[Peace-discuss] Fwd: [ufpj-activist] Is the Israeli Lobby Good for Israel?

[Brussel, Morton K]

Fascinating panel discussion by Israelis Miko Peled and Gideon Levy and a Palestinian-American woman. I wonder if Chomsky (or Finkelstein) would be happy with the discussion, since the panel members  recognize the futility of  promoting a two state solution, it being totally without realization in any fair sense. But this was not the principal theme of the talks.

This is a very insightful and powerful panel of speakers at a conference on the Israeli Lobby.
PLEASE SHARE THIS WIDELY !!

This whole panel was great, as was the entire conference, but Gideon Levy was the highlight.  (Levy begins at 19.05min.  Please also hear Miko Peled, Huwaida Arraf, and the Q&A.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SyzVNm4GnW0
Panel 4 Is the Lobby Good for Israel? 1:15

Speaker Bios-

Miko Peled

[Miko_Peled]Miko Peled is an Israeli writer and activist living in the U.S. He was born and raised in Jerusalem. Driven by a personal family tragedy to explore Palestine, its people and their narrative, he has written a book about his journey called The General’s Son: Journey of an Israeli in Palestine. The book covers Peled’s family history since his grandparents immigrated to Palestine in the early 20th century.

Peled’s maternal grandfather was a signer of the Israeli Declaration of Independence; his father was a general in the Israeli army; in the 1970s his father pioneered the Israeli-Palestinian dialogue and eventually met with Yasser Arafat. In 1997 his sister lost her daughter in a suicide bombing in Jerusalem.

Peled is a contributor to several online publications that deal with the Middle East and authors a blog, mikopeled.com<http://mikopeled.com/>, dedicated to tearing down the separation wall, and advocating the creation of one democratic state with equal rights for Israelis and Palestinians. He travels regularly to Palestine/Israel, where he speaks and works with the popular resistance. Peled has been arrested several times by the Israeli authorities for his activities.

Educated in Israel, the UK, Japan and the United States, Peled holds a sixth-degree black belt in karate. For 23 years, he ran a martial arts school that was dedicated to teaching leadership skills and non-violent conflict resolution through martial arts. He also taught classes to Palestinian children in the West Bank.


 Gideon Levy

Gideon Levy is a columnist for the Israeli daily Haaretz and a member of its editorial board.

Levy joined Haaretz in 1982, and spent four years as the newspaper’s deputy editor.

He is the author of the weekly Twilight Zone feature, which covers the Israeli occupation in the West Bank and Gaza over the last 25 years, as well as the writer of political editorials for the newspaper.

Levy was the recipient of the Euro-Med Journalist Prize for 2008; the Leipzig Freedom Prize in 2001; the Israeli Journalists’ Union Prize in 1997; and The Association of Human Rights in Israel Award for 1996.

His book, The Punishment of Gaza, was published in 2010 by Verso Publishing House in London and New York.


Huwaida Arraf


[cid:emce7d4637-54ae-4076-ba51-410a71b58540 at michael-pc]Huwaida Arraf is a Palestinian-American lawyer and human rights advocate. As the daughter of an Israeli-born Palestinian, she is also a citizen of Israel. Arraf received her Bachelors degree from the University of Michigan, and her Juris Doctor from the American University Washington College of Law, where she focused on international human rights and humanitarian law. In 2001 Arraf co-founded the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), which has twice been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. She is co-editor of the book Peace Under Fire: Israel, Palestine, and the International Solidarity Movement.

Arraf was one of the initiators and organizers of a delegation of American lawyers to Gaza in February 2009, and co-authored the report on their findings, "Onslaught: Israel's Attack on Gaza and the Rule of Law." She is the former chairperson of the Free Gaza Movement, and from August to December 2008, led five successful sea voyages to the Gaza Strip to confront and challenge Israel's illegal blockade. Arraf was one of the primary organizers of the Gaza Freedom Flotilla and was traveling with it when Israeli forces lethally attacked it on May 31, 2010.  She was one of the six Palestinian Freedom Riders who, inspired by the U.S. Civil Rights Freedom Rides of the 1960s, attempted to ride segregated Israeli settler public transport.

In 2012 Arraf helped conceive of and launch the Witness Bahrain initiative, an effort to provide human rights observers on the ground in Bahrain. She was arrested by Bahraini authorities and deported for her work. She currently resides in the United States with her husband, Adam Shapiro, and their two young children, both of whom she gave birth to in Israel so they would have Israeli citizenship and be allowed to visit and claim citizenship in their homeland.


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