Press TV has conducted an interview with Paul Larudee, co-founder of the Free Palestine Movement from Berkeley, to get his take on the surge of mass arrests of the Palestinians by the Israeli regime.

The following is a rough transcription of the interview.

Press TV: These mass arrests in the occupied West Bank have been taking place for a while now and tensions continue to simmer there. How do you interpret the course of events over the past few months?

Larudee: Well, I think Israel is actually provoking a mass insurrection and Intifada among the Palestinians. They’re looking for it, because it gives them the opportunity to make things much worse for Palestinians. Though never think that we’ve reached the point where things cant’ get worse. It can always get worse and Israel is determined to make it worse. It wants to make the Palestinians disappear. So, I think its purpose is to make as much trouble as possible and then basically to demolish houses, imprison more people and separate families and cause general disaster to the extent that it can.

Press TV: Apart from just the inhumanity of it all, this is going to be bad PR for Israel or isn’t it?

Larudee: Israel doesn’t care for PR. You can say all the bad things you want to about Israel. They don’t care for words. They don’t care for international condemnation. They don’t care for resolutions from the United Nations that call on Israel to respect international law and human rights and all this sort of things. They don’t care for any of that. If that’s all the international community is going to do, no, no, go right ahead with their plans.

Press TV: Right now at the UN General Assembly, we did hear Mahmoud Abbas also threatening to scrap the Oslo Accords at least that’s how many have interpreted it. I see you’re rolling your eyes there, go ahead.

Larudee: Mahmoud Abbas said that he was scrapping the Oslo accords that he was withdrawing from the Oslo Accords. But the Oslo Accords set up the Palestinian Authority; therefore, if Mahmud Abbas is withdrawing from the Oslo accords, it means that he’s dissolving the Palestinian Authority. Do you see the Palestinian Authority being dissolved? I don’t.