On January 25, 2002 a remarkable group of 52 soldiers and officers of the Israeli army reserves published a quarter-page letter which appeared in the Israeli daily newspaper Ha’aretz. In this letter, they called on their comrades-in-arms to join their act of refusal to serve in the occupied Palestinian territories of the West Bank and Gaza. In a manifesto published in a book in 2003 entitled “Breaking Ranks: Refusing to Serve in the West Bank and Gaza Strip,” they further declared: “we shall not continue to fight beyond the 1967 borders in order to dominate, expel, starve, and humiliate an entire people.”
Sherif Fam speaks to Oded Na’aman, a 26 year-old former crew commander in the artillery corps of the Israeli Defense Forces, who spent a year as a soldier and commander in checkpoints all over the West Bank, then became a member of “Breaking the Silence.”
This program was produced by This Week In Palestine for WZBC radio on March 3, 2008.
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truthandjusticeradio.org
Professor Kovel is a prolific writer who has published ten books and over a hundred articles. His most recent book: “Overcoming Zionism,” published by the Pluto Press in the UK, and distributed by the University of Michigan Press, predictably earned him the ire of what Rabbi Arthur Waskow, of the Shalom Center in Philadelphia, calls “Jewish Officialdom,” or the “Official Jewish Institutional Structures,” including the Michigan chapters of the American Jewish Congress, the Jewish Community Relations Council, and B’nai Brith.
As a result, the University of Michigan Press, temporarily suspended distribution of the book in August 2007 amid the now tiresome, shrill accusations of anti-Semitism. Once again, it appeared that the age-old tactic of killing the messenger to deny access to the message had succeeded.
In October, 2007, however, following a “growing campaign led by fellow academics and civil libertarians,” (principally historian Howard Zinn), the University of Michigan Press reversed its decision.
This program was produced by This Week In Palestine for January 20, 2008.
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truthandjusticeradio.org
joelkovel.org
Sherif Fam is joined by phone by two young Americans who are living and working in Bethlehem. Kit is a Phillipino-American student at the California State University in Monterey, CA. David was graduated from Princeton University with a PhD in Philosophy. Both are working at the Siraj Center in Bethlehem, attending courses in Arabic and history, and working with the children of Bethlehem. They join us from the Siraj Center in Bethlehem.
This program was produced by This Week In Palestine for WZBC radio on July 8, 2007.
For more information, visit:
truthandjusticeradio.org
sirajcenter.org
Father Raymond Helmick, Boston College Professor of Theology, has made peacemaking his life’s mission. His most recent book is “Negotiating Outside the Law: Why Camp David Failed,” with an introduction by Jesse Jackson. For more than 20 years, Father Helmick has visited Palestine; maintained correspondence and spoken at length with the late PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat and the Fatah leadership; and more recently with the Hamas leadership, including the late Sheikh Yassin and Khalid Masha’al, Chairman of Hamas’ political bureau in Damascus. Sherif Fam speaks with him.
This program was produced by This Week In Palestine for WZBC radio on July 22, 2007.
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truthandjusticeradio.org
Palestine rarely sees a day when Israel’s army does not attack its population centers. Even more rare is the day when Israel’s army does not destroy priceless historical and cultural buildings during its raids, along with schools, hospitals, roads, and water and sewage systems. Nablus, the largest city of the West Bank, has been particularly targeted because of its deep historical roots. Archaeologists have identified Nablus as one of the oldest cities in the world, possibly first established as early as 9000 years ago. Its Hebrew biblical name is “Shechem” meaning shoulder or high land. The newer city, which became known as Flavia Neapolis, was built in 70 AD by Titus the Roman in honor of Flavius Vespasian, the Roman Emperor at the time. Possibly the richest city in the West Bank in terms of archaeological treasures, it has seen many of them intentionally destroyed under the catch-all pretext of “hunting suspected terrorists.”
Today, Sherif Fam discusses this little explored topic with well-known activist and UK architect, Mr. Abe Hayeem. Mr. Hayeem is an Iraqi Jew from Bombay, and a veteran of the Anti-Apartheid movement in South Africa, who has extensively studied, and challenged Israel’s use of architecture to consolidate its brutal military occupation and erase the memory of Palestine’s historical and cultural heritage. He is the founder and UK Chairman of Architects and Planners for Justice in Palestine.
This program was produced by This Week In Palestine for WZBC radio on June 17, 2007.
For more information, visit:
truthandjusticeradio.org
apjp.org (Architects and Planners for Justice in Palestine)
This Week in Palestine talks to Yasmine Noor, who was born in Rafah but left at a young age. She returned to Palestine in the late nineties and went through high school in Ramallah (at a time when people could move from Gaza to the West Bank). She came to the US in Sep. 2000, two weeks before the second uprising, and was not able to return to Gaza until now. She holds a BA degree in Religion and an MA in Conflict Analysis and Resolution. She is also the co-founder of a grassroots relief organization called Save Gaza, which is what brought her back to Gaza. Ms. Noor returned to Gaza to implement a sustainable gardening project in an effort to allow local Gazan families to grow gardens using very few resources and not have to rely on relief handouts.
This program was produced by Sherif Fam for This Week In Palestine for June 24, 2007.
For more information, visit:
truthandjusticeradio.org
savegaza.org
Sherif Fam explores the subject of Jewish peace activists in this country and in Israel. To outside observers, Jewish communities around the world appear monolithic in their blind support of everything Israel does, but that is not true. There are many brave Jews in this country and around the world, including Israel, who regularly protest against Israel’s egregious violations of human rights and international law, and are working hard to find a just solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Many Jews have visited Israel and Palestine and were transformed by what they saw. One such person is Dr. Alice Rothchild.
This program was produced by This Week In Palestine for WZBC radio on May 20, 2007.
For more information, visit:
truthandjusticeradio.org
jewishvoiceforpeace.org
Sherif Fam interviews the eminent Palestinian psychiatrist Dr. Eyad El-Sarraj, founder and Director of the Gaza Community Mental Health Programme (GCMHP) and Commissioner-General of the Palestinian Independent Commission for Citizens’ Rights.
This program was produced by This Week In Palestine for WZBC radio on June 3, 2007.
For more information, visit:
truthandjusticeradio.org
gcmhp.net/
Debates about possible solutions to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict revolve around two proposals: the “two-state solution” and the “one-state solution,” both of which, we keep being told by wise pundits, are “impossible.” The “Two-State Solution” we are told is impossible because of the “facts on the ground,” namely the large number of Israeli settlements; the networks of Jewish-only roads which connect them; and the wall Israel is continuing to build illegally, all of which have carved the West Bank and East Jerusalem into numerous small enclaves, or “Bantustans,” which can not possibly be woven together to form a viable Palestinian state. The “One-State Solution” we are told is “impossible” because Israel would lose its character as a “Jewish State,” and anyone who dabbles with that idea is considered at best a “security risk” or at worst “an enemy” of the state of Israel and treated as such.
This program was produced by This Week In Palestine for WZBC radio on April 29, 2007.
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truthandjusticeradio.org
On June 10-11, the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation and United for Peace and Justice are sponsoring a two-day mobilization in Washington, DC to protest against 40 year-old Israeli illegal military occupation of the Palestinian West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza Strip. Under the banner, “The World Says No to Israeli Occupation,” the US Campaign and UFPJ will hold a massive rally and teach-in starting at 1 pm on Sunday June 10 in Washington DC, followed by a grassroots lobbying day on Monday, June 11.
Today’s featured guest today is Dr. Farid Esack, William Henry Bloomberg Professor at the Harvard Divinity School for the 2006-2007 academic year. Dr. Esack is a scholar of Islam, and a veteran of the South African struggle against Apartheid.
This program was produced by This Week In Palestine on WZBC Boston.
For more information, visit:
truthandjusticeradio.org