SWANA Region Radio on KPFK conducted two interviews on 28 September, focusing on Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions: the first, an interview with Lisa Taraki and Omar Barghouti on the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) and the second with Mitri Raheb, on Palestinian Christians today.

Available on audio archive for 90 days “¨ at http://archive.kpfk.org/

Part 1

From its inception in 2004 the PACBI (Palestinian Campaign for Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel) has called upon academics and cultural workers in the international community to comprehensively and consistently boycott all Israeli academic and cultural institutions as a contribution to the struggle to end Israel’s occupation, colonization and system of apartheid.  Since the very beginning, an important part of PACBI”s work has been to expose Israeli academic institutions” complicity in the overall system of a settler colonial regime. It also focuses on cultural institutions and events, which are used for propaganda to whitewash the Israeli system of occupation, settler colonialism and apartheid.

Today”s program is the second segment of an interview with the two co-founders of PACBI, Dr. Lisa Taraki, a Sociology professor at Birzeit University, and Omar Barghouti, a Palestinian political activist and one of the leaders of Palestinian resistance movement. The interview was recorded on 16 August 2015 in Ramallah.

Part 2

Palestinian Christians

The conflict in Palestine has been portrayed in the West, especially in the United States, as a religious clash between Judaism and Islam. But we know that there are tens of thousands of Palestinian Christians living in pre-1967 Israel and the occupied territories. Their voices are hardly heard in the West, and they have become almost invisible in discussions on Palestinian situation. Today we try to hear their voice and shed some light on their struggle for liberation from occupation and colonialism.  Our guest for today”s program is Rev. Dr. Mitri Raheb, an internationally recognized Palestinian intellectual and theologian.  Rev. Dr. Mitri Raheb is the President of Diyar Consortium and of Dar al-Kalima University College in Bethlehem, as well as the president of the Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land in addition to being the Senior Pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran Christmas Church in Bethlehem, Palestine. The most widely published Palestinian theologian to date, Rev. Dr. Raheb is the author of 16 books and numerous articles translated into 11 languages. The interview with Dr. Raheb was recorded on Aug. 14 in Bethlehem.

Guests: Dr. Lisa Taraki* and Omar Barghouti* (for the first part of the program), and Rev. Dr. Mitri Raheb* (for the second part of the program)

Produced and hosted by: Manzar Foroohar and Nyma Ardalan

SWANA– South and West Asia and North Africa) Collective, (KPFK)

*Lisa Taraki, LIVING PALESTINE: FAMILY SURVIVAL, RESISTANCE, AND MOBILITY UNDER OCCUPATION.

*Omar Barghouti, Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions: The Global Struggle for Palestinian Rights.

*Mitri Raheb, Faith in the Face of Empire: The Bible through Palestinian Eyes; I Am a Palestinian Christian.