Today Women’s Magazine we talk about the situation in Israel -Palestine where the right wing governemt of Netanyahu is still in power despite a month of protests in the streets by Israeli’s opposed to this right wing or as some say fascist government. The Israeli news paper Haaertz magazine wrote “In this short time, Netanyahu’s government has caused Israel’s senior economists and the international credit-rating agencies to warn of significant damage to the local economy, in the wake of the judicial overhaul. High-tech companies have threatened to move their money out of the country and even relocate. For the first time in Israel’s history, thousands of reservists have threatened not to report for their voluntary service if the “legal reform” legislation is passed. They go on to say “Israel is facing its most prolonged period of mass protests, with hundreds of thousands taking to the streets weekly. Uniquely, the protests are being backed by many of the major Jewish Diaspora organizations.
And yet in all of this the question remains what is really being challenged in these protests in the street of Israel and what do Palestinians in Israel think of what is going on . To answer some of these questions Dov Baum and I talk to Diana Buttu who lives in Israel-Palestine
Diana Buttu is a Palestinian-Canadian lawyer and a former spokesperson for the Palestine Liberation Organization. Diana Buttu previously served as a legal advisor to the Palestinian negotiating team and was part of the team that assisted in the successful litigation of the Wall before the International Court of Justice. She frequently comments on Palestine for international news media outlets such as CNN and BBC; is a political analyst for Al Jazeera International and is a regular contributor to The Middle East magazine. She maintains a law practice inPalestine, focusing on international human rights law.
And to help me with this interview I am joined by Dov Baum, who is an Israeli feminist activist and scholar who has taught about militarism and the global economy from a feminist perspective in Israeli and U.S. universities, and is currently the director of American friends service committee’s Economic Activism Program here in the Bay Area which supports investor and activist efforts to expose, challenge, and isolate corporate involvement in state violence and human rights violations.. Dov is the co-founder of Who Profits from the Occupation and of the Coalition of Women for Peace in Israel.