Israeli Apartheid Week

This week, March 7-10, we have hosted Israeli Apartheid Week on campus, raising awareness of the systematic discrimination against Palestinians both in the Occupied Palestinian Territories as well as in Israel. We have much to celebrate!

Tonight, Dr. Mazin Qumsiyeh, biologist and Palestinian human rights activist came to U of L and gave a presentation on popular resistance in Palestine, nonviolent resistance, by far the most prevalent form of resistance by Palestinians against the brutal Israeli military occupation and Apartheid. Dr. Qumsiyeh's lecture talked briefly about Zionism and its colonial movements into Palestine. Qumsiyeh emphasized that Zionism was built on the destruction of another people, the Palestinians who were ethnically cleansed from 531 villages by the creation of the state of Israel in 1948.

Dr. Qumsiyeh's talk reiterated the necessity to take action to bring about change and cited apathy as a huge problem worldwide. Qumsiyeh said that we cannot separate our fate from that of the Palestinians or that of the Iraqis or anyone else in this world, because our actions directly affect us all and the injustices we help perpetrate through our apathy or ignorance can only hurt ourselves. Qumsiyeh cited the 3 trillion dollars spent on the war in Iraq as damaging to the American people and our economy. His speech echoed the spirit of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. who said that "injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."

He talked at length about Al-Walaja, a village that has been moved to smaller and smaller areas of land after confiscation by the Israeli government, who has recently placed the trajectory of the separation barrier between Palestinian homes and the land owned by these Palestinians with the idea that the Israeli government wants more "geography without demography," The idea that they want more land to be annexed on the Israeli side of the wall but without the people who live on this land. Dr. Qumsiyeh also mentioned Al-Arakib, a village in the Israeli Negev where the homes of Palestinian citizens of Israel have been destroyed a total of 21 times according to Mondoweiss.net; each time the village engages in nonviolent resistance through rebuilding their homes and refusing to leave their land.

Dr. Qumsiyeh stated his firm belief that both religion and the state should be kept separate and that he saw exclusivity in both the ideology of Zionism and that of Hamas, although he saw room for both at the table of pluralistic secular democracy.

Qumsiyeh's question and answer period yielded some awkward questions, many of which were more statement based. One statement was made by an audience member claiming that Israel was run by "psychopaths" and that it was necessary to humiliate them because of their lunacy. Qumsiyeh disagreed with this, saying that we should not humiliate oppressors but rather allow them to recognize the own humiliation they do to themselves through the injustices they commit so that they can be corrected. Qumsiyeh found strength in the fact that ardent Zionists have questioned and changed their views once they have seen the realities of what Zionism has done to Palestinians.

Dr. Qumsiyeh's presentation was an enlightening way to end four days of events as part of our Apartheid Week campaign. His new book, Popular Resistance in Palestine: A History of Hope and Empowerment is available for sale and is an amazing read for anyone interested in a historical and present look at the Palestinian Struggle for Human Rights, equality, justice, and peace. There were several other great events this week! Monday we screened the documentary Occupation 101 to a small crowd but one that seemed deeply moved by the film. We started three days of very successful tabling in front of the Humanities Building, passing out information on Israeli Apartheid, and promoting the Jewish Voice for Peace petition for TIAA-CREF to divest from occupation related companies.

Louisville Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) was extremely helpful with and supportive of our Apartheid Week activities. On Tuesday we held a JVP meeting in Ekstrom library in which professor Avery Kolers and film-maker and poet Sonja de Vries addressed a crowd of students interested in JVP.

Wednesday was the last day of tabling and included a read-in outside of the humanities building where we read aloud for a few hours from "Letters from Palestine: Palestinians Speak Out about Their Lives, Their Country, and the Power of Nonviolence." This is an extremely powerful book of narratives by Palestinians of all walks of life (refugees, those who live in the OPT and those who live in Israel). on Wednesday night there was a showing of Refuseniks, a movie about Israelis who refuse to serve in the Israeli military in some capacity, whether all together or not in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Her documentary is composed of the voices of Israeli conscientious objectors and their compelling appeal for human dignity rarely heard in mainstream media; the narratives of Israelis who refuse to participate in the crimes of their government. De Vries, the director and producer of the film, was there to discuss her film with the audience and took questions after its showing.

Many thanks go to all of the people who put a tremendous amount of effort into making these events possible. Special thanks to Sonja de Vries, Louisville Jewish Voice for Peace, the Louisville Committee for Peace in the Middle East, and Mazin Qumsiyeh and his wife.