Salah Jamal — author, among other works, of Palestine, Occupation and Resistance — will be speaking today at 7 pm at the headquarters of the Universitat de les Illes Balears in Ibiza Town about the Palestinian question and the Arab–Israeli conflict. In a telephone interview with Diario de Ibiza, the doctor, historian and writer — Palestinian by origin and Barcelona-based for the past 56 years — argues that, despite the “so-called” ceasefire, “Israel continues with a subtle ethnic cleansing and a silent genocide of the Palestinian people”.
Q: You left your hometown of Nablus, in the north of the West Bank, shortly after the Israeli occupation, at the age of 17. What do you remember about that period?
A: I have memories from 1967. That was when we went from being under Jordanian control — after Jordan annexed the West Bank in 1948 — to a much more violent Israeli occupation, with a plan to establish settlements and expel the native population. I was fourteen or fifteen at the time. I remember demonstrations, constant repression, patrols everywhere, tanks on every corner and, above all, permanent curfews.
Q: In 2002, you published Palestine, Occupation and Resistance, which will soon be reissued in an updated edition. I would like us to discuss how the Arab-Israeli conflict has evolved in the 24 years since this work was first published.
A: What I see is that the Palestinian cause has gained more and more supporters, but Palestine itself is shrinking every day. Public opinion has awakened and realised that Palestinians are being mistreated. This global civic movement, which I call Palestinianism, is growing. And yet the State of Israel bypasses international law and acts in Palestine with impunity. By creating settlements and installing settlers, it is carrying out a subtle form of ethnic cleansing. The Palestinian population is being continuously suffocated by draconian laws, leaving people with only two options: either live confined in isolated areas, or reach a breaking point and leave — which is precisely what the Zionist State of Israel intends.
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