{"id":71638,"date":"2016-04-11T12:00:35","date_gmt":"2016-04-11T11:00:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=71638"},"modified":"2016-04-07T16:22:51","modified_gmt":"2016-04-07T15:22:51","slug":"one-humanity-one-state-an-interview-with-mazin-qumsiyeh","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2016\/04\/one-humanity-one-state-an-interview-with-mazin-qumsiyeh\/","title":{"rendered":"One Humanity, One State: An Interview With Mazin Qumsiyeh"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n
On Sunday, December 20, 2015, the WAMM Middle East Committee sponsored a Skype session with Palestinian biologist and activist Mazin Qumsiyeh \u201clive from Bethlehem\u201d (actually the town of Beit Sahour, which is adjacent to Bethlehem). The session featured a talk by Qumsiyeh, after which he answered questions posed by the audience. In addition to teaching at two major Palestinian universities, Qumsiyeh directs a clinical cytogenetics laboratory, the Palestine Museum of Natural History, and the Institute for Biodiversity Research. A U.S. citizen, Qumsiyeh has also taught at Duke University and Yale University. Like others such as Israeli historian Ilan Pappe (see WAMM newsletter, Summer I 2015 [vol. 33, no. 3]), Qumsiyeh advocates the creation of one democratic state for all residents instead of the current exclusive, apartheid state in which Israelis and Palestinians are separated, with the former ruling over the latter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
<\/td>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
<\/td>\n\n

<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Qumsiyeh analyzed the regional and international context of the Palestinian-Israeli situation as orchestrated by \u201can elite group of people who are promoting conflicts to benefit themselves\u201d financially. For example, weapons exports from Britain to the Middle East are disproportionately high compared to exports to other areas of the world. Saudi Arabia spends money on weapons that could and should be used to alleviate the extreme hunger from which parts of its population suffer. Globally, governments want to distract us with \u201cpetty conflicts\u201d while the global disparity between rich and poor accelerates. The West functions as the driving force behind this dynamic.(1) In 1916, Britain and France signed the Sykes-Picot Agreement to divide up the Middle East\u2014which was then still part of the Ottoman Empire\u2014into countries assigned to one of the two powers as \u201cmandates.\u201d In 1917, a statement by then-French Foreign Minister Jules Cambon and the British Balfour Declaration committed France and England to the creation of a sectarian Jewish state in Palestine, where most of the population was Muslim, with a minority of Christians and a smaller minority of Jews. All of these measures were destined to produce \u201cdivisions and mayhem and discomfort\u201d and conflict, in addition to masses of refugees, as we see now too. In 1947, U.S. President Truman\u2019s advisors clearly foresaw the negative consequences of endorsing a Jewish state, but they were overruled by political considerations.<\/p>\n

Speaking five days before December 25, 2015, Qumsiyeh described how Muslims and Christians in the Bethlehem area celebrate the birth of Jesus together (for Muslims, Jesus is a \u201cvenerated prophet\u201d). But, he added, \u201cWe haven\u2019t had a real Christmas here for many decades because…the Israeli occupation has made it impossible for Palestinians to have a normal Christmas\u201d in the land where Jesus was born. The majority of Christian and Muslim Palestinians on the West Bank may not enter Jerusalem and therefore are prevented from worshiping at their holiest places (more on the Al-Aqsa Mosque lare in this article).<\/p>\n

While increasingly relegated to \u201csmaller and smaller shrinking ghettos\u201d (like reservations for American Indians), Palestinians in the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) have also been increasingly \u201csurrounded by walls and other barriers and checkpoints.\u201d The 180,000 people of Bethlehem are confined to 13 percent of the Bethlehem district. Palestinian towns are \u201cwarehouses\u2026to store unwanted people.\u201d Given the oppressive conditions under which they live, the level of Palestinian active resistance is remarkably low compared to that of other peoples in analogous situations of colonial oppression. Nevertheless, there is a history of Palestinian uprisings since the Ottoman period. The wave of active resistance that began on October 1, 2015, is about the 15th such uprising and \u201chopefully the last\u201d [if the goal of ending the Israeli occupation and with it the oppression of Palestinians is achieved]. By December 20, 128 Palestinians had been killed by the Israeli military; 25 of these were children, and six were women. 14,740 Palestinians were injured.(2)<\/p>\n

Despite the steady stream of casualties, Qumsiyeh referred with pride to Palestinian \u201cresilience on our land,\u201d which has in reality defeated the \u201cZionist project\u201d of establishing an exclusive Jewish state\u2014originally envisioned to encompass all the territory \u201cbetween the Nile and the Euphrates,\u201d but subsequently reduced to include only \u201cparts of Lebanon, the Golan Heights, parts of Jordan, parts of the Sinai, and parts of Saudi Arabia.\u201d [The latter, \u201cscaled back\u201d project was depicted on a map presented by the World Zionist Organization to the 1919 Paris Peace Conference.] Zionist leader David Ben Gurion\u2019s complementary \u201cplan of the 1920s\u201d has been implemented ever since: pretend to seek peace by talking endlessly and deceptively about a \u201ctwo-state solution,\u201d which is Zionist-Israeli propaganda.(3) Contrary to this plan, the Zionist project (like that of the Crusaders and other exclusivist groups) has \u201cfailed miserably.\u201d The only \u201cwin-win\u201d option is a \u201cstate for all its people based on human rights and justice\u201d\u2014coexistence instead of nonexistence, equality instead of apartheid.<\/p>\n

Qumsiyeh concluded his talk by encouraging activism to counteract despair, using himself as an example: without his own professional work at Bethlehem and Birzeit Universities and his own political activism, \u201cI would be in a mental institution.\u201d<\/p>\n

Two Sources of the Current Uprising<\/strong><\/p>\n

The interactive session after Qumsiyeh\u2019s talk began with a question about the Israeli government\u2019s intentions regarding the Al Aqsa Mosque, located in occupied East Jerusalem\u2019s Haram al-Sharif (\u201cNoble Sanctuary,\u201d otherwise known as the Temple Mount). Qumsiyeh reminded the audience that the Al Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock and the Western Wall compose a Muslim sanctuary, as has been recognized and observed for centuries. Under the Israeli occupation, however, that status is threatened with the possibility of Israel (illegally) dividing the Al Aqsa Mosque both \u201ctemporally and spatially\u201d between Muslims and Jews, as it has done with the Ibrahimi Mosque in the Palestinian town of Hebron on the West Bank. The current Palestinian uprising was triggered by two incidents in late July of last year\u2014extremist Jewish settlers entering the Al Aqsa Mosque [Israeli forces fired stun gun grenades and rubber-coated steel bullets at Muslim worshipers to clear the way for them], and the firebomb attack with Molotov cocktails perpetrated by Jewish settlers on the home of the Dawabshe family, resulting in the death of both parents and their infant child.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
<\/td>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
\n

<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
<\/td>\n <\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

The Specter of Religious War<\/strong><\/p>\n

Israel\u2019s alleged designs on the Al Aqsa Mosque suggest a larger Israeli agenda of provoking a \u201creligious war\u201d with Muslims, according to Qumsiyeh, an agenda that is being advanced by the Israel lobby, and could be linked to anti-Muslim rhetoric. This falls in line with former Harvard professor (now deceased) Samuel Huntington\u2019s \u201cnonsense\u201d about the \u201cclash of civilizations.\u201d<\/p>\n

Instead, Qumsiyeh maintains, \u201cWe\u2019re all one human civilization.\u201d However, clashing and conflicts serve the interests of the elites who profit from war. Israel pushed the U.S. to wage war on Iraq in 2003, which in Qumsiyeh\u2019s view is why that war happened; it was not about oil, as can be demonstrated. Neoconservative Zionists wanted regime change in Iraq in order to weaken the country in favor of Israeli regional hegemony. Likewise, \u201cthe struggle for Palestine is the struggle in Syria now.\u201d \u201cGetting people to kill each other\u201d is the intention of U.S. policy in the Middle East; it is \u201cnot about bringing peace and justice\u2026or about advancing democracy.\u201d Witness U.S. allies Saudi Arabia and Israel, which \u201care allowed to violate human rights on a daily basis\u201d\u2014both countries in violation of international law: Saudi Arabia against its own people and the people of Yemen, Israel against the Palestinians [and against Israeli human rights organizations].<\/p>\n

Is the Palestinian Authority on the Verge of Collapse?<\/strong><\/p>\n

In answer to the question of whether the Palestinian Authority [the Palestinian self-governing body rooted in the Oslo Accords of 1993 and recognized by Israel; it is currently led by Mahmoud Abbas] will soon collapse, Qumsiyeh replied that, as long as the PA continues to serve as \u201csubcontractors for the Israeli occupation,\u201d Israel and the U.S. will not allow it to collapse. The PA supposedly \u201crepresents the prisoners\u201d while it fulfills \u201cthe wishes of the prison guards\u201d (meaning the Israeli government). Yet he foresees that the current uprising led by Palestinian youth will \u201covercome and bypass\u2026the anachronistic system that was created by Oslo.\u201d(4)<\/p>\n

Only a single democratic state will promote \u201chuman rights and\u2026reconciliation and justice\u201d; there is no other way. You cannot make 78 percent of historic Palestine off-limits to Palestinian refugees (or their descendants) who were ethnically cleansed from their homes and have been granted the right of return under international law. You cannot divide \u201csuch a small piece of land\u2026into two countries.\u201d Furthermore, there is no historical example anywhere in the world of a \u201ccolonial\/anti-colonial struggle\u201d concluding with a \u201ctwo-state solution.\u201d Only three outcomes of such a struggle have ever occurred: (a) the natives are minimized and put on reservations, as in Australia and the U.S.; (b) the colonizers are thrown out by the natives, as in Algeria; or (c) a system of \u201ccoexistence and equality\u201d is worked out, as in South Africa. The model to emulate is (c).<\/p>\n

The Demolition of Palestinian Homes<\/strong><\/p>\n

In answer to a question about the Israeli demolition of Palestinian homes, Qumsiyeh named the British Zionist Herbert Samuel, appointed the first high commissioner of Palestine by Britain in 1920, as the first political figure to use house demolitions as a means of demoralizing and collectively punishing the Palestinians in response to \u201cuprisings or\u2026disturbances.\u201d Samuel magnified the policy of house demolitions to the level of removing whole Palestinian villages, which culminated in 1947-1949 with the Zionist-Israeli destruction and complete ethnic cleansing of \u201c530 Palestinian villages and towns,\u201d hence \u201ctens of thousands of homes.\u201d The policy of house demolitions has been practiced ever since by Israel \u201cbecause it is a natural and intrinsic part of the colonial ideology.\u201d Why? In order to confiscate their land, \u201cyou have to remove the native people from their property,\u201d and this \u201chas to be done with violence\u2026using whatever excuse.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Colonization and Liberation of Minds<\/strong><\/p>\n

Regarding the Israeli campaign \u201cto drive the Palestinians crazy,\u201d Qumsiyeh quoted black South African anti-apartheid revolutionary Steve Biko, who identified \u201cthe best weapon in the hands of the oppressor\u201d as \u201cthe minds of the oppressed.\u201d Palestinian minds are colonized if they are brainwashed into hating Jews or, as a consequence of being tormented at checkpoints, into regarding themselves as living without hope, powerless, meaningless, subhuman, enslaved, and inferior to their Israeli overlords, who \u201chave the intellect\u201d and \u201chave the weapons.\u201d But if Palestinians resist this mental colonization and liberate their minds, they can change their situation and the situation of the colonizers. In doing so, they follow the guidance of the Quran, which teaches the unity of humanity.(5)<\/p>\n

Endnotes:<\/strong><\/p>\n

1. Not part of the talk, but in November of last year the U.S. State Department approved $1.29 billion in arms sales to Saudi Arabia. Human rights groups objected to such U.S. weapons sales, as well as those of the UK, because they resulted in indiscriminate bombings, high civilian casualties, and destruction of infrastructure.
\n2. \u201cList of Palestinians Killed between Oct. 1 and Dec. 18.\u201d December 19, 2015. International Middle East Media Center. imemc.org. The names and ages of the victims are listed, a substantial number of whom are teenagers.
\n3. Ben-Gurion formed the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) in 1948. Known as “Israel’s founding father,\u201d he became the first prime minister.
\n4. The Oslo Accords of 1993 and 1995 designated an official interim representation of the Palestinian people with Israel. The Oslo Process was supposed to produce a peace treaty between Israel and Palestine.
\n5. See, for example, Quran 49:13, which begins, \u201cPeople, We created you all from a single man and a single woman…\u201d Text as translated by M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, in The Qur\u2019an: A New Translation. Oxford University Press, 2004.
\n____________________________<\/p>\n

Liza Burr is a member of the WAMM Middle East Committee. She earned a Ph.D. in the Study of Religion from Harvard University, and has taught at several universities in the Twin Cities, in addition to other activities. Her most recent course was \u201cJustice, War, and Peace in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam,\u201d offered at Metropolitan State University. She has visited Israel\/Palestine periodically since 1970.<\/em><\/p>\n

Prof. Mazin Qumsiyeh is a member of the <\/em>TRANSCEND Network for Peace, Development and Environment<\/a>,<\/em> author of <\/em>Sharing the Land of Canaan and <\/em>Popular Resistance in Palestine. He is a professor at Bethlehem University and director of the Palestine Museum of Natural History in <\/em>Bethlehem.<\/em> http:\/\/palestinenature.org<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\u00a9 2016 Women Against Military Madness. All rights reserved<\/em><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Go to Original \u2013 womenagainstmilitarymadnes.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Qumsiyeh analyzed the regional and international context of the Palestinian-Israeli situation as orchestrated by \u201can elite group of people who are promoting conflicts to benefit themselves\u201d financially. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-71638","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-transcend-members"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71638","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71638"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71638\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71638"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71638"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71638"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}