News from Within: Palestine/Israel is a podcast of the Alternative Information Center (AIC). The AIC is a joint Palestinian-Israeli organization which prioritizes political advocacy, critical analysis and information sharing on the Palestinian and Israeli societies as well as on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The Annapolis Conference and the Left and Democratic Movements in Palestine
On Sunday, 18November 2007, I spoke with Dr.
Naim Abu Tair. Dr. Naim operates a private medical clinic in East
Jerusalem. In addition, he was formerly the director and president
of the Palestinian Health Work Committee, and is currently the General Director
of the BisanCenter
for Research and Development and co-chair of the board of the AlternativeInformationCenter.
We spoke about the situation for Palestinians in East
Jerusalem, and his assessment of the Hamas/Fatah split and the competing
Palestinian governments in Gaza and the West Bank. We also discussed the Left and Democratic
forces in Palestinian society, and a forecast of the results of the upcoming US
backed Middle East conference in Annapolis,
which is due to take place at the end of November.
On 2 October 2007, I spoke with Prof. Dror Ze’evi, Senior Lecturer in the
Department of Middle Eastern Studies at BenGurionUniversity and President of The Middle
East & Islamic Association of Israel. He is the author of An Ottoman
Century: The District of Jerusalem in the 1600s, and more recently Producing
Desire: Changing Sexual Discourse in the Ottoman Middle
East, 1500-1900. He also writes periodically on current issues
for the Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth.
We spoke
about the situation in the Gaza Strip, US/Israeli relations, the issue of
academic and economic boycott, rising tensions between Israel, Syria
and Iran,
and the prospects for war or peace in the region.
The
following are the personal views of Prof. Ze’evi, and do not necessarily
reflect the positions of The Middle East & Islamic Association of Israel.
An Analysis of Current Israeli Approaches to the Palestinian Situation in the Wake of the Hamas Takeover of Gaza
We continue
in this podcast with highlighting lectures from the recent conference, The Bilbao Initiative: Another Future is Possible,
held in Bethlehem
on Friday, 27 July 2007. The conference was sponsored by the Alternative Information
Center (AIC), The Palestinian Health
Work Committies (HWC), the Alternative Tourism Group (ATG), and the Bisan Center
for Research and Development.
In this
show, we bring you the lecture of Naomi Chazan. She examines the current political
situation in Israel
and various Israeli approaches to the Palestinian situation in the wake of the
Hamas takeover of the Gaza Strip and end of the Palestinian unity government.
Naomi is a
former Member of the Knesset for the Meretz Party and currently a professor of
Political Science and researcher at the Hebrew University’s
Truman Institute for the Advancement of Peace.
For the
next few podcasts, we will bring to you highlights from the conference, The Bilbao Initiative: Another Future is Possible,
held in Bethlehem
on Friday, 27 July 2007.
Endorsed in
2003, by over 20 Palestinian and Israeli organizations, the Bilbao Declaration
presents the minimum conditions under which a just and lasting peace can be
formed, as well as providing a concrete foundation upon which Palestinian and
Israeli activists can work together.
Over 100
Palestinian, Israeli and international social activists met at the conference,
to jointly analyze the current political situation, endorse the Bilbao
Declaration and form a steering committee to update this 2003 document for use
in future joint advocacy.
In this
show, we bring you the lecture of Dr. Majed Nassar, titled, “The Takeover of
Gaza: What Next?” Dr. Nassar is Deputy Director of the Palestinian Health Works
Committee (HWC) and a board member of the Alternative Information
Center (AIC).
Cheap Wars and Israel's Roaring Economy: An Interview with Political Economist Jonathan Nitzan
On Monday,
July 23, 2007, Shir Hever, economic researcher with the Alternative
Information Center
(AIC), interviewed, Prof. Jonathan Nitzan about two recent articles which he
co-authored with Shimshon Bichler, titled “Cheap Wars” and “Israel’s
Roaring Economy.”
Jonathan
Nitzan is a professor of Political Economy at York
University in Toronto
Canada
and the author of numerous articles and books dealing with the regional and
international political economy, including The Global Political Economy of
Israel, published in English in 2002, which he co-authored with frequent
collaborator, Shimshon Bichler.
The
publications of Jonathan Nitzan and Shimshon Bichler, including the articles
discussed in this interview, are freely available from The Bichler and Nitzan
Archives at www.bnarchives.net.
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