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United Nations Forum on the Question of Palestine

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United Nations Forum on the Question of Palestine UNITED NATIONS FORUM ON THE QUESTION OF PALESTINE 70 Years after 1948 – Lessons to Achieve a Sustainable Peace 17 and 18 May 2018 Trusteeship Council Chamber, United Nations Headquarters, New York KEYNOTE PRESENTATION HANAN ASHRAWI Member of PLO Executive Committee Hanan Ashrawi is a Palestinian legislator, activist, and scholar. She is a member of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) Executive Committee. Dr. Ashrawi served as a member of the Leadership Committee and as an official spokesperson of the Palestinian delegation to the Middle East peace process, beginning with the Madrid Peace Conference of 1991. She was elected to the Palestinian Legislative Council representing Jerusalem in 1996. She then headed the Legislative Reform Committee between 2000 and 2005. In 2006, she was again elected to the Palestinian Legislative Council representing the list called The Third Way. In 2009, she was elected as member of the Executive Committee of the PLO, making history as the first woman to hold a seat in the highest executive body in Palestine. As a civil society activist, Dr. Ashrawi has founded and headed many organizations and institutions such as the Independent Commission for Human Rights (ICHR), the Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy (MIFTAH) and the Coalition for Accountability and Integrity (AMAN). She has also won numerous prizes and medals, including the Sydney Peace Prize in 2003, the UNESCO’s Mahatma Gandhi Medal in 2005, and the French Commandeur de l’Ordre National du Mérite in 2016. She is the author of several books, articles, poems and short stories on Palestinian politics, culture and literature. Her book This Side of Peace (Simon & Schuster, 1995) earned worldwide recognition. Dr. Ashrawi received both Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts degrees from the American University of Beirut and a Doctor of Philosophy degree in Medieval and Comparative Literature from the University of Virginia in the United States. Moreover, she is the recipient of eleven honorary doctorates from universities in the US, Canada, Europe, and the Arab world. Susan Akram is Clinical Professor at Boston University School of Law, teaching Immigration Law, Comparative Refugee Law and International Human Rights Law. Before joining the faculty at BUSL in 1993, she was Executive Director of Boston’s Political Asylum/Immigration Representation (PAIR) Project and before that, Directing Attorney of the Immigration Project at the Public Counsel in Los Angeles, the largest pro bono public interest law firm in the United States. She is a past Fulbright Senior Scholar in Palestine, and has taught at Al-Quds University/Palestine School of Law in East Jerusalem, the American University in Cairo, and regularly teaches at the Oxford Refugee Studies Centre in the United Kingdom. She has authored or co-authored many publications inter alia on refugees, immigration issues and the Israeli- Palestinian conflict. Francesca Albanese is a human rights lawyer and an Affiliate Researcher at the Institute for the Study of International Migration (ISIM), Georgetown University, and Affiliated Scholar to the Refugee Program of the Issam Fares Institute, American University of Beirut. She has researched and worked on the Palestinian refugee question since 2005. She has previously worked for the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (2006-2010) and UNWRA (2010-2012). Together with Lex Takkenberg, she is currently writing the book A Tale of Fragmentation and Opportunities: The Status of Palestinian Refugees in International Law. Due to be published in 2018, it will cover the genesis and evolution of the Palestinian refugee question, the legal status and treatment that Palestinian refugees enjoy around the world, normative and institutional frameworks applicable/applied to Palestinian refugees and possible just and durable solutions to their claims. Seraje Assi is a Visiting Fellow at Georgetown University’s Center for Muslim–Christian Understanding. He holds a PhD in Arabic and Islamic Studies from Georgetown University. He is the author of The History and Politics of the Bedouin: Reimagining Nomadism in Modern Palestine (2018), and a regular contributor to Haaretz. He teaches at Georgetown University and American University in Washington, D.C. Fateh Azzam is a human rights researcher and consultant. He is a former Senior Fellow at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy and an Affiliate at the Middle East Initiative at Harvard Kennedy School, former director of the Asfari Institute for Civil Society and Citizenship and Senior Policy Fellow at the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Relations, both at the American University in Beirut. He previously served as the Middle East Regional Representative of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Director of Forced Migration and Refugee Studies at the American University in Cairo, Human Rights Program Officer at the Ford Foundation in Lagos and Cairo, and Director of the Palestinian organization Al-Haq. He led the process of establishing the Arab Human Rights Fund. He holds an LL.M. in International Human Rights Law from the University of Essex. (Moderator) Yossi Beilin is the President of Beilink, a global consulting firm, which he established in 2008. He is a former Member of the Israeli Parliament (Knesset), Deputy Foreign Minister, Deputy Finance Minister, Minister of Economy and Planning, Minister in the Office of the Prime Minister, Minister for Religious Affairs, and Minister of Justice. He initiated the secret channel of talks that resulted in the 1993 Oslo Accords. He headed the Israeli delegation to the multilateral peace process working groups from 1992-95 and was a negotiator at the Taba talks in 2001. He created and led the public movement in Israel for a unilateral withdrawal from Lebanon. He is one of the initiators of the 2003 Geneva Accords. 2 Phyllis Bennis is a Fellow of the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, D.C., and the Transnational Institute in Amsterdam. She is a co-founder and remains on the steering committee of the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation and co-chairs the International Coordinating Network on Palestine. She has provided briefings and served as an informal adviser to numerous Governments as well as UN officials. She speaks and writes widely in the US and international media on UN and Middle East issues, including sanctions, war and the situation in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as challenges facing the United Nations. Her books include Calling the Shots: How Washington Dominates Today’s UN (1996), Understanding the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict: A Primer (2003), Challenging Empire: How People, Governments and the UN Defy US Power (2006) and Ending the US War in Afghanistan: A Primer (2010). Suhad Bishara is a senior attorney and the Director of the Land and Planning Unit of Adalah – The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel. She has litigated numerous constitutional rights and international law cases before the Israeli Supreme Court concerning the land rights of Palestinian citizens of Israel and Palestinians living in the Occupied Palestinian Territory. She is an editor of Makan – Adalah’s Journal of Land, Planning and Justice, and co-author of the 2011 report “Nomads Against Their Will” about Arab Bedouin citizens being expelled from their village in the Naqab (Negev) desert. In 2016, together with colleagues from the Center for Palestine Studies, Suhad launched the Nakba Files, a research initiative that explores the Nakba through the critical lens of the law. She received an LL.B. from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1993, and an LL.M. in Public Service Law from New York University's School of Law in 2001. She was the first Palestine & Law Fellow at Columbia University Law School (2014-2015). Avraham Burg is an Israeli author, politician and businessman. He was a member of the Israeli Parliament (Knesset), chairman of the Jewish Agency for Israel, Speaker of the Knesset, and Interim President of Israel. He was the first Speaker of the Knesset to have been born in Israeli territory after independence in 1948, and the only one who invited the Speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council to the Knesset. Son of Joseph Burg, who was a government minister for four decades, Avraham Burg took his first public role as one of the leaders of the Peace Now movement in 1982. He went on to serve as adviser to Prime Minister Shimon Peres. He retired from public life in 2004. He is the author of numerous books, including (in English) The Holocaust Is Over: We Must Rise from Its Ashes (2008), Very Near to You (2012) and In Days to Come (2017). Mae Elise Cannon is the Executive Director of Churches for Middle East Peace based in Washington, D.C. She has been Senior Director of Advocacy and Outreach for World Vision- US, the executive pastor of Hillside Covenant Church (Walnut Creek, California), Director of Development and Transformation for Extension Ministries at Willow Creek Community Church (Barrington, Illinois), and worked as a consultant to the Middle East for child advocacy issues for Compassion International. She has several Masters Degrees and her Doctorate of Philosophy from the University of California - Davis in American History focused on American Protestant engagement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. She is the editor of A Land Full of God: Christian Perspectives on the Holy Land and author of award winning Social Justice Handbook: Small Steps for a Better World. (Moderator) 3 Itay Epshtain is currently a Special Advisor to the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) and Humanitarian Law and Policy Consultant. Previously, he worked for the NRC in the Palestinian Territory as Policy and Protection Advisor (2016-2017) and Protection Consortium Founding- Manager (2014-2016). He has also worked with Action Against Hunger, Diakonia, Israeli Committee Against House Demolition and is the former Country Director of Amnesty International for Israel/OPT (2008-2011).
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