Noura Erakat examines the viability and legitimacy of the current Palestinian leadership. This is the final installment of our annual lecture series, a study of the extent to which Palestinian leadership represents Palestinian interests, and how their national objectives are at all manifest.
Phyllis Bennis and Adam Gallagher discuss the ability of grassroots movements to achieve political aims without party politics and their response to political shortcomings. This was the first in our annual Palestine Center Interns Summer Lecture Series entitled, “Reevaluating Palestinian Stakeholder Legitimacy.”
Yousef Munayyer: Last week the Israeli prime minister, with the help of Washington, made one of the strongest cases for the need for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) in the wake of an Israeli court decision regarding an illegal Israeli settlement in the occupied West Bank. By demonstrating that twenty years of ‘peace process’ policies have yielded an Israeli government drunk on settlements, Netanyahu’s statement and the United States’ reaction should convince any remaining doubters that BDS is an urgently necessary alternative.
Dr. Walt addresses the pressure on U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East from the Israel lobby and the real and perceived effects it has had on decisions throughout the current and past presidential administrations.
Josh Ruebner from The U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation presents his report on U.S. military aid to Israel from 2000-2009.
Yousef Munayyer: If Iran strikes Israel with a nuclear weapon, every member of my family living throughout Israel and Palestine could be killed or injured and my place of birth and ancestral homeland would likely be rendered uninhabitable. The scale of loss for me personally, and for humanity, would be immeasurable. Yet I have little fear.
Panel I – Revolution: Where It Came From and Where It Is Heading, Panel II – Palestinian National Strategy: Evaluating and Re-Evaluating, Panel III – Covering the Uprisings: Perspectives, Biases and the role of the Media, Panel IV – U.S. Foreign Policy toward a Revolutionary Region: Opportunities and Responsibilities
Yousef Munayyer: 1. Washington is broken and won’t be fixed any time soon. The Palestinians came to the United Nations in the hopes of putting forward a membership application because they had come to understand that domestic dynamics in the United States made it impossible for Washington to be an even-handed broker.
Yousef Munayyer: Solitude and Absurdity. Perhaps no two other words better described the scene at the United Nations earlier this year when US Ambassador Susan Rice raised her hand with a reluctant expression on her face to veto a Security Council resolution condemning Israeli colonial expansion.
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