|
2004-05 Community Education and Dialog Series Building a Just Peace: Important Perspectives on the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict |
|
Road Maps Celebrated policy analyst Phyllis Bennis reports on what's being discussed—and what's not being discussed—in the recent negotiations between Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. In Bennis' analysis of the moment's opportunities and obstacles, these talks are not "historic," and the widespread sense of cautious optimism is overrated. Bennis draws instructive, sobering parallels between current events and previous, failed Middle East peace talks, including the U.S.-convened 1991 Madrid talks and the 1993 Oslo Declaration. In all of them, Bennis notes, the word "occupation" was never mentioned. While the Bush administration engages in one-sided diplomacy, American citizens are seeking other, constructive, nongovernmental means to engage in promoting a just peace for Palestinians and Israelis. Bennis' Chicago-area presentations coincide with the Caterpillar National Day of Action, a nationwide grassroots initiative to end the sale of Caterpillar bulldozers to Israel for use in the demolition of Palestinian homes and agricultural tracts. Meanwhile, discussion grows around campaigns to divest from international corporations that profit from the sale of materiel used in the military occupation, settlement infrastructure development, and construction of the separation barrier ruled illegal by the International Court of Justice. Phyllis Bennis' brilliant analysis of the role of governmental and nongovernmental actors in moving beyond conflict is both sobering and hopeful. This event is also co-sponsored by the American Friends Service Committee and the U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation.
|
 |
 Phyllis Bennis is a fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, DC, and the Transnational Institute in Amsterdam. She directs the New Internationalism Project, which focuses on US policy in the Middle East, USUN relations, and US unilateralism and interventions. She is author of Calling the Shots: How Washington Dominates Today's UN (2000) and Before and After: US Foreign Policy and the September 11 Crisis (2002) and editor of Beyond the Storm: A Gulf Crisis Reader (1991). A widely-respected analyst and commentator for CNN and other media, Bennis has spoken and written about the United Nations and the Middle East for over twenty years. Bennis is author of Understanding the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict: A Primer. |
|
About the 2004-05 Community Education and Dialog Series
Please support our work! In this ambitious program year, your financial support is critical to our success: your generous donation will enhance our ability to reach a broad public with these events. Donations may be mailed to CJPIP, P.O. Box 3667, Oak Park, IL 60303. If you wish your donation to be tax-deductible please make your check out to The Illinois Justice Foundation/CJPIP. Thank you. |
Organized by the Committee for a Just Peace in Israel and Palestine.
All advertisements generated by this page are placed by Yahoo/Geocities, not the owner of this webpage.