News Highlights:
- Israeli military continues attacks in the Gaza Strip, killing one and injuring five on May 4 in Khan Younis, as Israel rejects Egyptian-sponsored ceasefire.
- 3 more Gazan patients die due to the Israeli blockade and lack of access to medical care.
- Dubai refuses to allow Lev Leviev jewellery stores to open after protest campaigns point out his companies’ settlement construction in the occupied West Bank.
- Israeli government recommends granting “city status” to settlement of Modi’in Illit, which has been involved in “illegal construction” (along with a Leviev company) in Mattityahu East on stolen Palestinian land from the village of Bilin.
- Vancouver activists picket the Israeli Wine Festival on May 4, which was held at and cosponsored by the Four Seasons Hotel, now owned by Bill Gates and Saudi Prince al Waleed bin Talal; Canada Palestine Association has called for a boycott of Israeli wines now being carried in some BC liquor stores and for a boycott of the Four Seasons (see www.cpavancouver.org ).
Feature:
An interview with Dr. Salman Abu Sitta, a Palestinian scholar and recognized expert on the right of return. Dr. Abu Sitta, himself a Palestinian refugee, is a member of the Palestine National Council and founder of the Palestine Land Society in London. He talked in detail about the unfolding of the 1948 al Nakba, how it actually began before May 1948, and how the U.N. Partition Plan had never envisaged an exclusive Jewish state. Dr. Abu Sitta also explained the legal basis of the Palestinian right of return, how Israel’s acceptance to the U.N. had been conditional upon implementing it, and finally emphasized that no official body (Palestinian or otherwise) was empowered to relinquish such inalienable rights.
Focus on Zionism:
Highlights of a May 6th, 2008 press release from the Maan news agency in Bethlehem, talking about a report from the Hebron Prisoners Society that said 93 Palestinians were arrested in April by Israeli forces, including 9 children.
Here is an audio file of this show: