{"id":1819,"date":"2004-10-06T14:21:08","date_gmt":"2004-10-06T14:21:08","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2004-10-06T14:21:08","modified_gmt":"2004-10-06T14:21:08","slug":"wheels-of-justice-speaker-blasts-zionism-israel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.danpal.dk\/?p=1819","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Wheels of Justice\u2019 speaker blasts Zionism, Israel"},"content":{"rendered":"
The Chronicle<\/div>\n

\u2018Wheels of Justice\u2019 speaker blasts Zionism, Israel<\/h3>\n<\/p>\n

By Leon Cohen<\/p>\n

of The Chronicle staff<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

The \u201cWheels of Justice\u201d bus pulled into Milwaukee Tuesday as part of its Wisconsin tour this week that included Baraboo, Madison, Sheboygan and West Bend.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

This is a project involving members of Voices in the Wilderness, the Palestine Right to Return Coalition, the Middle East Children\u2019s Alliance and affiliates of the International Solidarity Movement. It seeks \u201cto challenge and educate North Americans on the occupation of Palestine and Iraq,\u201d according to the project\u2019s Web site.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

The bus brought Mazin Qumsiyeh, a Palestinian-American associate professor of genetics at Yale University, author of \u201cSharing the Land of Canaan: Human rights and the Israeli-Palestinian Struggle\u201d and co-founder of the Palestinian Right to Return Coalition.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

In an appearance at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee on Tuesday, Sept. 21, co-sponsored by the UWM Muslim Student Association and Peace Action Wisconsin, Qumsiyeh told an audience of about 40 the story of the Palestinian refugees, as the Palestinians see it, and blasted Israel for being responsible for denying Palestinians\u2019 rights.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Qumsiyeh also contended that \u201cthe biggest obstacle to peace in the Middle East\u201d is the U.S. government because it supplies Israel with military equipment and supports it politically.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

He alleged that \u201cIsrael is the only country on earth that organizes itself as a country for a particular religion\u201d; criticized Israel\u2019s Law of Return, which gives all Jews the right to automatic citizenship; and said Zionism \u201ccreates the essence of the problem.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

He said that the usual account of Israel\u2019s founding is \u201cover simple.\u201d He said the Zionist leaders in 1947 accepted only that part of the United Nations partition plan that called for creation of a Jewish state; but they didn\u2019t accept the plan\u2019s other provisions, including the Jewish state\u2019s borders and the internationalization of Jerusalem.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

He also claimed that the Zionist leaders sought \u201cethnic cleansing\u201d of the Palestinian Arabs even before Israel was proclaimed in May 1948; and that of the 530 Arab towns and villages whose populations fled in 1947-49, half were emptied before May 1948.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Qumsiyeh also accused Israel, through its settlements and construction of the security barrier\/fence\/wall, of deliberately trying to \u201cmake sure the [Palestinian Arabs living in the Israel-administered territories] get as little of a normal life as possible, so they will leave.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Although he said, \u201cI personally am against any kind of violence, period,\u201d Qumsiyeh said he believes \u201cjustice is the only way to peace.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

And \u201cjustice in this situation\u201d means to allow all Palestinian Arab refugees \u201cto go back to their homes and lands\u201d and have full equality within what is now Israel, he said.<\/p>\n

Kathy Heilbronner, assistant director of the Milwaukee Jewish Council for Community Relations, attended the presentation. She told The Chronicle afterward that she \u201cwas struck by what [Qumsiyeh] didn\u2019t say.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u201cHe never talked about the terrorism that provoked the building of the [security barrier\/fence\/wall] in the first place,\u201d nor about \u201cthe corruption of the Palestinian Authority,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

The \u201cmost frightening part\u201d of Qumsiyeh\u2019s talk was that he seems to show that \u201cthe Palestinian mind-set is evolving\u201d from support for a two-state solution \u2014 i.e., an Israel and a Palestine \u201cside by side in security\u201d \u2014 to a one state solution obliterating Israel as a Jewish state.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Heilbronner called Qumsiyeh\u2019s historical presentation \u201crevisionist history\u201d containing \u201ca lot of half-truths.\u201d<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Om den pal\u00e6stinensike professor Mazin Qumsiyeh (engelsk) L\u00e6s resten →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[69,401],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danpal.dk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1819"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danpal.dk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danpal.dk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danpal.dk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danpal.dk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1819"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.danpal.dk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1819\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danpal.dk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1819"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danpal.dk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1819"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danpal.dk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1819"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}