Saturday, October 19, 2024 at 10 am Pacific/1 pm Eastern: JVP HAC Webinar: Why the Gaza Conflict is now a Regional and soon to be Global Conflict
Why the Gaza Conflict is now a Regional and soon to be Global Conflict with Dr. Mazin Butros Qumsiyeh
Watch the recording here.
Mazin Butros Qumsiyeh is a Palestinian scientist and author, founder and director of the Palestine Museum of Natural History (PMNH) and the Palestine Institute for Biodiversity and Sustainability (PIBS) at Bethlehem University where he teaches. After serving on the faculties of the University of Tennessee (1989–1993), Duke University (1993–1999), and Yale University (1999–2005), he now researches and teaches at Bethlehem and Birzeit Universities since 2008. Here Qumsiyeh joined with other professors to introduce the first Biotechnology Masters program in the region. Over the course of his career, he has published well over 150 scientific papers on topics ranging from cultural heritage to biodiversity. He has authored several books including Sharing the Land of Canaan: Human Rights and the Israeli-Palestinian Struggle.
Gaza is a small strip of land of 250 sq miles packed with 2.3 million people, 70% of them are refugees from the ethnic cleansing of 1948 when |Israel was created. Using the events of October 7th, 2023 as justification the Israeli army proceeded to attack civilian infrastructure (residential buildings, hospitals, schools, universities, water facilities, electric grids) of the small enclave. Over 42,000 Palestinians were killed (72% of them women and children). Israel also prevented food, medicine, water, and fuel causing massive additional deaths. This year is part of an eight-decades protracted conflict that is now spreading to a regional (and soon global) war. In the West Bank (where our speaker lives) and in this fog of war, much is happening. Violent settlers armed with government-issued assault weapons and backed by IDF forces, have spread terror and mayhem. In a newly accelerated campaign of ethnic cleansing, they are brutally driving Palestinians out of their homes and off their land while destroying their crops and orchards and stealing their belongings and livestock. The onslaught has global ramifications.