File:TWIP - 2007-04-08 Interview of Renowned Activist Dr Nancy Murray.vorb.oga

We ask our listeners: were you involved last week in the Israel-Palestine peace movement and the Palestinians' struggle for freedom from Israel's brutal military occupation of their land? Did you speak out on the atrocities being committed by Israel in Gaza and the West Bank? If not, why not?

There are many ways by which you could get involved. Here are ten examples:

1. you could join the Boston Coalition for Palestinian Rights by calling (617) 491-2313.
2. you could join the Middle East Crisis Coalition by writing to: crisismiddleeast@yahoo.com.
3. you could join the Israel-Palestine Task Force of United for Justice with Peace by writing to: ujpiptaskforce@yahoo.com.
4. if you are Jewish and prefer to join a Jewish group, there is the Boston Chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace which you can contact either by calling (617) 984-0532 or by visiting its website at www.vopj.org;
5. you could go to Palestine and help with the olive harvest or help Palestinians live their daily lives under occupation by contacting the group Boston to Palestine at its website: www.bostontopalestine.org;
6. you could work with the International Women's Peace Service in Palestine by applying to www.iwps-pal.org;
7. You could go to Palestine under the Birthright Unplugged program or,
8. under the "Needle in the Groove" program by applying respectively at www.birthrightunplugged.org and www.needleinthegroove.org;
9. You could go to Palestine and see what life is really like in a Palestinian Refugee camp by going to the Aida Refugee Camp and participating in its two week-long Sixth International Work Camp from August 2 to August 16. Applications can be obtained by writing to helenp149@yahoo.com; and
10. You could join Bethlehem's Siraj Center's two month-long "Palestinian Summer Celebration 2007" program. To register for the program or get more information, please visit the website: sirajcenter.org/courses.htm.

It is Sunday, April 8, 2007. We begin with two event announcements:

Four teenagers from the Balata Refugee Camp outside Nablus who are engaged in a photography workshop will be showing their work and speaking about their lives at Harvard University. The event will take place on Wednesday April 11, from 7:00 pm to 9:00 pm at the Center for Government and International Studies, in the Knafel Building, located at 1737 Cambridge Street in Cambridge. The Picture Balata workshop puts the camera into the hands of the children born and raised under the Israeli occupation of Palestine. Participants, ranging from ages 11 to 18, photograph their situation as they live it in the Balata Refugee Camp. This event is well worth attending.

On Saturday, April 14, the Boston Palestine Film Festival will present the Boston Premiere of the Film â??Waitingâ?? by Rashid Mashawari at 11:00 AM at the Brattle Theatre in Harvard Square, followed by a discussion with film critic Dr. Nadia Yaqub. The Boston Palestine Film Festival will make its official debut on Sept. 25th and run through Oct. 7th, 2007. For information about the Festival, please visit the website www.bostonpalestinefilmfest.org.

Our topic today is the Palestinian Refugee Camps and the Right of Return.

Any serious discussion of this subject requires us to have at least a rudimentary knowledge of the history which preceded the creation of the state of Israel on May 14, 1948, and the circumstances of the war which followed shortly thereafter.

First, we need to note, as mentioned by the eminent Israeli historian Ilan Pappe, that â??the de-Arabization of Palestine formed a crucial pillar in Zionist thinking from the very first moment the movement entered onto the political stage in the form of Theodor Herzl. The presence of Palestinians was seen as a threat to the Zionist plan for creating a Jewish state.

The first serious campaigns of ethnic cleansing started during the 1936 Arab revolt protesting against what had clearly become British overt support for the takeover by Jewish immigrants of Palestinian land and property, and the expulsion of the Palestinian population, described euphemistically as "population transfer." Under British tutelage, the Hagana, which was originally founded in 1920 to protect the Jewish colonies, was transformed into a fighting force and became the military arm of the Jewish Agency which developed, and then implemented, plans for the Zionist military takeover of Palestine, and the ethnic cleansing of its native population . The Jewish National Fund, the principal Zionist tool for the colonization of Palestine, worked with professional cartographers to produce detailed maps of all the Palestinian villages and developed a registry giving precise details about the topographic location of each village, its access roads, the quality of its land and water springs, down to the ages of individual men. The Hagana used these data to study how best to approach each village and attack it.

in 1937, Ben Gurion, then a prominent member of the Labor Zionist leadership, later to become Israel's first Prime Minister, broadcast the intentions of the Zionist leadership after achieving statehood. He said: "We must expel Arabs and take their places." The partition of historical Palestine in 1947, giving 55 percent of the land to immigrant Jews who, by massive immigration after the Balfour Declaration, constituted 33 percent of the total population at that time, and owned less than 7 percent of the land, was not a division of property that anyone in his right mind could accept. The Arabs rejected it. And Ben Gurion said, in what could not have been a clearer declaration of war: "After we become a strong force, as the result of the creation of the state, we shall abolish partition and expand to the whole of Palestine." Furthermore, in testimony to the UN Special Committee of Enquiry on July 9, 1947, Rabbi Fischman presented a map of the Promised Land which included all of Jordan, all of Syria, all of Lebanon, and large chunks of Egypt, Iraq and Saudi Arabia , to which Jews now laid claim.

Between Partition and the self-proclamation of the State of Israel on May 14, 1948, the Hagana, and the terror groups of the Irgun, headed by former Israeli PM Menachem Begin, and the Stern Gang, whose operations commander was former Israeli PM Yitzhak Shamir, committed many well-documented massacres, the most memorable of which was the massacre at the 700 year-old village of Deir Yassin, which occurred at 3 am in the morning of April 9, 1948, a month before Israel declared itself a state. During that massacre, between 110 and 130 Palestinian residents, who, had been living peacefully with their Jewish neighbors, all women, children, and elderly men over 60, were taken out of their homes at gunpoint, paraded down the streets of Jaffa and systematically executed. Other massacres occurred at the villages of Balad El Sheikh, Qibia, Laboon, Kukad, Ghabsieh, Bassa, Dufta, Karonia, Berwe, Berein, Damun, Iqrit, Qufr Qassem and Tantura, not to mention the bombing of Palestinian-owned hotels, buildings and buses. More than half of the 531 Palestinian towns and villages then in existence in what became Israel were depopulated and razed before the state of Israel came into existence .

These acts, coupled with Rabbi Fischman's map and Ben Gurion's declaration, made it abundantly clear that, once it became a state, Israel intended to attack its Arab neighbors - and the war of 1948 ensued.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert recently said in interviews published on March 30, that Israel would not allow Palestinian refugees to return and that the country bore no responsibility for them because their plight resulted from an attack by Arab nations on Israel when it was a fledgling state. This persisting representation is characteristic of the colossal hypocrisy with which Israel continues to be publicly portrayed at every turn as the aggrieved party instead of the agressor that it is.

The Right of Return of Palestinian refugees is enshrined in international law. One of the core rights in international law is the obligation to respect and implement the right of return of Palestinian refugees. This right, although reaffirmed in UNGA Resolution 194 of November 12, 1948, is far older than that Resolution, and is not dependent on that Resolution for its binding nature. The right of refugees or displaced persons to return to their places of origin is firmly rooted in international humanitarian law/laws of war, the laws of nationality and state succession, and international human rights law . In particular, this right has been recognized and implemented in the refugee context under human rights law principles all over the world in situations of mass refugee flows, and has been strengthened, not weakened, by state practice in the last forty years. We should note here that Israel was accepted as a member state of the UN on condition that it accept the Right of Return Resolution 194. The Right of Return can not be waived or negotiated away as PM Olmert, and every Israeli government before him, has sought to do.

Today, we are very pleased to welcome Dr. Nancy Murray to our program. Dr. Murray has worked as an educator and human rights activist in the UK, Kenya, and the US. She holds a Ph.D. in History from Oxford University; has written on civil and human rights issues; and serves on the editorial committee of the journal Race & Class. She was the co-founder and director of the Middle East Justice Network from 1989 to 1995, and authored a book on Palestinians: Life Under Occupation, in 1991.

Good morning Dr. Nancy Murray. Welcome to "This Week in Palestine."

1. You have very recently returned from a visit to Palestinian refugee camps. How were you received?
2. What can you tell us about your trip and the conditions in the camps?
3. How many Palestinian refugees live in the refugee camps in Lebanon, Syria and Jordan?
4. What do you think of Israeli Prime Minister Olmertâ??s recent statement that Israel will not permit a single Palestinian refugee to return?
5. What is the situation in Lebanon today?
6. Did you get a sense from your visit of how the refugees view their right of return?
7. What should Americans know about Palestinian refugees?

Thank you so much Dr. Nancy Murray for being our guest today.

You have been listening to Dr. Nancy Murray, educator, human rights activist and author, who has just returned from visits to Palestinian refugee camps.

And that does it for today. We wish our listeners a pleasant and restful weekend, and look forward to having you with us next week, same time. Until then, this is Sherif Fam signing off for now, and reminding our listeners to get involved in the good fight for peace in the Middle East. Palestine is in dire need and could use all the help it can get. Thank you.