The media give us views of the Middle East influenced by politics, international law, and distance. But what does life in the Middle East feel like on the ground? Physician Alice Rothchild of American Jews for a Just Peace – Boston leads a panel discussion on living under military occupation in the occupied Palestinian Territories. Panelists Dr. Alan Meyers, Tali Ruskin, and Laila Bernstein from the AJJP Health and Human Rights Project present their observations of daily life in the West Bank and East Jerusalem made during their visits as part of human rights delegations over the past decade.
Recorded March 5, 2014
Co-sponsored by the Middle East Education Group of First Parish in Cambridge.
Rashid Khalidi, one of the foremost historians of the modern Middle East, zeroes in on the United States’ role as broker of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. Analyzing the 1982 “Reagan Plan,” the negotiations leading to the Oslo Accords, and President Obama’s stance toward the conditions for Middle East peace, Khalidi reveals how U.S. influence has been used over the past 35 years.
MIT’s Noam Chomsky and Barbara Lubin of the Middle East Children’s Alliance discuss A Child’s View of Gaza, the book of Palestinian children’s artwork slated for exhibition at the Oakland Museum of Children’s Art. The exhibition was cancelled at the last minute without explanation. Have children become pawns in a larger conflict? How has this come about? What does it say about the possibilities for peaceful resolution of the Israeli/Palestinian impasse?