July 29, 2007
It is difficult to put into words our experiences since I wrote last and sent any emails in over 8 days. Our visits to Hebron, Ramallah, Jenin, Aida Refugee camp and much more. Over 10 meetings with international delegations (inc luding talks I gave to a number of these delegations). So many inspiring stories and so many sad stories. But how can I describe the Jenin general hospital which had a neonatal intensive care unit in which they had to put two premature babies in one incubater due to lack of enough incubator. In which the pediatric ward was overflowing with children and their mothers. A hospital that had three ambulances at one time, two were bombed by the Israeli occupation forces, and the third was involved in a car accident and so now there are no ambulance for a hospital serving 350,000 people. How can one describe the situations of the villages of Tayba, Romana, and Salem in the northern West Bank. How can we talk about the 20 year old killed in Bethlehem while we were here. The military jeep that threatened us as we were filming on the apartheid wall while locals explained how they were forced to relocate graves of their relative. How can one describe any of our experiences. I urge everyone receiving this message to take time come to visit Palestine and spend as much as possible. Nothing can replace that. In the next few weeks, I will try to put up some videos on Youtube to relay some of the experiences. A couple of videos with relevant material are linked below. But in the meantime, please take a few minutes (if you are in the US or a US citizen living abroad) to contact congress and demand they reject both the military sales to subservient Arab regimes AND the increases in military grants to Israel (free weapons given for racist wars). Israel's military aid is to increase from $2.4 billion to $3 billion annually for the next ten years (a total cost to us taxpayers of $300 billion in addition to other aid). Contacts of your representatives
Boycott apartheid Israel--- Free Palestine
Bil'in Demonstration and follow-up hospital interview of injured Palestinian - video
Palestinian Summer Celebration videos so far:
video 2 (via Dolorossa, religious)
A Lost Opportunity? The Palestinian Left, by RAMZY BAROUD (Counterpunch)
Jerry Kroth: "Democratic Defectors and the Israel Lobby" (Palestine Chronicle)
Curiously, all of the traitor democrats were huge career recipients of funds from the Israeli lobby. If we took ten Democratic apostates and compared them to ten Democrats who stood by the voters, pro-Israeli PAC contributions were "ten times" greater for the turncoats than those who stayed with their constituencies ($322,000 versus $34,000 on average)."
Action:
Vote in support of boycott of Israeli academic boycotts. My reason as stated when I voted was: "Israeli universities are built and prospered partly by the suffering of the Palestinians and the ethnic cleansing that took place.Tel Aviv University for example is partly built on Palestinian village lands. Not one of these institutions showed any element of recognition let alone remorse or attempt at restorative justice. On the contrary these institutions aid and abett the occupation and further colonization of Palestine including the apartheid wall and apartheid system.
Mazin Qumsiyeh, PhD, Fellow of the American Board of Medical Genetics"
20 years of the assassination of Palestinian political cartoonist Naji Al Ali (BBC)
Documentary movies about Palestinian history in Arabic (good especially for children) - Palestine Remembered
The Apostate: A Zionist politician loses faith in the future.
Mazin Qumsiyeh
http://www.qumsiyeh.org