Professor Ilan Pappe Rocks!
On November 19th, The Northeastern University School of Law National Lawyers Guild Chapter & the Boston Coalition for Palestinian Rights held an important conference called ‘Beyond Apartheid in Israel/Palestine: The Reality on the Ground & Lessons from South Africa.’ With about 300 attendees, it represented the major shift in discourse and tactics that began with the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation conference last September.
Increasingly, mainline church and liberal activists are using the discourse of “apartheid” and the language of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions in their work for a just peace in Israel-Palestine. This is a shift from just a few years ago, when east coast activists were reluctant to take on such messages — even though the goal of a real peace is the same.
Ilan Pappe, political science professor at Haifa University, gave a great and inspiring talk at the Boston gathering. You can listen to it here. He sensed that this could be a historical turn of events — the beginning of a new, international anti-Apartheid movement.
He also signed copies of his new book, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine.
I also recorded the other speakers at the event. Unfortunately, only my recording of Omar Barghouti’s presentation came out well. I will post it in the coming days.
