Madison-Rafah Journal

This year marks the fortieth anniversary of the 1967 war and the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem.

The Middle East Studies Department at UW-Madison, thanks to a generous grant from the Anonymous Fund, is sponsoring a month-long series, "A Bitter Harvest: Palestine, Israel and Lebanon Forty Years After 1967" including lectures, talks and films. MRSCP is one of many co-sponsors of this series of events, which begins on April 12 and runs through May 3.

All events are free and open to the public.

Please check out the details below and mark your calendars. Also, we would appreciate it if you would circulate this information as widely as possible. We are also in need of people to help distribute flyers and posters, if you can help with this, please contact us.

For more information on the series, please contact MES at (608)265-6583, email cmes@mailplus.wisc.edu, or go to www.mideast.wisc.edu.

THE LECTURES:

April 12th • 1351 Chemistry [Map] • 7:30 pm
“Hizbullah, Israel and Lebanon: The Summer War, 2006”
Fawwaz Trabulsi, Lebanese-American University, Beirut, Lebanon

April 19th • 105 Psychology [Map] • 7:30 pm
“Democracy, Disengagement and Destruction: The United States, Israel and the Rise of Hamas.”
Laila El-Haddad, freelance journalist, Gaza

April 26th • 105 Psychology [Map] • 7:30 pm
“On Dignity and Dissent: Reflections on Palestine by a Child of Holocaust Survivors”
Sara Roy, Harvard University

May 3rd • 105 Psychology [Map] • 7:30 pm
“The Threat from Within: Democracy & Demography in Israel and the Modern Zionist Ideology”
Jonathan Cook, journalist, Nazareth, Israel; formerly of the London Guardian

(Complete biographies of all lecturers are at the end)

THE TOUR:

JERUSALEM WOMEN SPEAK: THREE WOMEN, THREE FAITHS, ONE SHARED VISION

Huda Abu Arqoub: A Muslim Palestinian, Ms. Abu Arqoub is a Consultant with the Palestinian Ministry of Education and advocate for students and teachers in the Hebron region.

Tal Dor: A Jewish Israeli, Ms. Dor is a community activist focusing her work on underprivileged communities and forgotten narratives in Israel and Palestine

Amal Nassar: A Christian Palestinian, Ms. Nassar is a nurse and a grassroots organizer developing nonviolent responses to war and occupation in the Bethlehem region.

Sunday, April 15, 2 pm
Memorial United Church of Christ, 5705 Lacy Road, Fitchburg [Map]
AND
Sunday April 15, 7:30 pm
Anderson Auditorium, Predolin Hall, Edgewood College [Map]

Monday, April 16, 7 pm
UW Madison Campus, 2650 Humanities [Map]

National tour sponsored by Partners for Peace, Washington, DC. Info? www.partnersforpeace.org 202.863.2951 info@partnersforpeace.org

THE FILMS:

A series of Palestinian-made feature dramas will be shown at 2241 Chamberlin Hall [Map], UW Madison, all beginning at 8 pm. Discussion to follow. For descriptions, see links below.

Friday, April 20: Rana's Wedding
www.ranaswedding.com/

Saturday, April 21: Divine Intervention
www.avatarfilms.com/releases/divine_intervention.html

Friday, April 27: Paradise Now
wip.warnerbros.com/paradisenow/

Saturday, April 28: The Olive Harvest
www.theoliveharvest.com/synopsis/index.html

SERIES CO-SPONSORS:

Departmental co-sponsors: Comparative Literature, International Studies, Havens Center, and the Religious Studies Program

Student group co-sponsorships: Al Awda-Wisconsin, Campus Antiwar Network, Middle East Law Students Association, Muslim Students Association, and the National Lawyer’s Guild

Community co-sponsors: The Crossing, Edgewood College, Social Justice Council of the First Unitarian Church, Friends of Jewish Voice for Peace/Madison, Madison-Arcatao Sister City Project, Madison Area Peace Coalition, Madison-Rafah Sister City Project, Memorial United Church of Christ-Fitchburg, The Progressive magazine, Rainbow Cooperative Bookstore, St. Stephen’s Lutheran Church-Monona, and WORT radio

LECTURER BIOGRAPIES

Fawwaz Traboulsi (April 12) studied at the American University of Beirut and the School of Oriental Studies in London and received his doctorate in history from the Universite de Paris (VIII). After a career in journalism and political activism, he has been since 1997 an associate professor of Political Science and History at the Lebanese American University, Beirut-Lebanon. He has written on history, Arab politics, social movements, folklore and art. His translations include works by Karl Marx, John Reed, Antonio Gramsci, Isaac Deutscher, John Berger, Etel Adnan, Sa`di Yusuf and Edward Said. Among his writings: On an Incurable Hope (a journal of the siege of Beirut, summer 1982, 1984) Guernica-Beirut (a Picasso mural/an Arab city in war, 1987), an anthology of the Arab Renaissance writer Ahmad Faris al-Shidyq (1995), Sžrat-al-Fata bi-l-Ahmar (a memoir, 1997), Silt Bil Wasl (a critique of political thought in Lebanon, 1998), Wu«žd«Adan (a Yemen diary, 2000) an Arabic translation of Edward Said's Out of Place (2000), Dhofar, a testimony from the revolutionary years (2003) and others. His recent publications are The Stranger, the Treasure and the Miracle - A Reading in the Musical Theatre of the Rahbani Brothers and Fayrouz (2005), and an Arabic translation of Edward Said’s posthumous work Humanism and Democratic Critique (2005). His History of Modern Lebanon is due at the end of January 2007 (Pluto Books, London).

Laila El-Haddad (April 19) is a freelance Palestinian journalist, writer, and blogger based in the United States and the Gaza Strip. She spent the past three years in Gaza reporting for the Aljazeera Satellite Channel's English language website (now part of the Aljazeera English channel) and Pacifica Radio's Free Speech Radio news. Her work is also frequently found in the Guardian Unlimited, the BBC World Service, the Electronic Intifada, Le Monde Diplomatique, the New Statesman and elsewhere both in print and on-line. Laila received her B.A. from Duke University in Political Science and Comparative Area Studies, and her Master's Degree in Public Policy from Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government. Laila is also the author of the blog "Raising Yousuf," named after her two-year-old son (www.a-mother-from-gaza.blogspot.com) where she writes about the trials and tribulations of motherhood under occupation.

Sara Roy (April 26) is a senior research scholar at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Harvard University where she completed her doctoral studies in international development. Trained as a political economist, Dr. Roy has worked in the Gaza Strip and West Bank since 1985 conducting research primarily on the economic, social and political development of the Gaza Strip and on U.S. foreign aid to the region. Dr. Roy has written extensively on the Palestinian economy, particularly in Gaza, and has documented its development over the last three decades. Her current research, which was funded by a grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, examines the social and economic sectors of the Palestinian Islamic movement and their relationship to Islamic political institutions, and the critical changes to the Islamic movement that have occurred over the last seven years. Dr. Roy is the author of The Gaza Strip: The Political Economy of De-development (1995, 2001), now in its second edition with a third edition forthcoming; The Gaza Strip Survey (1986); and editor of The Economics of Middle East Peace: A Reassessment (1999). Her most recent book is Failing Peace: Gaza and the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict (London: Pluto Press, 2007) Dr. Roy also has authored over 100 publications dealing with Palestinian issues and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Her work has appeared in the Journal of Palestine Studies, Current History, Middle East Journal, Middle East Policy, International Journal of Middle East Studies, The Beirut Review, American Political Science Review, Critique, Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Chicago Journal of International Law, Index on Censorship, La Vanguardia, Le Monde Diplomatique and the London Review of Books. Dr. Roy also serves on the Advisory Boards of the American Near East Relief Agency (ANERA), an American private voluntary organization working in the Middle East, and the Center for American and Jewish Studies at Baylor University.

Jonathan Cook (May 3) is a freelance journalist living and working in Nazareth, Israel. From 1996 to 2001, he reported for the London Guardian and in 2004 founded the Nazareth Press Agency. Cook received a postgraduate degree in journalism at Cardiff University in 1989 and a Masters Degree in Middle Eastern Studies with Distinction at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London, England. His most recent book is "Blood and Religion: The Unmasking of the Jewish and Democratic State"; London: Pluto Press, 2004. He has written for the London Times, Le Monde Diplomatique, the International Herald Tribune, al-Ahram Weekly, Counterpunch and Aljazeera.net. His website is www.jkcook.net.