 Once again violence has broken out in the mid-east between Israel and the Palestinians and the Gaza Strip Although a ceasefire seems to be holding more violence can certainly be expected Bob Scheivel the executive director of main voices for Palestinian rights talked with Tom about some of the reasons behind the conflict Bob thanks for joining us We want to talk about what's happening most recently in Gaza, but before we do Could you describe a little bit for those people who might not already be aware of your organization? What is main voices for Palestinian rights? Yes, many voices of Palestinian rights is now about two years old more start of an earlier organization called main peace and justice in Israel Palestine and our primary aim is to promote Palestinian rights and we do that largely by education we're trying to educate the public here in Maine about the Parts of this conflict that they generally don't hear about in the mainstream medium press unlike CTN Thank you So one of the things that you brought up is the most recent attacks in Gaza and you know what started this how this come about What is it all about? Yeah, I that's a very good question What we hear over and over again from our president from Mr. Netanyahu and repeated faithfully by much of our press is That well the Israel's been so patient for the last four years since operation cast lead And yet they've had X number of thousands. I hear 6,000 8,000 10,000 rockets that have been fired in Israel So they have a right to defend themselves Well when you phrase it Put it that way of course they do who could not be on Israel side with this But there's a context here and a lot of times Pro-israel apologists they they want you to think that history always started with the firing of rockets by people in Gaza well since The cop operation cast lead four years ago the four years ago 08 and 9 Israel has made on average six attacks on Gaza per week Sometimes they're by gunships firing in sometimes they're by helicopters sometimes they're by troops making incursions into Gaza Israel has also in the last four years been Conducting a really horrible blockade of Gaza to the point that They cannot get materials in there to Repair their wastewater treatment They therefore have 90 percent 90 to 95 percent of their drinking water is polluted. They kiss non drinkable Israel has a Up to 1500 meter buffer zone inside of Gaza right around the border What what does this do? Well that accounts for 35 percent of Gaza's farm land and I could go on Well, let me just give you one more Israel has called off limits 85 percent of Gaza's fishing lanes in other words Oslo said if the Gazans could fish out to 20 nautical miles Israel has said no you can only fish out three nautical miles. Well, what Israel is doing is gradually strangling The Gaza economy so there is and seeds like this is really an act of war But on top of that seas have been these average of six attacks on Gaza a week So it is not just that out of the clear blue here's Israel patiently waiting and Being fair to the Gazans and then the Gazans that just keep firing rockets out of it that is just not the story and The other side of things and you're mentioning that you appreciate the fact that Jews have been persecuted for thousands of years Absolutely, and that that that's the biggest context here 2,000 years of persecution expulsion from countries Killing burning and targhettos living in which Jews live But there's something interesting about that story That persecution has been carried out Largely by European and North American Christians not Palestinian Christians and Muslims in a way Europe and America felt so guilty after World War two That they felt a need to make it up to the Jews of the world Understandable, but they've asked the Palestinians to pay the price for the wrong that they did for 2000 years This is such a huge topic You could go on for a long time and you've got a lot of information Where can people get more information about what you're doing and what you're all about? well, they can go to mvprights.org Which is our website and on that they will see information on how to contact me There's a email address there, which will come to me. I don't think my name's on it But it'll come to me great. Well, thank you very much for joining us. Thank you for having me