September 21
Dr. Mazin Qumsiyeh, previous
faculty member at Duke and Yale Universities, now teaches and
does research at Bethlehem and Birzeit Universities. He is the
founder and director of the Palestine Museum of Natural
History and Institute for Biodiversity Research in occupied
Palestine. [This interview lasts the whole hour.]
Amid
Environmental Destruction, Qumsiyeh Sees Hope
I was very happy to have Mazin as a guest. He did a Zoom program for our local Mideast Crisis group, and spoke for an hour to about 50 people. We couldn't get our "Share Desktop" to work, so he couldn't use his Powerpoint program with the audience. But the result was an intimate and fascinating discussion of Israel's future and his part in it.
According to Mazin, the Holy Land has been invaded by many groups over the last several thousand years. Each group has tried to remake society in its own way, only to eventually fail and intermingle with the local population. And he predicts this will happen to Israelis and Palestinians as well.
The two other scenarios he discusses are overcoming the invaders (like in Vietnam and Algeria), or actual genocide (like in the New World). But he has hopes that perpetual resistance will eventually end the apartheid Jewish state, and restore human rights.
It is the long view for sure. At times I think that Israel will in fact exterminate its 5 million Palestinians, and take all the land in the name of its violent theocracy. For Joel Kovel, the founder of Mideast Crisis and author of Overcoming Zionism the state of Israel is the second catastrophe of the Holocaust: the destruction of two thousand years of Jewish identity.
