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Palestine IS a Climate Justice Issue!
Wednesday, 9 November 2022
Presented by UMKR and MFSA
The world's climate and environmental crisis touches every corner of the globe. Everyone in the world is truly "in this together."
However, some are being hit harder and sooner. The most vulnerable populations of the world are bearing the brunt of climate change and suffering daily environmental injustice.
Nowhere is that more true than in Israel/Palestine.
For Palestinians, climate change is not just a natural phenomenon, but a political one.
Israel‘s regime of occupation and apartheid, which denies Palestinians the right to manage their land and resources, greatly heightens the impact of the climate crisis for Palestinians, making them more vulnerable to all climate-related conditions
Today, after a century of unbridled colonialism, the historically green and fertile land of Palestine has lost much of what it once offered the world, and environmental conditions continue to deteriorate rapidly.
Massive destruction of agricultural land, rampant pollution of indigenous communities' farmland and water sources, denial of health infrastructure, wide-scale water deprivation, over-exploitation of natural resources, dangerous dumping and processing of waste in occupied territory...the list goes on and on.
Yet Israel cultivates a worldwide image as an environmentally conscious, “green” society. It is even considered to be an environmental leader for the world!
The reality is dramatically different.
Join us to learn the environmental reality in Israel/Palestine today, what is being done by the land's indigenous protectors. and what we can do to support their efforts.
MAZIN QUMSIYEH
We are have as our speaker one of
Palestine's leading voices on
Palestinian activism and resistance,
Mazin Qumsiyeh, who is also an
authority on the natural world
of Palestine and environmental justice.
Dr. Qumsiyeh is the founder and
director of the Palestine Museum
of Natural History and the Palestine
Institute for Biodiversity and
Sustainability at Bethlehem University. Having served previously on the faculties of the University of Tennessee, Duke University, and Yale University, he has been doing research and teaching at Bethlehem and Birzeit Universities since 2008.
In addition to hundreds of articles in news outlets, journals, and collections, Qumsiyeh is the author of several books, including Sharing The Land Of Canaan: Human Rights and the Israeli-Palestinian Struggle and Popular Resistance in Palestine: A History of Hope and Empowerment.
A renowned human rights defender and winner of multiple peace and human rights awards, Mazin Qumsiyeh has lectured around the world on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the Palestinian liberation struggle.
As we gather online with Mazin
Qumsiyeh, representatives from around
the world are meeting in Egypt for the
United Nations' global climate
conference, COP27.
As Dr. Qumsiyeh shows us, the fight for
climate justice for all is directly connected
to the Palestinian struggle. Palestine is indeed a climate justice issue.
Watch the webinar below and below the video, see information and resources shared during the webinar.
INFORMATION SHARED DURING THE WEBINAR
In addition to hundreds of articles published in news outlets, journals, and collections, Qumsiyeh is the author of several books, including notably: "Sharing The Land Of Canaan: Human Rights and the Israeli-Palestinian Struggle" and "Popular Resistance in Palestine: A History of Hope and Empowerment."
About Popular Resistance: "This is a timely and remarkable book written by the most important chronicler of contemporary popular resistance in Palestine. Mazin Qumsiyeh brilliantly evokes the spirit of Mahatma Gandhi, Edward Said, Rachel Corrie and many others, to tell the unvarnished truth about Palestine and Zionist settler colonialism.
Learn more and see where to order it:
http://qumsiyeh.org/popularresistanceinpalestine/
Mazin Qumsiyeh showed some powerpoint slides during the webinar and viewers asked if those could be shared. We have all of his powerpoint presentation from which those slides were take, in the form of a pdf file. Download the pdf
MAZIN QUMSIYEH, WRITING ON THE ENVIRONMENT:
• Stopping the Environmental Nakba
A statement from the Palestine Institute on Biodiversity and Sustainability
https://mondoweiss.net/2021/11/stopping-the-environmental-nakba/
• Environmental Justice in Palestine: Rights of Natives to Their Environment Versus Colonial Onslaught
http://thebeirutforum.com/qumsiyeh/
• Environmental Education and Climate Change in a Colonial Context
https://www.palestinenature.org/research/159.-Qumsiyeh-et-al.pdf
The Palestine Institute for Biodiversity and Sustainability (PIBS):
https://www.palestinenature.org
PIBS on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PIBS.PMNH
More about the Institute:
Biodiversity and Hope Flourish at Palestine's First Natural History Museum
https://www.middleeasteye.net/discover/biodiversity-and-hope-flourish-palestines-first-natural-history-museum
BDS ACTION
Chevron and Siemens: Stop Supporting Israeli Apartheid and Climate Disaster
https://bdsmovement.net/siemens-and-chevron-stop-fueling-apartheid-and-climate-disaster
See more campaigns targeting companies making a negative impact on Palestinians lives and human rights, from the The Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC):
https://bdsmovement.net
Investigate!
A tool created by AFSC to discover corporations involved in incarceration and immigrant detention, the Israeli occupation, and the border industries.
https://investigate.afsc.org/
WhoProfits, providing in-depth, on-the-ground documentation of companies complicit in the Israeli occupation:
https://www.whoprofits.org/
USACBI, The US Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel
Recommended by Mazin Qumsiyeh as powerful action to affect public opinion and change systems.
https://usacbi.org/
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Resources Webinar
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