On October 7, Hamas fighters broke out of Gaza, the world’s largest open air prison, and directly attacked the Israeli State, including military facilities, illegal settlements and airports. Israeli Occupying Forces responded with sophisticated weaponry targeting civilian housing in Gaza and schools and hospitals where people sought refuge. Israel has now stopped all water, power and aid to Gaza. To understand what is happening and Palestinian rights under international law, Clearing the FOG speaks with Dr. Mazin Qumsiyeh, who resides in Bethlehem. In support of Palestinians’ right to resist, massive rallies and marches are taking place around the world. Clearing the FOG also speaks with Priscilla Lynch and Clara Wagner about their direct action last week targeting L3 Harris, which provides military equipment to Israel, as part of a campaign by Demilitarize Western Mass.
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Dr. Mazin Qumsiyeh is a scientist, author and activist, and is the 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. He started off in the field of medicine working in the USA, but returned to Palestine in 2008. Qumsiyeh formerly worked at Duke University and Yale in the medical field. He returned to Palestine in 2008, where he established the PMNH. Today the Museum has 8 employees, and Mazin and his wife, Jessie, where they are employed full-time as volunteers. The associated PIBS currently works with women entrepreneurs and also has a native animal rehabilitation facility.
Over the course of his career he has published well over 150 scientific papers on topics ranging from cultural heritage to biodiversity in addition to several books. In some of his writings, Mazin describes the catastrophic environmental impact of Israeli settler colonialism on the land of Palestine. He also shares how Palestinian civil society organizations are working to research, educate about, and conserve Palestine’s natural world, culture and heritage in the face of the current Israeli state’s human rights and environmental abuses. Meanwhile, he does not demonize the people of Israel, themselves, and his works reflect this. Rather, he strives for Peace, education, wellness and prosperity for all the Peoples sharing of that land.
PMNH’S school programs work with students at mixed and single gender schools to develop environmental clubs which plant gardens and recycle while also promoting entrepreneurship projects that give back to their communities. Emphasizing a philosophy of respect, PMNH’S volunteers, staff, and participants are encouraged to respect themselves, others and the environment by creating and maintaining a healthy sustainable environment for all living things. Working in conjunction with the Ministry of Health and the Environmental Quality Authority, PMNH is developing new ways to educate and empower women to create a healthier environment that increases local productivity via ecotourism, permaculture, and home-based projects. PMNH’s staff also worked with the Ministry of Women’s Affairs to start an educational empowerment program for women in rural communities.
In the early 2000s Qumsiyeh became more active in political and social causes, particularly Palestinian rights. Since 2003 he has served as Vice President of the Middle East Crisis Committee and in 2000 he co-founded al-Awda, the Palestine Right to Return Coalition, where he was national treasurer and media coordinator until 2004.
Mazin Qumsiyeh received a B.S. in Biology from the University of Jordan, before getting a Masters in Zoology from the University of Connecticut. He completed a PhD in Zoology/Genetics from Texas Tech University in 1986 and went on to do a Clinical Cytogenetics fellowship with the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Tennessee and a Clinical Molecular Genetics fellowship with Duke University.