Zionism, the Two-State Solution and Boycotts. Co-hosts Steve Williamson and Mike Cosentino welcome Alice Rothchild, physician, activist, filmmaker and author of Condition Critical: Life and death in Israel/Palestine.
They begin by discussing the current state of Gaza, which is home to two million Palestinians, 70 percent of them refugees. According to Rothchild, “Gaza is kind of an invisible humanitarian catastrophe that has been getting worse and worse and worse. It’s continually under siege and it’s virtually impossible to get in and out. The infrastructure was bombed, particularly the water infrastructure, so there are some major issues that affect health as well as human rights,” she continues. “The UN is estimating that 98 percent of the water is no longer drinkable. There are also issues around sanitation, around inadequacies of food. So people are living on the edge of their ability to cope all the time.”
Regarding the two-state solution, Rothchild says, “It has been undermined repeatedly by the actions of the Israeli government. In reality, what we have right now is a one-state solution. It’s an apartheid state. One of the best things we can do is to support the Boycott, Divestment movement… It has been labeled anti-Semitic, which is totally erroneous. Attacking policies of a state is not, by definition, anti-Semitic. I think we have to work for a just solution for everyone who’s living there and a concern for Palestinian rights as well as rights for Israel.”
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