“Popular Resistance in Palestine: A history of Hope & Empowerment”
Meet & hear Palestinian author & activist Dr. Mazin Qumsiyeh
3 events on Saturday April 2!
12:00 noon Book-Reading
Resource Center for Nonviolence
515 Broadway, Santa Cruz
Militant Nonviolence & the Palestinian Struggle
2:30 presentation at SubRosa, a community space.
703 Pacific Avenue
7:00 p.m.* United Methodist Church
250 California Street, Santa Cruz
* Several speakers have been invited to share the platform and to represent Israel’s interests but their participation is not yet confirmed. The evening will not be a strict debate format, but a frank and clarifying exchange of views to help people in this community better understand what is happening, what is at stake and what is possible as we observe or examine the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Viewpoints will galvanize around the following topic:
“Given the current turmoil in Egypt, the impasse in making progress towards a resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and the prominent role that the US government plays in the Mid East region, what should be the priorities of US Middle East policy and why?”
Professor Mazin Qumsiyeh (pictured above when arrested by Israeli soldiers at Al Walaja in May 2010) teaches and does research at Bethlehem & Birzeit Universities in Israeli occupied Palestine. He previously served on the faculties of the University of Tennessee, Duke and Yale Universities. Qumsiyeh is president of the Palestinian Center for Rapprochement Between People and coordinator of the Popular Committee against the Wall and Settlements in Beit Sahour. His most acclaimed book is “Sharing the Land of Canaan: human rights and the Israeli/Palestinian Struggle.” He published an activism handbook on his web site qumsiyeh.org. Qumsiyeh’s main interest is media activism and public education, having been published in and interviewed in print and on TV and radio extensively (local, national and international) including the Washington Post, New York Times, Boston Globe, CNBC, C-Span, and ABC. He also regularly lectures on issues of human rights and international law. His new book “Popular Resistance in Palestine” reviews Palestinian nonviolent civilian resistance to displacement and occupation dating back to the beginning of the 19th century until today.
Dr. Qumsiyeh’s “rather complex background” — born a Christian Palestinian in the Bethlehem area, exposed as a boy to the harsh realities of Israeli military occupation, trained in biology & teaching in US Colleges & Universities, field research in Israel & Palestine, extensive experience in civil society & nonprofit organizations, & leadership in nonviolent organizations & movements in the occupied West Bank — helped Qumsiyeh “come to understand the importance & the centrality of a pluralistic solution to the simmering conflict in the Land of Canaan.” Qumsiyeh’s electronic human rights newsletter” has made him the most important chronicler of contemporary popular resistance in Palestine, brilliantly evoking the spirit of Jesus, Gandhi, Edward Said, Rachel Corrie and many others, to tell the unvarnished truth about Palestine and Zionist settler colonialism, with a focus on ‘history and activism from below.’
Sponsored by Middle East Program of Resource Center for Nonviolence 831.423.1626 rcnv.org and the Palestine Israel Action Committee http://palestineisraelactioncommittee.com