Crossing the Line 23 July 2007
This week on Crossing The Line: no time in the recent history of the Palestinian people has been so devoid of hope. As in the case of the dark days of the South African apartheid regime, Palestinians are faced with the decision to continue along factional lines or begin to form an umbrella body that has legitimacy both with the country and the international community. Host Chris Brown talks with Osamah Khalil, a doctoral candidate in US and Middle Eastern History at the University of California Berkeley about the need to rebuild the PLO and to rid the country of despotic leaders.
Later in the show, Brown speaks with Gaza resident and businessman Sam Abdelshafi about life after the Hamas takeover several weeks ago and what ordinary Gazans are saying about the need for fundamental change, as well as the dire economic conditions that nearly 1.5 million Gazans face.
Then in the final segment, Rania Masri, assistant Professor of Environmental Science at the University of Balamand, updates us about the renewed shelling of the Palestinian camp of Nahr al-Bared and the ongoing humanitarian crisis for its displaced residents.
Crossing the Line is a weekly podcast dedicated to giving voice to the voiceless in occupied Palestine. Through investigative news, arts, eyewitness accounts, and music, Crossing the Line does its best to present the lives of people on the ground.
Crossing the Line’s host, Chris Brown, is an independent journalist currently living in San Francisco. Brown’s South African roots and desire for social change are the reason for his strong solidarity with the Palestinian people. In 1990 Brown was arrested in South Africa where he was detained and tortured for nearly two years by the South African secret police. Brown also lived and worked in the Old City of Hebron in the occupied West Bank.