"Maybe this will be the last genocide"

In April I saw Palestinian scientist and academic Professor Mazin Qumsiyeh speak at the Yagoona Community Centre. It was a Tuesday night and it was cold, but maybe 80 people turned out to the dinky little community hall to hear him speak and eat knafeh afterward.

It was Qumsiyeh’s fifth event that day. He was not quite halfway through a tour of Australia and Aotearoa that would run for 53 days and take in 212 separate events in 17 cities, including a visit to Parliament House.

I’d never heard of him before his tour publicist reached out to me, which felt pretty dumb on my part as soon as I starting reading his Wikipedia page. Besides a storied career as an associate professor of genetics and director of cytogenetic services at Duke and Yale universities, Qumsiyeh is also a world-leading biologist and zoologist.

In 2008 he left Yale and moved back to his hometown of Beit Sahour, east of Bethlehem, with his wife Jessie Chang. “Leaving America and good money to go back to Palestine was the best decision we ever made in our lives,” he told the room.