Boston Sabeel Conference to explore “The Apartheid Paradigm in Palestine-Israel” with Desmond Tutu, Naim Ateek, John Dugard, and Noam Chomsky

Archbishop Desmond Tutu will address the theme “The Apartheid Paradigm in Palestine-Israel: Highlighting Issues of Justice and Equality” at a Sabeel Conference in Boston Oct. 26 – 27. The event at Old South Church will feature lectures and panel discussions looking at ways the South African apartheid model of ethnic/racial segregation is applied in Palestine today.

Participants will discuss the moral issues of confronting and dismantling apartheid-like policies Israel administers in the occupied Palestinian lands and the emerging role of social movements and the U.S. government in addressing injustice. The conference will culminate in a peace rally in Copley Square organized by the Boston chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace.

According to The Rev. Richard Toll, Friends of Sabeel-North America chair, “A serious public discussion of the apartheid-like nature of policies imposed on Palestinians by Israel really got off the ground in the United States with the publication last year of Jimmy Carter’s book, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid. Ironically it was a group of Israelis in Jerusalem and Haifa who first organized a campaign to oppose Israel’s apartheid policies in 2000, following the breakdown of the Oslo Accords and the eruption of the second Palestinian intifada. The campaign to end Israeli apartheid has since become an international grassroots effort.”

Also scheduled to speak in Boston are:

§ The Rev. Naim Ateek, Palestinian Anglican priest and founder of Sabeel;

§ John Dugard, UN Special Rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian occupied territories;

§ Noam Chomsky, linguist, author and lecturer;

§ Diana Buttu, litigator in the 2004 case at the Hague which indicted Israel’s separation wall;

§ Anat Biletzki, human rights activist, former head of B’Tselem, IsraeliInformationCenter for Human Rights;

§ Farid Esack, South African Muslim theologian currently at HarvardUniversity;

§ Jeff Halper, coordinator of The Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions in Jerusalem;

§ The Rev. Donald Wagner, director of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, NorthparkUniversity, Chicago;

§ Noura Erekat, initiator of the first campaign promoting divestment from Israel, at UC Berkeley;

§ Phyllis Bennis, Institute for Policy Studies fellow;

§ Nancy Murray of the US Campaign to End Israeli Occupation;

§ The Rt. Rev. Thomas Shaw, Episcopal Bishop of the Diocese of Massachusetts; and

§ David Wildman, Executive Director for Human Rights & Racial Justice, General Board of Global Ministries, United MethodistChurch.

For instructions on registering online, by mail or by phone:

http://www.fosna.org/BostonConferenceOct2007.htm

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