Recently Palestinian activist Nancy Murray returned from Israel, having led a delegation for the Interfaith Peace Builders. Nancy has been a frequent traveler to Palestine for two decades, and therefor is uniquely qualified to help us gain some perspective on the current difficult times in the Middle East.
We sat down with Nancy to get her take on conditions in Palestine following her recent trip, and also to discuss her work locally with the Boston Alliance for Water Justice.
Among those conditions: more and more Israeli checkpoints, more and more time spent waiting at those checkpoints and submitting to ever more invasive searches. In one particular checkpoint stop, the soldiers insisted on gassing the entire interior of the visitors' bus as part of their search, which lasted three hours. And the Palestinians who live there are treated even worse than visitors.
Yet, Nancy observed, despite the extreme hardship of daily victimization, most Palestinians are amazingly resilient and maintain steadfast hope for justice in the future.
Before we begin the interview, some commentary: The times are devastating for Palestinians as we know from the stream of news stories that report how particularly young people in their desperation, living under the suffocation of Israeli military occupation are increasingly deciding to take their stand against this military oppression by lashing out with random stabbings and assaults on Israeli citizens and even the military. Most of these assaults lead to the death of the Palestinian, as the stated Israeli policy is to shoot to kill in such instances. This really is a form of suicide, a choice by young Palestinians who see no future for themselves and finally decide to make a final act of resistance through martyrdom. It is a tragic sign of these desperate times for the youth of Palestine.
The response of the Israeli military is to clamp down even more dramatically by raising the level of collective punishment on the Palestinian people, more checkpoints, more house demolitions, more land confiscation, More restrictions on travel, more violent responses to nonviolent demonstrations.
This Week In Palestine (a weekly part of Truth and Justice Radio) is an award-winning three-quarter-hour segment of news from Palestine and discussion of issues relevant to the Palestinians' struggle for freedom from Israel's brutal military occupation and colonization of their homeland. It speaks from the point of view of Palestinians and those who care about them. It's a regular part of Truth and Justice Radio, aired Sundays 6-10am ET on WZBC 90.3FM, Newton, MA, streaming and archived for two weeks at wzbc.org; TJR's website, truthandjusticeradio.org, has a link to This Week In Palestine archives back thru 1-6-2008; earlier editions are obtainable from radio4all.net or by navigating through our playlists. (At this important time, TJR has been airing a lot of Palestine coverage IN ADDITION to that provided by This Week In Palestine.) We hope you'll write to us at tjr@bluebottle.com if you rebroadcast our work, or have questions or comments.
This Week In Palestine 12-13-2015
Nancy Murray shares observations from her recent visit to Palestine
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