The 2011 Palestine Center Annual Conference
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“A Turning Point: For Palestine and the Region”
Friday, 4 November 2011
Panel I – Revolution: Where It Came From and Where It Is Heading
Participants: Mr. Adel Iskandar and Dr. Michele Dunne
Panel II – Palestinian National Strategy:
Evaluating and Re-Evaluating
Participants: Ms. Riham Barghouti, Dr. Salim Tamari and Dr. Mustafa Barghouthi
Panel III – Covering the Uprisings:
Perspectives, Biases and the role of the Media
Participants: Dr. Abderrahim Foukara, Mr. George Hishmeh and Mr. Joseph Dana
Panel IV – U.S. Foreign Policy toward a Revolutionary Region:
Opportunities and Responsibilities
Participants: Mr. Philip J. “P.J.” Crowley, Dr. Shibley Telhami and Dr. John Mearsheimer
PANEL SUMMARIES
Panel I – Revolution: Where It Came From and Where It Is Heading
This panel addressed the current state of the revolutionary movements throughout the Middle East and highlighted some of the challenges facing the Arab public’s demands for democracy and dignity. The discussion emphasized how the relationship between the people and the governments in the region has permanently changed, despite efforts by the status quo to override revolutionary demands.
Dr. Michelle Dunne, director of the Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East at the Atlantic Council, described the revolutions as an attempt at “redefining the citizen in the state.” The revolutionary fervor, Dr. Dunne pointed out, would eventually reach Palestine and could result in demands of accountability from the Palestinian leadership.
Mr. Adel Iskandar, a scholar of Arab Studies at Georgetown University, highlighted the importance of sustaining the revolutionary momentum. He stated that the military regime in Egypt embodies the very history of state paternalism, which he argues needs to be conceptually eliminated from the character of Egypt’s power dynamics.
Panel II – Palestinian National Strategy:
Evaluating and Re-Evaluating
This panel focused on the Palestinian national strategy as it exists today and discussed where Palestinian national efforts should be focused and why. Dr. Mustafa Barghouthi, Secretary General of the Palestinian National Initiative, said that the U.S. brokered peace process has essentially acted as a cover to continue Israel’s expansionist policies. Balancing the skewed power dynamic between Israel and the Palestinians is achieved only through popular, non-violent means. This strategy, according to Dr. Barghouti, must be fostered. He also made the point that it should be understood that if the two-state solution fails, it was a result of Israeli expansionism and not a failure on the part of the Palestinian national strategy.
Dr. Salim Tamari, sociology professor at Birzeit University and senior fellow at the Institute for Palestine Studies, iterated the importance of non-violent struggle and emphasized that security collaboration with Israel delegitimizes the Palestinian Authority (PA). Tamari explained, “The hands of Israel are felt but not seen” due to Israeli-PA security collaboration.
Ms. Riham Barghouti, founding member of Adalah-NY, highlighted the importance of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) campaign as a broad based international strategy against the Israeli policy of apartheid. She also pointed out that the Palestinian Authority bid for statehood at the UN was suspect in some ways. According to her, it exhibited detraction from the failed U.S.-brokered peace process, yet Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’ speech frequently described the Palestinian strategy as existing within the same broken processes that further entrenched military colonialism in the West Bank.
Panel III – Covering the Uprisings:
Perspectives, Biases and the role of the Media
This panel focused on the role of the media in communicating events of the recent Arab uprisings and in the Palestinian occupied territories. Mr. Joseph Dana, a West Bank based writer for +972, discussed the importance of grassroots social media in countering the Israeli narrative on events in Palestine. He said that pro-expansionist views have become so entrenched in the Israeli media, that the seemingly populist J14 demonstrations in Israel have overtly avoided any mentioning of the crime of occupation in Palestine. This is a reality that social media platforms have the potential to change.
Dr. Abderrahim Foukara, Al Jazeera’s Washington D.C. bureau chief, highlighted the importance of the media in disseminating revolutionary information throughout the Middle East. Dr. Foukara also said that news outlets in the Middle East had not acted quickly enough in catching on to the revolution in Tunisia. He also discussed the role Al Jazeera played in exposing political repression in the Middle East leading up to the awakenings.
Mr. George Hishmeh, journalist and Jerusalem Fund board member, highlighted the importance of informing the American media on the realities of the Middle East, as there seems to be a general lack of informed discourse in U.S. media outlets. He also suggested that state-financed media outlets in the Arab World need to be countered by a new class of private-owned media to avoid apparent biases in news coverage.
Panel IV – U.S. Foreign Policy toward a Revolutionary Region:
Opportunities and Responsibilities
The concluding panel of the Palestine Center annual conference focused on the United States and how it has responded to the uprisings in the Middle East and the latest developments in Palestine.
Dr. Shibley Telhami, professor at the University of Maryland, concluded that the West was “confused” in its response to the revolutionary changes. He stated that initially, countries like France and the United States immediately stood in solidarity with the dictators, but as momentum of the revolutions increased, they quickly shifted to supporting the popular movements. Dr Telhami summarized how the United States found itself unable to oppose the legitimate claims of the Egyptian people, particularly given that the uprisings had already taken hold of the “imaginations of the American public.”
Dr. John Mearsheimer, professor at the University of Chicago, stated that regardless of who wins the U.S. presidential nomination in 2012, U.S. influence in the Middle East will continue to decline. Dr. Mearsheimer reminded the audience that the U.S. maintains a “special relationship with Israel” that has seen “no parallel in recorded history.” He described how the occupation in the West Bank has effectively killed the two-state solution and that there will be no variation in how future presidents deal with Israeli colonization policies. He said U.S. foreign policy is defined by its unconditional support for Israel.
Mr. Philip “P.J.” Crowley, former Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs, argued that in order for the Palestinians to gain from the recent upsurge in international support for a Palestinian state, President Abbas must take the newfound political capital to the negotiating tables of the peace process. He argued that it is only through this framework that President Abbas can effectively channel political leverage.
