By Mazin Qumsiyeh *
28 Oct, 2018
One report just published shows that world billionaires’ wealth increased 20% last year (billionaire’s now have accumulated wealth of $9 trillion!).The rich continue to get richer and the poor poorer and politics followmoneyed interests and that is why Oman, Saudi Arabia and others are normalizing with apartheid regime of “Israel”. That is also why Trump is not shy to say “we have more money than anyone else” so we can get our way.
Why the genocide of Yemen (by the Saud royals) and Gaza (by the Netanyahu criminal enterprise) continue? Directly related to treachery . Like King Leopold of Belgium in Congo or Christopher Columbus of Spain in America, history repeats itself because we learn not from it. That is also why Brazil is about to elect a right wing president why will destroy the Amazon rain-forest to please rich people. But the stakes are higher now. That is why Homo sapiens may go extinct…. UNLESS we the people get our act together quickly and RESIST. As Ghandi said “You must be the change you want to see in the world”.
Every day here, we get inspired despite the sad news. Last week 8 Palestinian civilians were murdered by the occupation army, 20 children drown in the rain flooding near the Dead Sea, and 11 Jewish were killed by a racist in a synagogue in Pittsburgh. News cycles continue to be unfavorable to justice and human rights. Thousands of civilians are murdered in Yemen and hardly any Western Media pays attention (they even now dropped the high profile murder of Jamal Khashokji as they refocus on bombs sent to democrats etc).
But in this thinking globally, I am always working and thinking locally. We have eight staff members and dozens of volunteers at the museum (palestinenature.org). Each is an inspiring story to tell despite the obstacles. Everyone can tell you of how they suffered. Lands confiscated, arrests and torture of relatives, personal loss, and much more. Each can also tell you a story of growth and transcending challenges to achieve great things in a remarkable team spirit. The many internationals who visit us every week are inspired by what they see as achieved by this team.
Today and the next three days we are training six researchers and a few others in cultural heritage collection and preservation. We held three other workshops of training last week on monitoring and evaluation for projects, design of gardens, and on developing biodiversity conservation indicators.Yesterday we completed a desk study on a UNESCO world heritage site (Battir and Al-Makhror Valley) towards biodiversity conservation and sustainability (via ecoagriculture and ecotourism) and we did some nice field and lab research in the same valley producing great results (e.g. 12 recorded species of bats). We visited Khan Al-Ahmar in solidarity (a place of partial success so far in resisting ethnic cleansing). We submitted two more manuscripts for publication. Contractors are making progress on our community garden and playground infrastructure. We finished the olive harvest successfully with nearly twice the production from the museum garden than last year.
I could go on but my point is that the work on the ground is the many candles lighted instead of cursing the darkness. We invite you to join us.
