The volatile situation in Gaza has been grossly distorted in the mainstream western press. By omission, selective editorializing, and misstatement of so-called “facts,” a particular caricature has emerged that has invisibilized the Palestinian people, the history and the nature of the Occupation, and the actual conditions of life in what many have called the world’s largest open air prison. To get a better sense of all of these, we speak with two seasoned experts on Palestine.
After our conversation with Diana Buttu and Richard Falk, we conclude this episode with statements of solidarity with the Palestinian people from activists, scholars, and cultural workers from around the world: the University Union of Professors and Employees Occupied Palestine; activist and scholar Cynthia Franklin, a long-time champion for Palestinian and other Indigenous peoples’ rights; renown Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg scholar, writer, and artist Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, who has been widely recognized as one of the most compelling Indigenous voices of her generation; celebrated feminist scholar, philosopher, and public intellectual Sara Ahmed; Michael Hardt, eminent political philosopher and writer; award-winning poet, scholar and long-time civil rights and anti-Zionist Hilton Obenzinger; legendary abolitionist feminist activist, writer, and scholar Angela Y. Davis. Following Angela Davis we have a statement from the Raha Iranian Feminist Collective read by scholar Manijeh Moradian. Next is a statement from the Palestine Writes Literary Festival, read by executive director and celebrated novelist, Susan Albuhawa.
We then solicited statements from others, and received several immediately, with more coming in daily. We will update this podcast and add contributions as they arrive and as we can process them. We invite you to listen to them as you can, and to join in our commitment to Palestinian life, freedom, and land.
Diana Buttu is a Haifa-based analyst, former legal advisor to Palestine Liberation Organization and Palestinian negotiators, and Policy Advisor to Al-Shabaka: The Palestinian Policy Network. She was also recently a fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.
After earning a law degree from Queen’s University in Canada and a Masters of Law from Stanford University, Buttu moved to Palestine in 2000. Shortly after her arrival, the second Intifada began and she took a position with the Negotiations Support Unit of the PLO.
Richard Falk is Albert G. Milbank Professor Emeritus of International Law at Princeton University (1961-2001) and Chair of Global Law, Faculty of Law, Queen Mary University London. Since 2002 has been a Research Fellow at the Orfalea Center of Global and International Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Between 2008 and 2014 he served as UN Special Rapporteur on Israeli Violations of Human Rights in Occupied Palestine.
Falk has advocated and written widely about ‘nations’ that are captive within existing states, including Palestine, Kashmir, Western Sahara, Catalonia, Dombas.
He is Senior Vice President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, having served for seven years as Chair of its Board. He is Chair of the Board of Trustees of Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor. He is co-director of the Centre of Climate Crime, QMUL.
Falk has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize several times since 2008.
His recent books include (Re)Imagining Humane Global Governance (2014), Power Shift: The New Global Order (2016), Palestine Horizon: Toward a Just Peace (2017), Revisiting the Vietnam War (ed. Stefan Andersson, 2017), On Nuclear Weapons: Denuclearization, Demilitarization and Disarmament (ed. Stefan Andersson & Curt Dahlgren, 2019.
