Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, May/June 1998, Pages 108-109

Education

Conferences on 50 Years of Palestinian Dispossession

By Betsy Barlow

Three different conferences in early June will address the 50th year of Palestinian Dispossession.

ADC Washington, DC Conference

The annual conference of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, meeting at the Crystal City Marriott Gateway Hotel in Washington, DC June 11-14, will feature Haidar Abdul-Shafi on Saturday morning June 13 speaking on “50 Years of Palestinian Dispossession: Prospects for the Future.”

After the brunch on Sunday, June 14, Edward Said will give a special address, followed by a rally on Capitol Hill and a display of the Palestine Quilt commemorating each of the 418 villages destroyed in 1948. The program will also include a presentation on poetry and art with poet Khaled Mattawa and others; a focus on civil rights and ethnic/racial relations; a program on early Arab Americans moderated by Alexa Naff, donor of the Naff Arab-American collection at the Smithsonian; and a panel on “50 Years of Biased U.S. Foreign Policy,” moderated by Hisham Melhem, bureau chief, As-Safir newspaper.

The keynote talk will be given by Antiochian Orthodox Archbishop of North America Philip Saliba. Other speakers invited but not yet confirmed include Janet Reno, U.S. attorney general, and actress Vanessa Redgrave.

To register for the conference, or to receive the final program brochure, contact ADC at 4201 Connecticut Ave. NW, Suite 300, Washington, DC 20008; phone (202) 244-2990; fax (202) 244-3196; e-mail: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

U.N. Conference in New York

In New York immediately following the ADC conference the United Nations Committee on the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People will hold a symposium June 15-17 at U.N. headquarters. The theme for the program is “Palestine: Fifty Years of Dispossession.” Plenary sessions will be held June 15 and 16 from l0 a.m. till l:00 p.m. on the topics “Memory: Rethinking the Myths of our History” and “Conscience: Discovering the Resources for Changing the Future,” respectively. Workshops and an NGO business session will also be part of the program. Participants need to pre-register to receive credentials at the U.N. door. Speakers will be announced soon by the U.N. For further information about speakers, or for registration information, please contact John Ihnat, North American Coordinating Committee on the Question of Palestine (NACC) coordinator, phone (202) 319-0757. The conference organizers recommend for accommodations Leo House, 332 W. 23rd St. New York, NY 10011; phone (212) 929-1010.

The NACC on the Question of Palestine will hold a pre-symposium meeting on Sunday afternoon, June 14, from 1 to 4 p.m. at the Church Center at the United Nations, 777 U.N. Plaza, eighth floor. All symposium participants are invited. Further information about this meeting is also available from John Ihnat, address above.

LAWE Jerusalem Conference

LAWE, the Palestinian Society for Human Rights and the Environment, is holding a conference June 7-10 at the Ambassador Hotel in Jerusalem on the 50th anniversary of the catastrophe. A special feature of this conference will be a series of working groups made up of people with similar interests and specialties, such as human rights advocates, parliamentary advocates, campaigning organizations, and Palestinian information sources. These working groups will use information presented in the workshops and panels to develop specific suggestions for actions and projects. The working groups will meet each day of the conference, and report back to a final plenary on the third day (Tuesday, June 9). Other special features of the program will be a public meeting held in a refugee camp, a choice of tours, and a theater performance.

Confirmed speakers include Haidar Abdul-Shafi, Red Crescent Society, Albert Agazarian (Birzeit University), Geoff Aronson (Foundation for Middle East Peace), Naseer Aruri (University of Massachusetts), Uri Avnery (Gush Shalom), Mustafa Barghouti (Medical Relief Committee), Azmi Bishara (Knesset member), Colm Campbell (National University of Ireland), Avigdor Feldman (lawyer), Norman Finkelstein (New York University), Manawel Hassassian (Bethlehem University), Faisal Husseini (Orient House), Taher Masri (former Jordanian prime minister), Sara Roy (Harvard University), Khader Shkirat (LAWE), Raji Sourani (Palestinian Center for Human Rights), Salim Tamari (Institute for Jerusalem Studies), Leah Tsemel (lawyer), Michael Warchawsky (Alternative Information Center), Eiten Vilner (B’Tselem) and many others.

Registration for the whole conference is $50 ($30 for students, the unemployed or persons on pensions) or a daily rate of $20 ($5 for students, the unemployed or those on pensions). The fee includes lunch, daily refreshments, and translation services. To register or for more information, contact LAWE, The Palestinian Society for the Protection of Human Rights and the Environment, at PO Box 20873; fax 972 2 581 1072; e-mail: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it , or visit their Web site http://www.lawsociety.org/conf

Interfaith Conference

The Greater Detroit Interfaith Round Table of Muslims, Christians and Jews held its 12th annual symposium on “Building a Community of Character: The Role of Institutional Religion” on Sunday, April 26, at the Islamic House of Wisdom in Dearborn Heights, Michigan. The keynote speaker was Rabbi David Saperstein, director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism in Washington, DC.

Rabbi Saperstein, an attorney, teaches advanced seminars at Georgetown University School of Law in First Amendment church-state law and Jewish Law, and has been called the premier religious lobbyist on Capitol Hill. The keynote address was followed by comments from the Rev. Harry T. Cook, writer and rector of St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church in Clawson, Michigan, and Imam Mohamad Ali Elahi, the Iran-born founder of the Islamic House of Wisdom in Dearborn Heights, Michigan. The program continued with questions and workshops, an interfaith prayer service and dinner at the mosque for interfaith roundtable members and symposium participants.

The Detroit Roundtable for 12 years has offered three series of trialogs—for laypersons, clergy, and theologians—and has sponsored an annual symposium in which an issue is addressed by members of the three faiths. For further information about their activities, call the Roundtable at (313) 869-6306, or fax them at (313) 869-2117.

Teachers’ Summer Programs

The Center for Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Texas at Austin is offering a program June 15-19 for K-12 educators on “Ethno-nationalism in Area Studies.” The program will include an examination of Asia, Latin America, Russia and Eastern Europe as well as the Middle East. Participants will explore ethnicity and nationalism through presentations, panels and discussion. Presentations will focus on groups that are striving to maintain their cultural identity in a changing world, ethnicity as a political tool, and literary and religious expressions of ethnic identity. Handouts will include suggested lesson plan activities and ready-to-use teaching materials.

To register, contact Pauline Adema, Center for Asian Studies, The University of Texas, Austin, TX 78712; phone (512) 475-6054; fax (512) 471-4469. The nonrefundable cost of $45 per participant includes some meals and extensive handouts. Travel and housing assistance is available to non-Austin residents; please inquire. The seminar is limited to 40 participants.

Teachers and the Internet

This program will be preceded on June 4-5 by another program on “Bringing the World to the Classroom: The Internet and Area Studies Resources,” designed for teachers with little or no Internet experience. It focuses on developing strategies to infuse available on-line resources, specifically area studies information, into the classroom. The fee for this program is $30 per participant, housing and meals not included. It is limited to 35 participants. To register, contact Kate Bennett, Institute of Latin American Studies, The University of Texas, Austin TX 78712; phone (512) 232-2404; fax: (512) 471-3090.

Egypt for Teachers

The Middle East Center at the University of Utah will hold a summer workshop for teachers June 16 and 17 on “Egypt: Myth and Reality,” co-sponsored with the Utah State Office of Education. This program will explore many aspects of Egyptian culture, including history, geography, religion, politics, literature and music. The focus will be on innovative teaching. Participating teachers will receive lesson plans and resource information. While this workshop is sold out, to get on the list for future events contact Linda Adams at the Middle East Center, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT 84112; phone (801) 581-6181 or fax (801) 581-6183.

Teaching the Middle East

Georgetown University is offering a program designed for K-12 educators on “Approaches to Teaching the Middle East” July 6-10. The first day will be devoted to a general overview of the area, and the next four days will explore the history, geography, politics, religions, economics, sociology, anthropology, literature, and culture and arts of the Middle East. Readings will be assigned for each day, and a field trip is planned for the middle of the week. The program is open to 25 people, and the deadline for application is May 15. Georgetown intends the program for teachers in the Washington, DC area. Participants must be present for all five days of the workshop.

For registration or further information, contact Zeina Seikaly, Center for Contemporary Arab Studies, 241 ICC, Georgetown University, Washington, DC 20057-1020; phone (202) 687-6176; fax (202) 687-7001.

History Through Literature

The University of California-Berkeley will hold a summer institute for K-12 teachers, but particularly aimed at 6th and 7th grade teachers, on July 13-17. The theme of the program is “History Through Literature: Literary Heroes and Villains in the Ancient and Medieval World.” The Center for Middle Eastern Studies is joining other Berkeley area centers to present a program comparing and contrasting social values seen in literature not only in the Middle East, but in East Asia, South Asia, Africa and Europe as well. The program is offered at no charge to teachers. Continuing education credits are available. For further information, contact Michelle DeLattre, Office of Resources in International and Area Studies (ORIAS), 120 A Stephens Hall, #2306, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720.

Balkans Workshop

Princeton University’s Program in Near Eastern Studies with New York University’s Center for Near Eastern Studies is offering a workshop for high school and community college teachers June 29-July 1 on “The History and Psychology of Ethnic Conflict in the Balkans.” The workshop is already at capacity.

Problems With Brown’s 21st Century “Choices” series

The series “Choices for the 21st Century,” developed by Brown University’s Watson Institute for International Studies, has published a one-week curricular unit for grades 9-12 on “Shifting Sands: Balancing U.S. Interests in the Middle East.” The unit analyzes the Arab-Israeli conflict, the significance of oil, the politicization of Islam and other issues that have shaped America’s ties to the Middle East.

The team of writers, Kamal Abdel-Malek, Engin Akarli, Thomas Biersteker, David Jacobson, Stephen Shenfield, and Alan Zuckerman, all from Brown University, and Linda Miller, Wellesley College and Marsha Pripstein Pususney, Bryant College, deserve thanks for attempting to engage high school students in thinking through what should be the basis of U.S. policy in the Middle East. Nevertheless, in a unit with only 38 pages, problems arise, perhaps because of the compressed nature of the presentation. For example, the “breakthrough agreements” signed between Israel and the Palestinians are oversold (p. 1 and 20); in fact, they were disintegrating well before the unit was published. Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser is accused of triggering an international crisis by declaring ownership of the Suez Canal (p. 7) without any mention of John Foster Dulles’s sudden withdrawal of funding support for the Aswan Dam. The way in which Israelis acquired land for settlements and their treatment of their Palestinian neighbors is not explained, so that the student will be unable to understand why Jewish settlements “stirred passions” (p. 20). The 1983 suicide bombing of the Marine barracks in Lebanon is recounted without explaining that the U.S. had just previously intervened militarily on one side in the civil war (“caught in the middle of the civil war,” p. 12, is really not an accurate description of the U.S. role). The Israeli contention (p. 21) that the security zone it occupies in southern Lebanon “is needed to protect their country against guerrilla attacks” is not examined, nor the Lebanese view given. The claim that “Israel has won admiration in the United States as a model of democracy and Western values in the Middle East” (p.22) cries out for some scrutiny. Since when have house demolitions, land confiscations, arbitrary arrest and torture been highly prized Western values? It would have been better to point out that a large part of the U.S. public is unfamiliar with Israeli policies. A knowledgeable teacher could supplement the problem areas in this unit, but how many U.S. high school teachers have this expertise?

The unit costs $12, with a 7 percent charge for shipping and handling. To order, or for further information, contact the Choices Education Project, Dept. 50, Watson Institute for International Studies, Brown University, Box 1948, Providence, RI 02912.

Films on Islam

On another note, educators will be happy to hear that the 1980 series of films “The Traditional World of Islam,” is now available on video from Landmark Films (1-800 999-6645). My favorite titles are “Man and Nature” (which recounts Muslim inventions such as wind tunnels and the astrolabe to harness nature for the benefit of humans), and “Knowledge of the World” (which describes classical Muslim education). Other titles are “Unity,” “Nomad and City,” Patterns of Beauty,” and “The Inner Life.” Each program is 30 minutes long, and each separate tape costs $79. The complete series of six costs $425. The video format will be much more convenient for most educators.