalities, historical injustices and human rights violations impact on vulnerable populations. welcome to the show. well, i started by asking kambali to give us a bit more detail about how dan gurtler became so close to the kabili family and why he was able to take control of so many of congo's natural resources. then gutler befrended a a person close. to the president of the congo, his son, joseph kabila, joseph kabila, laurent desire kabila who took power in 1996 uh was the president to tapotu uh regime, but when he took power, he had challenges, one

after the second war study in 1998, he had challenges in buying weapons, so through connections, his son was able to bring then gutler to the president villa and he facilitated the weapon cell, this is documented in one of the un reports, had gutler supported uh the kabila regime in purchasing weapons, but making the deal that gave him access really to power, i mean he's connected directly to the president and he was able to deliver uh on that, um, what gutler wanted was really the control of congo's diamond trade, that's something that his family is into. to and that's something he is also into, so he took control of the diamond trade around that time and then he moved to all the things such as um getting mining asset and so on, but that's really how um it connected to the cabila regime and how he was able to again access to the president

to control the diamond industry. david, how does the extraction of rough diamonds from african countries contribute to the economic prosperity of the diamond industry in israel? well, i mean, it's strange, isn't it, because you would think that there wouldn't be a large diamond industry in israel, because there are no diamond mines, but of course the diamonds come from africa mainly, uh, some other places too, but mainly from africa, and the they contribute by by the fact that the diamonds are taken from africa, they're expropriated if you like, and then they're cut and polished and preserved presented into the relevant jewels and stones for onward sale, and that's what gives them the... value to the economy of israel, and if the the diamonds were removed from the economy, then the economy would like the crash, and it's a very significant contributor to the stability, the economic stability of israel, so it's a, it's a real issue for them to

continue to exploit and expropriate these diamonds from african countries. well, i then asked kambali to elaborate on the role of corruption in the diamond trade between israel and... and african nations, particularly in the context of gerttle's dealings in the congo. he's really at the center of the dimen trade around the world. right, they control the damon trade from antwerp to tel aviv, and then he finds his way all around the world. so what israel is able to do is sanitize blood diamonds, but not only that, the proceeds of diamond cell, but those who are engaged in it, are supporting uh the illegal settlement. in palestine, now i'll use the example of dan gurtler for example, gertler has made billions of dollars in diamonds and other dealings in dlc, but the money that he has accumulated, he has invested into canadian uh companies, construction companies who are

building illegal settlement in the west bank, now that's been already documented, but how did he make his money, the diamond trade and all the money um operations that he's doing in drc, so israel pretty much sanitizes uh the illegal dealings across the african continent and some of the israelis were engage in this process such as david gutler uh getting accessed corrupt leaders and able to have corrupt deals as even documented with the us department of justice. david, how does gerttle's ownership of construction companies in canada tie into the expansion of illegal settlements in the west bank? these things. sound complicated, don't they, but - they were, he was using these companies his fronts for building settlements in in the west bank uh, and there was a big in in the palestinian village of bilin, and there was a big campaign against that, and pushback against that, it's not clear, this was in the the late 2000s, it's not clear if those that

building continues or if he is involved with other settlements and the reason it's not clear is because he has hundreds and hundreds of different companies and shell companies, he's named i think over 200 times in the panama papers. uh and it's not it's not clear where the money goes and and and what's what's been done with it, it it would seem likely because of the these the complexity of his and secrecy of his financial affairs that... he is still involved in the building settlements, but we don't know exactly uh where and how much. well, i then asked kamali, what, what, what sanction taken by the us administrations under trump and biden against gertler due to corruption allegations, and and what impact those sanctions had on his operations? it's been very fascinating watching this case, then got there was sanctions under the trump administration in 2017, uh, this was through... some of the secretary of treasury's office, some of the staffers there

who have been following what is happening and specifically around some of the mining deals um he has uh done in drc, what he does, he gets mines through corrupt dealings in dst and sells it a penny on the dollar on the international markets and then the money that he get from it he suffens it out to uh leaders. in drc, particularly the former president of the congo joseph cabila and the now decease advisor augustin katumba, now the us sanctioned under trump, but right before trump left power through some of his lawyers and contacts, gutler was successful at getting trump to remove him from the sanctions weeks days before he left power, and one of his lawyers is alan du people know him in the united states, but they don't even know that alan dushowitz was the lawyer for

den gutler dealing with donald trump, um, he was also donald trump's lawyer for his impeachment uh case, but after he was removed uh before trump left power, weeks after biden took power, we saw a shift where biden put back the sanctions against him, but lately as documented now in... african intelligence, there seems to be confusion within the us administration where they are trying to remove him from the sanctions, but the impact the sanctions is what, it stops him from having access to the us dollar, so his bank accounts are frozen, but he's able to circumvent that very easily, right? one of the companies that's allowing him to circumvent that is glencore, a swiss company, this swiss company provides cobalts to a us company called tesla that... uh electric vehicles, but the way he was documented by one of the human rights organization is that

um glencore specifically is making payment to him euros and not us dollars to be able to circumvent um the sanctions, but it's been added for a while and it's problematic that the us is actually thinking about removing the sanction on gutler, in principle i don't support the... the unilateral position of the us sanctioning countries whenever they choose to, but for the case of den gutler, congolase know what he has done to destroy our country, so we support the sanction, and we understand this is a fight amongst the elite and the western nations were trying to remove them, but it should not be allowed to continue uh to engage in the corrupt dealing in the air. david, we heard in latif's report uh that... has been sanctioned by the united states, but president trump lifted those sanctions at one

point, didn't he? what's the background to that? so trump uh, under trump, he was sanctioned and because because of his corruption, and puts me in mind really of the the corruption allegations against egal kolisky in ukraine where the similar sorts of allegations were made, and then what happened was that in the days of his his presidency, he trump pardoned him and then immidately after that there was a big backlash because he is evidently very corrupt and uh he was allowed a period before the the sanctions were reimposed by biden, there was a period where his money was unfrozen so we we don't know how much of the money was then extracted from the bank accounts but but when biden came in pretty sharpish he was sanctioned again uh because it's well recognized that this is a you know effectively this is mobster and so we have you again a situation where uh an israeli uh uh businessman is able

to help the israeli economy, even though his activities are regarded as being corrupt by the us, but nevertheless there are those forces in the us which will allow and uh and facilitate that kind of corruption. we're going to take pause now to watch our next report about some of the key players in the diamond industry. the global diamond industry is known for its various kingpins, one of them is lev leviyev who, like dan gertler is citizen of israel, however, unlike gertler, leviev was not born into one of israel's diamond families. in 1956, leviyev was born to poor jewish. family in uzbekistan and moved to israel when he was teenager. when he left school, he began an apprenticeship learning to cut and polish stones. leviev soon worked his way into the business of polishing rough diamonds. at that time, the the bear's cartel owned by the south african oppenheimer family, had a monopoly on diamond production. in fact, it was only with the

assistance of the bears that israel's diamond industry came into existence, but leviev was keen to break the bear's monopoly on the world diamond trade. by the 1990s head made successful moves in russia and angola, both of which have large diamond minds, sourcing rough diamonds directly and without interference from the bears. therefore, in addition to becoming billionaire through his activities, leviev was instrumental in bolstering israel's diamond industry, which has now become rival to the de bears cartel. leviyev has also used his personal wealth to fund the ultrazionist sect khabad lubovic. leviev and his family are firm supporters of habad and it has been reported that leviyev has personally donated tens of millions of dollars to the organization. khabad operates all over the world with over 500 offices and

it helps the lobby and fund raise on behalf of israel, including for the israel occupation forces, but lev support for fanatical zinanism doesn't end there. in 1996, levierv took control of the africa israel investments holding company, whose fiels included real estate and construction. one of its subsidiaries is deeply involved in the construction of illegal israeli settlements in the west bank. africa, israel also offers apartments and houses in settlements in the west bank through one of its franchises. the diamond trade is not only. intrimental to israel's economy and the expansion of its colonial settlements, but also to the zinanist armed forces. in 2010, israeli economist shere heaver said that the israeli diamond industry contributes about $1 billion dollars annually to the israeli military and security industries. he also said that every time someone buys a diamond

that was exported from israel, some of that money ends up in the israeli military. because of this... some campaigners have labeled israeli diamonds, blood diamonds and have called for them to be boycotted, we just in the film there that levy has linked to the ultra zianist zianist sect, habad, i mean just elaborate a little bit will you on his involvement, so habad is this uh historic sec, a sort of outreach version of of hysitic sex, and they have hundred different countries there. involved with uh over the world and they're ultionist, they used to be antisignist, we're going to cross on over now live and listen to the deputy chief of the hamas movement in gaza an interview, let's take a listen, ولكن عضو المكتب السياسي ونائب رئيس الحركه في غزه زياره الجمهوريه الاسلاميه في ايران تاتي في سياق حشد الدعم والتاييد

والنصره لشعبنا الفلسطيني وللمقاومه الفلسطينيه في غزه خاصه وان مواقف الجمهوريه الاسلاميه وحتى الان من قبل ومن بعد كانت مواقف مقدره وجيده ومسانده ان كان في الشق السياسي او في الشق الاسناد المباشر لشعبنا ولمقاومات تاتي هذه الزياره يعني مع اقتراب الشهر السادس الانتهاء للتباحث في تطورات طوفان الاقصى وتداعياته.

god preserve him and the president and the head of the shura council or the other leaders, there is follow up, there is interest to support the palestinian people and to help us as a resistance to liberate

palestine and to establish a palestinian state. about the situation, how do you evaluate? do you think that a truice could be reached or a prisoner swap deal? in light of the israeli stances from the right-wing government and from netanyahu specifically wants to prolong the war, and tens of those held capt by the resistance have been killed. in our estimation the israel still want to

prolong the confrontation and the international community have not reached the phase of obliging the israeli occupation to commit to the international resolutions after the most recent security council resolution whereby the council took a decision. to end the war immediately, specifically in ramadan, unfortunately the aggression increased, targeting these civilians, destroying the homes destroying homes over the heads of this people and displacing those who could reach from the north theself, and this is clearly significant that they don't pay any attention to the internal community nor to the security council though, this is new test for the international community in them obl. this fascist rogue government, the criminal government which revealed the ugly face of this israeli occupation, this occupation,

which for over 70 years was described as invincible army and the democratic army, they failed in this perspective, they are not humane or democratic, and the real criminal, colonialist nature, arrogat nature has been revealed, so for this reason i say not very optimistic, especially that we were very flexible for the sake of ending the aggression, the most recent round of negotiations, which ended about two days ago, the hamas movement in the middle of march submitted vision which was based on the consultations and the contacts and also with the mediators, specifically qatar and egypt and we submitted a clear approach which was based on our demands as people and resistance to end that this aggression, this is really aggression and the war and which will be declared in israel committed to it. number two, israel with drawing from all areas in the gazza strip, even if it was a phase

withdrawal. number three, the return of the palestinian inhabitants who were forced by the occupation to be displaced from the north to the south for them to return unconditionally and increasing the aid and the emergency assistance in a way which meets the needs. it's very unfortunate, sorry. where is the flexibility when you talk about these demands? these demands were made by the movement ever since day one of the aggression on gaza, now when the hamas movement says that it is showing flexibility, we understand from this that it is maybe backing down from some of the red lines which had set at the beginning of this aggression, but some say that the hamas movement is sticking to its demands and some of these demands are unrealistic. i say first of all that the stance of the movement since the beginning of last december after the end of the first truth which lasted for one week is that we

would not sit down on indirect table of negotiations except if and if there was an end to the aggression then we'll talk about prisoner swaps and other issues and this remainder stands for a long time mediators intervened and they spoke to us and we showed posibility in accepting talks which would lead to a cease fire and the mediators said that the occupations cannot accept the word ceasefire and everything exchange for everything we said okay if that's it we say a return to the calm a restoration of calm to the gaz strip like the situation which existed before the storm we didn't say everything. exchange for everything, we had put a certain equation, every israeli prisoner in exchange for the palestinian prisoners, "this is a long process and the

americans want to cease fire and the israelis express their approval inform countries that it wanted the cease fire but in phases, one month and then one month and then a longer period, and we showed flexibility in this regard, we said we had these four demands, when they said that your demands regarding the prisoners, when they said this demand is a large demand, and it was even said that the swap is a way to reach." " an agreement, so we did this for the sake of our people, you're telling the occupies to leave, what so big about this? the occupation which force the palestinians, half of the inhabitants of gazah city and north 1 million 200 thous, 600 thousand will forced to leave to the south, you're telling them to leave, so what's so big about this, and finally the aim of these talks is a ceasefire. are talking about a

cease fire in the second phase, meaning after 42 days in the first phase whereby we would have agreed to the requirements or the conditions that we announced in the second phase before the prisoner swap, where is the stone stats? we made, we gave great confessions concessions, sorry when it comes to the prisoners, we had requested all of them, all prisoners to be free, in exchange for every soldier 500 prisoners. in order to facilitate the process we said 50 in exchange for one prisoner liberated from the israeli prisons and also in exchange for 30 who have been given the judgment of lifetime sentence and the others who have the long timeime sentence where is it 1,148 in exchange so?

with this flexibility the israeli government behaved an extreme way, why? because it seems that netanyahu doesn't care for the issue of the prisoners, the israeli government cares about reoccupying the gaza strip, the israelis reject the displace from returning so that the strip, the central part of the gaz strip would remain a buffer zone, they want to keep buffer zone in the east and this this is the situation on the ground, but the what they're referring to that they want to occupy 25 to 30% of the territories of gazza once again, so for this reason the israeli occupation wants to prolong the battle, it doesn't want to end the war for a simple reason which...