{"id":13181,"date":"2010-04-12T04:15:41","date_gmt":"2010-04-12T10:15:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/?p=13181"},"modified":"2010-04-12T04:15:41","modified_gmt":"2010-04-12T10:15:41","slug":"mazin-qumsiyeh-southern-europe-and-popular-resistance-to-apartheid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/?p=13181","title":{"rendered":"Mazin Qumsiyeh: Southern Europe and popular resistance to apartheid"},"content":{"rendered":"

Note: I am available this summer from June 26-July 10 for talks in Southern Europe especially on issues of popular resistance to Israeli apartheid and direct stories from under the colonial occupation. Invitations to speak to groups, universities, and conferences would be considered depending on the tour schedule and first contacts receiving first priorities.\u00a0 For a biography, see http:\/\/www.qumsiyeh.org\/aboutqumsiyeh\/<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

We had a meaningful event commemorating Deir Yassin massacre in Beit Sahour on Friday even as the Israeli regime holds memorials at Yad Vashem overlooking the village ruins and ignoring the injustice of building a state on the ruins of another people’s lands.\u00a0 We had a good trip to Birzeit and Ramallah Saturday (and a talk by the mayor of Bethlehem Saturday night) and participated in more actions on Sunday. Representing the popular committee against the wall and settlements in Beit Sahour, we joined with our friends in Beit Jala, a town which lost nearly half its land to Israeli Jewish-only colonial settlements over the past four decades.\u00a0 Now town residents are prevented from getting to additional areas near the apartheid walls and bypass roads (all to serve illegal Jewish colonies on Palestinian land).\u00a0 The weekly Sunday demonstration proceeded as expected: soldiers stretching barbed wire across the road, activists speaking to those present (including soldiers) in Arabic, English, and Hebrew.\u00a0 There was a poignant moment when a young German girl tried to speak to a soldier who even refused to look her in the eye.<\/p>\n

We then drove to Hebron to show a visiting teacher from Denver what it is like to have 400 racist settlers ruin life for 150,000 Palestinians.\u00a0 The settlers took over some buildings, built a few other sites and make life in this largest Palestinian city hell for its inhabitants (Hebron is largest now because cities like Nazareth, Jerusalem, and Jaffa have had much of their Palestinian population ethnically cleansed).\u00a0 On the way to Hebron we stopped by to visit our friend Musa Abu Maria in Beit Ummar only to be told by his family that he was arrested the day before by the Israeli occupation authorities.\u00a0 He was arrested while helping farmers in their land where settlers repeatedly uprooted trees.<\/p>\n

I am trying to get a steadier hand and better editing for youtube videos of these things.\u00a0 Below is my latest attempt which I end by a more mundane segment showing poor children who we took to a park ( they have not been to a park for 2 years). We had Knaffa (Palestinian dessert) with those children at that time but did not have the camera then so I show what Knaffa looks like in Bethlehem with our small group that visited Hebron earlier. Awad Abu Swai, spokesman of the Popular Campaign against the wall and settlements is visible. Anyway, here is the video<\/p>\n