Today we feature the first of what will be five consecutive presentations recorded at the conference titled "Balfourâs Legacy: Confronting the Consequences," held on November 11th at the First Parish Church in Cambridge MA. This conference commemorates the 100th anniversary of the so-called Balfour Declaration, a 67-word letter in 1917 signed by Lord Arthur Balfour, then Britain's Foreign Secretary. It's credited with setting in motion the creation of the state of Israel on Palestinian land, without consulting Palestinians.
We begin today with the keynote address delivered by Yousef Munayyer, Executive Director of the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights (uscpr.org), [formerly named the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation (2001-2016)].
Writing in the "Forward" (November 1), Munayyer points out that Lord Balfour was an unapologetic racist and anti-Semite. Balfour wrote to the British Prime Minister that "... We do not propose even to go through the form of consulting the wishes of the present inhabitants of the country ... the 700,000 Arabs who now inhabit that ancient land."
The conference was sponsored by the Alliance for Water Justice in Palestine and the Trans Arab Research Institute. The quality of the presentations was impressive, and we want to bring you as many of them as possible over the next several weeks on This Week In Palestine.
We are indebted to our colleague Noble Larson for most of the recordings we'll hear from this conference. Like many old church sanctuaries, this one presents a big challenge for older listeners and recordists alike. Noble surmounted that challenge, obtaining signal from the official mikes. He produced videos of the entire proceedings, from which he gave us the audio. Those videos are currently online, as follows:
Introduction and Keynote Address https://youtu.be/tF8gKugOTAE
Panel I: Balfour, Israel and Palestine https://youtu.be/vln2dWEn_Aw
Panel II: Confronting the Consequences https://youtu.be/_q4UZI6QkB4
Panel III: Connecting Struggles, Building Power https://youtu.be/NAwl8fNgapY
This Week In Palestine (a weekly 8am feature of Truth and Justice Radio (TJR)) is an award-winning 45-minute (or more) segment of news from Palestine and discussion of issues relevant to the Palestinians' struggle for freedom from Israel's brutal military occupation and colonization of their homeland. It speaks from the point of view of Palestinians and those who care about them. TJR is aired Sundays 6-10am ET on WZBC 90.3FM, Newton, MA, also streamed live and archived for two weeks at wzbc.org; TJR's modest website, truthandjusticeradio.org, has a link to This Week In Palestine archives back thru 1-6-2008; editions are also accessible at radio4all.net or by navigating through our playlists. TJR sometimes airs Palestine coverage IN ADDITION to that provided by This Week In Palestine. We hope you'll write to us at tjradio@fastmail.com if you rebroadcast our work, or have questions or comments.
This Week In Palestine 11-19-2017
Yousef Munayyer's keynote address at the recent Balfour Legacy conference in Cambridge MA
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