Seven Oaks Magazine.

Musa al-Hindi is a Palestinian refugee and member of the Al-Awda coalition in North America. Born in Lebanon in 1965, al-Hindi came to live, study and work in the United States in 1984. He currently resides in Omaha, Nebraska, and recently visited Vancouver, B.C., where he spoke at events organized by the Palestine Solidarity Group and the Palestine Community Centre. Seven Oaks editor Derrick O’Keefe sat down with Musa al-Hindi to discuss activism in the U.S., the presidential race, and the state of the movement demanding the right to return for millions of refugees.

Seven Oaks: The International Court of Justice (ICJ) recently issued a ruling condemning Israel’s ‘separation fence,’ or apartheid wall in the West Bank. Has this ruling been a boost to solidarity activists in the United States?

Musa al-Hindi: Yes, I can tell that people are more energized, there’s more energy as a result of that ruling. All solidarity activists see it as an important moral, political and diplomatic victory that has to be built on and used to further isolate Israel, in terms of boycott campaigns, in terms of divestment campaigns. So it definitely gave people a lot of moral and diplomatic weapons to use in their campaigns.

S.O.: Awareness of the occupation of Palestine has broadened, especially over the past couple of years with the anti-war movement. But awareness of the issue of right of return is still much less widespread. What were the origins of the Al-Awda coalition, and what is it focused on today?

Al-Hindi: There were a series of campaigns in defense of the right of return organized by refugees, after the signing of Oslo in 1993, both inside and outside of Palestine. And Al-Awda was one of those campaigns. It came as a result of a conference that was convened by Trans-Arab Research Institute in 2000. There was a one day conference, and the second day was a meeting of activists, who said ‘we need to go beyond just a conference. We need to have a movement, an organization and a coalition around the issue of right of return, as a central issue.’ If you study political and social movements, it is rare that the resources, the skills and the timing of the launching of the movement are all present at the same time. And with Al-Awda, they were. In 2000, there were conferences everywhere, the whole talk was around final status and right of return; it was in the air. It was not like today, where the issue is buried.

So, Al-Awda came within that context and it just evolved. It started as really an internet group, became a loose coalition, and now it’s basically an organization.

S.O.: Recently Norman Finkelstein spoke here in Vancouver, and on the issue of right of return he invoked the opinion of Noam Chomsky, whom he described as opposing advocating for right of return on the basis that it was unrealistic, and raised false hopes. How do you respond to the notion that the right of return is unrealistic, that a two-state solution is the only realistic option?

Al-Hindi: Well, the first thing is that Sharon, as many people know now, is currently making a two-state solution unachievable. Second, I would like to know what they mean by unrealistic. There is enough land, there is enough resources to support the land. Unless they mean by that that Israel would lose its Jewish character, I would say ‘tough.’ That is a racist position to take, that you need to have a state based on racial or religious affiliation. I guess you call that a theocracy or an ethnocracy.

There were many instances where refugees were repatriated, most recently in Bosnia and in Rwanda, in huge numbers. So there is historical precedent. International law also says that Palestinian refugees must be allowed to return, if they choose to. The physical space and resources are there, what’s absent is the political will on the part of the international community. But that’s not enough to render something unrealistic.

S.O.: What about the various proposals to essentially buy off the refugees, to offer financial compensation in exchange for the right of return?

Al-Hindi: No. People will not go for that. I’ve read about it but then I’ve also experienced it. People are more educated now. People didn’t know before, for example even in the refugee camps, that they are entitled under United Nations resolution 194 and international law to compensation and return. But many refugees are aware of that now.

S.O.: From here it seems like all politics in the United States is focused on the presidential election. How has this impacted activist politics, and in particular the anti-war movement?

Al-Hindi: Well, it’s not a secret that the anti-war movement in the United States these days is pretty flat. I think, unfortunately, that many of the activists were not principled. In many cases, they are really Democrats, members of the Democratic Party and we see that a large segment of the anti-war movement, now, is basically advocating for Kerry as the lesser of two evils. And it’s become a movement of ‘let’s oust Bush at any cost,’ and that’s not good enough because you have to offer an alternative, a vision. Kerry’s not that much different, whether it’s for Iraq –I mean, he wants more troops in Iraq. He would be willing to engage an occupation with UN backing, basically, which is unacceptable. On Palestine, well, there’s basically no difference, although we didn’t expect otherwise.

So, unfortunately, and I’m not talking about the activists, but for a large segment the life of Iraqis don’t mean that much to them. They are more concerned with what it does to the U.S. economy, or to the collective psyche, than what it does to the Iraqi people. You always hear about how many Americans are killed, but how about Iraqis?

Al-Hindi: I think if Kerry is elected president the only thing we will see different is that Dennis Ross will be back, and the whole team that worked under Clinton [on the Middle East] will be back.

Al-Hindi: I know that the next annual conference will be on the west coast of the United States. It will probably be in California, so it’s easier for you guys to drive there. I think it will be in the spring of 2005.

For more information on the Palestine right to return coalition, you can check out the website atwww.al-awda.org/