IN STEREO

Native people, by definition, are intricately connected to the land. And there is no more indigenous native people than Palestinians. [Palestine] is at the intersection of continents. Even birds – 500 million birds – pass through Palestine on annual migrations from Africa to Eurasia. Humans also migrated through this country. So actually, those of you who are not African, you are Palestinian because you came through Palestine when you went out to Europe and other places. This juncture of continents also was important historically, because it was the first place that humans went from hunter-gatherer to agricultural communities. This happened about 12,000 years ago in a place called the ‘Fertile Crescent’, which includes Palestine. This is where we first domesticated things like wheat, lentils, barley, chickpeas… hummus, you must have had hummus. Even in the Bible it says “the land of milk and honey,” right? So it has never been a desert, so to speak – it's a very rich, beautiful country.  They lived in relative harmony with nature for thousands of years. Scientists and archaeologists and so forth describe this area as the beginning of so-called ‘civilisation’. Because hunter-gatherer [communities] couldn't support a large number of people – they were mostly nomadic, running around to where they could find things to eat and drink and stuff like that. Whereas when we became agricultural communities – [when we] domesticated plants and animals – we settled down, so population could grow, and we could have things like villages and towns. And that's why we find, for example, Jericho is the oldest continuously inhabited town on Earth. In these 12,000 years, once we had agriculture we had time on our hands, so communities started inventing things like religions and art and music and law, and the alphabet was invented here. That's the beginning of civilisation. And we as Palestinians are very proud of being part of this history.  – Mazin