A Palestinian professor told a crowd of Madison community members Sunday the Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands have adversely affected health services of the Palestinian people.

The lecture was the first in a series discussing broader issues of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict this week, which will culminate in a lecture at the Orpheum Theater on Tuesday by renowned scholar Noam Chomsky.

In the kickoff lecture of the series, professor Rita Giacaman of Birzeit University in the West Bank talked about the consequences of the controversial occupation and how it has had a serious effect on the Palestinian health system.

According to Giacaman, the Palestinian health system is “not a system at all. It is composed of fragments of a system.” This is due largely to the Israeli policy of closure and separation, an “ongoing colonization by Israel,” she said.

She pointed to the 690 checkpoints within the West Bank and the Israeli-built separation wall in the West Bank area, an effort to “land grab” by Israel.

“Israel has been systematic,” Giacaman said. “It’s not just security or a bomb here or a missile there. [Israel has been] systematic about its work.”

These conditions block the movement of food and supplies, Giacaman said, leading to a lack of adequate health care for the Palestinian people.

However, UW history professor Jeremi Suri said he thinks calling the land grab by Israel “systematic” is going too far.

“That is overlooking how Israel is responding to violence from non-Israeli groups,” Suri said.

Suri said while the checkpoints do lead to a decreased quality of health services, but they cannot be blamed entirely because the checkpoints are established in response to violence committed by non-Israeli groups.

While the infant mortality rate has declined over the last few decades, it began to stall starting in 1990, corresponding with the start of Israel’s strict policy of closure, according to Giacaman.

She also showed statistics produced by the World Health Organization showing a low quality of life of the Palestinian people, the second-lowest rating of all countries measured.

Giacaman thinks the constant fear of becoming a refugee is to blame.

“We live in open air prisons,” Giacaman said. “We need to realize that the home front of the Occupied Palestinian Territory is the battlefront.”

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been a subject of heated debate on campus, where last December an Israeli diplomat told community members a psychological “quantum leap” would be necessary to eventually accomplish peace.

“If any people really want peace with Israel, it’s Palestinians. They know the cultural and economic freedoms that they had. They know how much they have to gain, and we also know how much we have to gain, but the problem on both sides is psychological,” said Gershon Kedar, deputy consul general of the Israeli Consulate in Chicago.