[Peace-discuss] Mazin Qumsiyeh in Palestine

[Morton K. Brussel]

Mazin, who visited this community a few years ago continues to fight  
for peace and justice. He is now living in the Land of Canaan.
Here are his reflections.   --mkb

Begin forwarded message:

> From: Mazin Qumsiyeh <qumsi001 at hotmail.com>
> Date: August 31, 2008 4:05:30 PM CDT
> To: "wheelsofjustice at lists.riseup.net"  
> <wheelsofjustice at lists.riseup.net>
> Subject: [HumanRights] Peace cycle reports and more
>
> Dear friends:
>
> Sometimes words are like the cage in which ideas live but cannot  
> really be truly free (Kahlil Gibran).  We struggle to describe the  
> Orwellian reality we live in.  In this land, a new colonial settler  
> from Russia or Poland or America can roam free, get all sorts of  
> financial gifts (from US and other taxpayers) and settle on land  
> stolen from people whose ancestors farmed it and cared for it for  
> 4000 years.  The natives, considered children of a lesser God, are  
> removed from their lands, live in nearby countries in refugee camps  
> or live in shrinking concentration camps in their own homeland.   
> Where else do we have a nation still being built on the destruction  
> of other peoples villages, lives, and livelihood?  Where else does  
> a 19 year old white racist able to get away with insulting and  
> degrading hundreds of dark skinned "others" in words and deeds that  
> evoke KKK and White Afrikaaner racism? This Orwellian disease is  
> not confined to Palestine.  It has infected discourses from Iraq to  
> the US. How else to explain denying an ex-president (Carter) the  
> podium at his own party convention for speaking the truth? How else  
> can one explain Vice Presidential Candidate Joe Biden saying he is  
> a Zionist and joining with others regularly to condemn the victims  
> and support racism? How else can we explain the billions of US tax  
> money spent on a country that has the largest number of violations  
> of UN resolutions and provisions of International and humanitarian  
> laws? Indeed how to explain a superpower being stripped of its  
> dignity and its wealth and its reputation around the world by a  
> domestic lobby working for a foreign country to push for endless  
> wars "on terror" when they are the ones perpetrating the the worst  
> terror on earth?
>
> Ofcourse we could spend (waste) time exploring the problems but we  
> must focus on the solutions.  Focusing on solutions is what so many  
> people here in Palestine (including Palestinians, Israelis, and  
> others) do.  In 2001 when the current uprising started, I started  
> compiling data for a book envisioning peaceful future based on  
> justice and human rights for all.  Published in 2004 and other  
> books like it published since that speak of coexistance and  
> equality in one democratic state resonated well.  Every day, more  
> people are convinced that there is simply no other pathway to a  
> durable peace.  Just in the past few days I interacted with  
> hundreds of fellow Palestinians (Christians and Muslims), with  
> visiting internationals, and with some Israeli Jews who continue to  
> cross the foolish walls and other borders that separate us.  All  
> the facts and opinions offered lead in that general direction. This  
> is painfully obvious from conversations with people in Gaza,  
> environmentalists, students at Bethlehem university, professors and  
> laborers, doctors and beggars, and those in all walks of life  
> here.  So I think it is time to shed the illusions that some have  
> had in the past that an "us here, them there" solution is possible.  
> The racist laws in this apartheid state are simply not sustainable  
> long term.  Peace cannot be built on injustice; restorative justice  
> is a prerequisite for peace.
>
> And people of good faith keep working.  A group of Europeans rode  
> their bikes around the occupied West Bank in the past few weeks.   
> You might want to check out their reports here.
>
> But here is an Action item for the week: 395 individuals signed the  
> petition for protection of Academic freedom in the case of Dr.  
> Terri Ginsberg at North Carolina State University.  Please read and  
> sign it so we can reach 1000 signatures and submit soon to the  
> authorities
> http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/Protect-Academic-Freedom
>
> Mazin Qumsiyeh, PhD
> http://qumsiyeh.org
>
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