Understanding the recent escalation in Gaza/Israel and questioning whether it was unprovoked, aiming to provide clarity amidst media narratives.
Moderator: Prof. Atif Kubursi, a distinguished Professor Emeritus of Economics and former Undersecretary of The United Nations.
Featured Guests:
PHYLLIS BENNIS:
Institute for Policy Studies Fellow Phyllis Bennis directs the New Internationalism Project at IPS, focusing on the Middle East, U.S. militarism, and UN issues. She is also a fellow of the Transnational Institute in Amsterdam.
In 2001 she helped found the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights and more recently spent six years on the board of Jewish Voice for Peace, where she now serves as its International Adviser. She works with many anti-war and Palestinian rights organizations, writing and speaking widely across the U.S. and around the world. She has served as an informal adviser to several top UN officials on Middle East issues and was twice short-listed to become the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.
Phyllis has written and edited 11 books. Among her latest is the 7th updated edition of her popular Understanding the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict, published in 2018. She is also the author of Before & After: U.S. Foreign Policy and the War on Terror and Challenging Empire.
AMBASSADOR CHARLES FREEMAN
Visiting Scholar in International and Public Affairs, Watson Institute, Brown University
Areas of Interest: Diplomacy, Geo-economics, Geopolitics, Strategy, China, and the Middle East.
Chas Freeman is the author of five books and numerous articles on statecraft and the editor of the Encyclopedia Britannica article on “diplomacy.” He is a former U.S. assistant secretary of defense, ambassador to Saudi Arabia, principal deputy assistant secretary of state for African affairs, chargé d’affaires a.i. at Bangkok and Beijing, acting US commissioner for refugee affairs, and director of program coordination and development at the U.S. Information Agency. He was the principal American interpreter during the late President Nixon’s 1972 opening of U.S. relations with China.
Edited Volumes
"Sino-American Interactions, Past and Future" in
INTERNATIONAL NEGOTIATION AND MEDIATION IN VIOLENT CONFLICTS: The Changing Context of Peacemaking
By Chester A. Crocker, Fen Osler Hampson, Pamela Aall, Routledge, 2020
"United States - China Military Relations: From Enmity to Entente and Maybe Back Again " in
ENGAGING CHINA: Fifty Years of Sino-American Relations
Ed. by Anne Thurston, Oxford, 2021
DR. JOSEPH GERSON
Dr. Joseph Gerson is President of the Campaign for Peace, Disarmament and Common Security (CPDCS), Co-chair of the Committee for a Sane U.S.-China Policy, Co-Convener of the International Peace and Planet Network and is former Vice President of the International Peace Bureau.
He educates and organizes at local, national, and international levels for peaceful and just alternatives to U.S. foreign and military policies, concentrating on great power tensions, nuclear dangers, and disarmament, working closely with Asian and European peace advocates and movements.
His books include Empire and the Bomb, and With Hiroshima Eyes.
This conversation is a must-watch for anyone interested in understanding Palestine under Israeli Occupation.
Taped on Oct 10, 2023
