/ Palestine/Israel 1948–2008: Breaking the Logic of Displacement
Programme
Friday, 25 April 2008, 9.00–18.00
Kornhausforum Berne, Stadtsaal, 1. floor
9.00: Registration and coffee
9.30: Welcome by the Forum for Human Rights in Israel/Palestine
Birgit Althaler, Palestine solidarity of the Basle region / Forum for Human Rights in Israel/Palestine
60 years of Nabka - bearing witness and taking action, Anne-Catherine Menétrey, former member of parliament, participant in the fact-finding tour 2007 of the Forum for Human Rights in Israel/Palestine
10.00–12.00: Shaping the presence and claiming rights
Which legal and political tools are available to Palestinians in Israel to assert their interests as discriminated groups threatened to be further dispossessed?
Which approaches do they pursue to assert their place, their cultural and national identity and their civil rights?
Hanna Swaid, civil engineer, urban and regional planner, member of the Democratic Alliance for Peace and Equality (Hadash) in the Israeli Parliament, responsible for the Arab Center for Alternative Planning (ACAP) in Israel, 2004–2006
Suhad Bishara, attorney at Adalah, the Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel; specialised in land and planning rights; co-editor of Makan (place), Journal for Land, Planning and Justice
Moderation: Jürg Bischoff, editor NZZ
12.00–13.00 Lunch
13.00–15.00: Coining memories and writing history
Which meaning does the reviewing of the Nakba have for the Palestinian society and which for the Jewish-Israeli society?
How does memory work? What effect can it have in view of the official Israeli position of repudiating the responsibility for the Nakba and its consequences?
Lena Jayyusi, media and cultural studies scholar: taught and researched in the UK and USA; research and cultural work in Jerusalem and the West bank, including on oral history and media, 1995–2002, currently Associate Professor in Communication and Media Sciences at Zayed University, Dubai
Eitan Reich, educator and facilitator in human rights, peace and democracy, co-founder of Zochrot (remembering), an Israeli organisation to raise awareness of the Nakba in the Jewish population
Moderation: Franziska Müller, cfd / Forum for Human Rights in Israel/Palestine
15.30–17.30: Using resources and asserting negotiation power
How do Palestinians organise themselves in exile, refugee camps, under Israeli occupation to make their claims to land and the just distribution of resources such as water heard?
Which strategies do they pursue to strengthen their political representation and participation and to influence the conditions under which the bases for their existence are negotiated?
Fadia Daibes, hydrologist, expert in water law and water policy with specific emphasis on international water conflicts and the water problems in the Middle East, lives and works in Jerusalem
Mahmoud Zeidan, co-founder of the Nakba archive on the documentation of the experiences of the first generation of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon; active in the Aidun network for human rights and refugee rights in Lebanon
Moderation: Regula Renschler, publicist, Lenos publisher and Radio DRS
17.30: Conclusion: Who will break the logic of displacement? Matthias Hui, HEKS and Fachstelle OeME Bern / Forum for Human Rights in Israel/Palestine discussing with Arnold Hottinger, publicist and longtime NZZ correspondent in the Middle East
Conference fee: CHF 80.-/40.-
Registration deadline: 14. April 2008
Registration: Forum für Menschenrechte in Israel/Palestine, c/o Birgit Althaler
Murbacherstrasse 34, CH-4056 Basel, Switzerland, phone +41 61 321 17 01, althaler@fazitbasel.ch