Discourse that allows us to express a wide range of ideas, opinions, and analysis that can be used as an opportunity to critically examine and observe what our experience means to us beyond the given social/cultural contexts and norms that are provided us.
Sunday, January 14, 2024
Activist, Scholar, Teacher, Writer, and Human Rights Attorney Noura Erakat On the Historical, Ideological, and Philosophical Dimensions Of the Palestinian Struggle For Sovereignty and Independence: Lectures and Conversations From 2019-2022
Since
2021, several Israeli and mainstream human rights organizations, have
concluded what Palestinians have long known and insisted upon: Israel is
an apartheid regime. Despite the welcome, and long-awaited, synergy
between them, there remains significant analytical divergence among
these organizations and Palestinian activists and scholars. In
particular, while the reports emphasize that Israel has become an
apartheid regime as a result of its failure to establish a Palestinian
state, Palestinians have pointed to Zionist ideology to insist that
Israel did not become become a discriminatory regime but is defined by
such discrimination. This lecture will explore the implications of this
analytical divergence by examining the juridical framework of apartheid
embodied in the 1973 Convention consecrating it as a crime against
humanity. It will also trace the Palestinian intellectual tradition to
highlight that Zionism is not like apartheid but that the ideologies
constitute intellectual and political bedfellows. Finally, by visiting
the drafting history of UNGA Resolution 3379 (1975) declaring Zionism as
a form of racism and racial discrimination, the lecture will help fill a
glaring lacuna in the recent apartheid reports regarding racial
theories of Zionism.
Noura
Erakat is an associate professor of Africana Studies and in the Program
in Criminal Justice at Rutgers University, and non-resident fellow of
the Religious Literacy Project at Harvard Divinity School. Her research
interests include human rights law, laws of armed conflict, national
security law, as well as critical race theory.
Noura is the author of
Justice for Some: Law and the Question of Palestine (Stanford University
Press, 2019), which received the Palestine Book Award and the Bronze
Medal for the Independent Publishers Book Award in Current
Events/Foreign Affairs. She is co-founding editor of Jadaliyya and
editorial board member of the Journal of Palestine Studies. She has
served as Legal Counsel for a Congressional Subcommittee in the US House
of Representatives, as Legal Advocate for the Badil Resource Center for
Palestinian Refugee and Residency Rights, and as national organizer of
the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation. Her recent scholarship
includes, “Geographies of Intimacy: Contemporary Renewals of
Black-Palestinian Solidarity” (American Quarterly, 2020) and “The
Sovereign Right to Kill: A Critical Appraisal of Israel’s Shoot-To-Kill
Policy” (International Criminal Law Review, 2019).
Noura has also
produced video documentaries, including "Gaza In Context" and "Black
Palestinian Solidarity." She has appeared on CBS News, CNN, Fox News,
and NPR, among others.
Uncle Bobbie's welcomed author-scholar and activist Noura Erakat for a book talk and signing of her anticipated release "Justice for Some: Law and the Question of Palestine."
About the book: Law is politics, and its meaning and application depend on the political intervention of states and people alike. Within the law, change is possible. International law can serve the cause of freedom when it is mobilized in support of a political movement. Presenting the promise and risk of international law, Justice for Some calls for renewed action and attention to the Question of Palestine.
About the author: Noura Erakat is a human rights attorney and assistant professor at George Mason University. She has served as legal counsel to the U.S. House of Representatives and as a legal advocate for Palestinian refugee rights at the United Nations. Noura's research interests include human rights and humanitarian, refugee, and national security law. She is a frequent commentator, with recent appearances on CBS News, CNN, Fox News, and NPR, among others, and her writings have been widely published in the national media and academic journals.
Interviewer and host/producer Dr. Marc Lamont Hill is one of the leading intellectual voices in the country.
He is currently the host of Al Jazeera UpFront,
and the Coffee & Books podcast. An award-winning journalist, Dr.
Hill has received numerous prestigious awards from the National
Association of Black Journalists, GLAAD, and the International Academy
of Digital Arts and Sciences.
Dr. Hill is the author or co-author of eight books, including the
award-winning Beats, Rhymes, and Classroom Life; Nobody: Casualties of
America’s War on The Vulnerable from Ferguson to Flint and Beyond; We
Still Here: Pandemic, Policing, Protest, and Possibility; Except For
Palestine: The Limits of Progressive Politics; and Schooling Against The
Prison.
Dr. Hill holds a Ph.D. (with distinction) from the University of
Pennsylvania. His current research and writing explore the relationships
between race, culture, politics, and education in the United States and
the Middle East.
Dr. Hill is also a Presidential Professor at the City University of New
York Graduate Center, where he teach courses in Anthropology, Urban
Education, and Middle Eastern Studies. Prior to that, he held positions
at Morehouse College, Temple University, and Columbia University.
Since his days as a youth in Philadelphia, Dr. Hill has been a social
justice activist and organizer. He has worked on campaigns to end the
death penalty, abolish prisons, and release numerous political
prisoners. Dr. Hill has also worked in solidarity with human rights
movements around the world. He is the founder and director of The
People’s Education Center in Philadelphia, as well as the owner of Uncle Bobbie’s Coffee & Books.
Justice for Some: Law and the Question of Palestine
Featuring Noura Erakat, Human Rights Attorney and Associate Professor at Rutgers University, Department of Africana Studies and the Program in Criminal Justice; Fellow in Conflict in Peace at the Religion, Conflict, and Peace Initiative (RCPI), a joint initiative of Religion and Public Life at Harvard Divinity School and the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation at Harvard Kennedy School
Mary Ellen O'Connell (Respondent), Robert and Marion Short Professor of Law and Research Professor of International Dispute Resolution
Erakat offers a new approach to understanding the Palestinian struggle for freedom, told through the power and control of international law.
"Justice for Some: Law and the Question of Palestine," the new book by Noura Erakat, offers a new approach to understanding the Palestinian struggle for freedom, told through the power and control of international law. Focusing on key junctures—from the Balfour Declaration in 1917 to present-day wars in Gaza—Erakat shows how the strategic deployment of law has shaped current conditions. Over the past century, the law has done more to advance Israel's interests than the Palestinians’. But, Erakat argues, this outcome was never inevitable. Presenting the promise and risk of international law, Erakat calls for renewed action and attention to the question of Palestine.
Angela Davis & Noura Erakat on Palestinian Solidarity, Gaza & Israel’s Killing of Ahmad Erekat
On Sunday, many Arab, Muslim and Palestinian communities boycotted President Biden’s virtual Eid celebration. We play a statement of solidarity from legendary activist and scholar Angela Davis on Sunday for “Eid with Palestine: A Protest of the White House Eid Event.” Davis also co-wrote piece for The Nation with our guest Noura Erakat about how Erakat’s 26-year-old cousin Ahmad Erekat was shot by Israeli occupation forces after his car appeared to have accidentally crashed into a booth at a checkpoint in the occupied West Bank while he was on the way to pick up his mother and sister on her wedding day. Erakat says Israel still refuses to release his body to his family. “All Palestinians are deemed a threat for their mere existence,” says Erakat. “What we see happen to Ahmad has been a pattern.”
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