Susan Abulhawa
It’s shaping up to be a great October in New York for the issue. The Russell Tribunal on Palestine this weekend, and then on Monday, October 8, three important voices, authors Miko Peled, Nurit Peled (Elhanan), and Susie Abulhawa will be gathering at All Souls on the Upper East Side, at 7:30 p.m.
Helena Cobban of Just World News tells us:
Susan Albulhawa will probe with Miko Peled and Nurit Peled Elhanan not only the content of their very important written work [details below] but also how they feel about what they found out as they were producing it, and what they learned from it about the nature of the Zionist venture in which they grew up. She may also share some of the feelings she had, as a Palestinian, reading Miko’s account of his personal journey.
The Peled siblings may well reflect on the lasting legacy they gained from their parents: a mother who in 1948 refused to take up an offer from the infant Israeli government to simply move into one of the many Jerusalem homes whose Palestinian inhabitants had so recently been “cleansed” from the city, and a father who right after the 1967 war started arguing loudly that it was time to make peace with the Palestinians then and there, and to talk to the PLO.
This will be an intimate encounter among three visionary individuals, two Israelis and a Palestinian, who are all deeply committed advocates for the equality of all human persons– and for the establishment of a political order in Palestine/Israel that enshrines that equality.
Abulhawa is formidable. I remember an academic telling me once that he was afraid to come out for boycott because he was afraid of Dershowitz. The idea of debating Dershowitz scares a lot of people off. But Abulhawa debated him, and left him sputtering.
(I covered Miko Peled’s great analysis of the conflict here, on his recent booktour; that’s why he’s not in my headline.)
More info on the speakers:
Miko Peled, author of the transformative memoir The General’s Son: Journey of an Israeli in Palestine, will be participating in a landmark public conversation in midtown Manhattan on the evening of Monday, October 8, along with his sister, the wellknown Israeli peace educator and activist Nurit Peled (Elhanan), and Susan Abulhawa, a pioneering Palestinian children’s-rights activist and author of the breakthrough novel Mornings in Jenin.
This event is being hosted by the Peace and Justice Task Force of All Souls Church, Unitarian, at 1157 Lexington Avenue.
Miko will also be doing two more events while he’s in New York: One at Hunter College on the evening of October 9, and a daytime event in midtown on one of those days. Details of these other events will be posted on Miko’s book-blog, The General’s Son.
Nurit Peled (Elhanan) is an Israeli professor of language and education at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and co-laureate of the 2001 Sakharov Prize for Human Rights and the Freedom of Speech. Peled Elhanan’s landmark study Palestine in Israeli Books: Ideology and Propaganda in Education will be released in paperback in the U.S. in late October.
Susan Abulhawa is a Palestinian-American writer and political commentator. She is the author of the 2010 international bestselling novel, Mornings in Jenin and the founder of Playgrounds for Palestine, an NGO that since 2002 has been upholding the Right to Play for Palestinian children by building playgrounds and sponsoring recreation in Palestine and UN refugee camps in Lebanon and Syria.
Copies of The General’s Son and Mornings in Jenin will be available for purchase at the October 8 event, and light refreshments will be provided.
I arrived late to the speech last night. Only caught the last ten minutes of Miko Peled’s initial presentation. Gar nicht g’helfen. He speaks without an accent and is calm and unIsraeli like, in his presentation. But the upshot of his presentation: All Israel is occupied Palestinian territory. For someone seeking commonalities or a way forward, there was no one there to see. When the white flag replaces the Zionist flag, he will be satisfied, not a minute before. But presented very amiably.
His sister (?) was very Israeli. Chip on her shoulder, angry argumentative, fault finding. Her final line: there are Israelis, those who have taken her classes, who are open to thinking. Whereas Miko’s optimism (when asked by moderator Abulhawa) was the progress of the BBC refusing to carry the Israeli Philharmonic Orchestra, a landmark achievement for the BDS movement. His sister’s optimism was based upon the students she teaches every year.