PLANTING HOPE IN PALESTINE

Sumud Palestine 2014 conference

Saturday, 25 October 2014

Burslem School of Art, Queen Street, Stoke-on-Trent ST6 3EJ

Programme:

Introduction and Welcome

Angela Glendenning and Mohammed Mukhaimar The experience of planting olive trees in the West Bank in February 2011 prompted Angela to launch the North Staffordshire Olive Tree Campaign. In 2012 in collaboration with Mohammed a psychologist from Palestine who now works in the UK, the NSOTC morphed into Sumud Palestine.

Voices from the West Bank

Dr Rana Nashashibi, Director of the Palestinian Counselling Centre

Dr Nidal Abu Zuluf, Manager of the JAI Keep Hope Alive Olive Tree Campaign

Israel’s South Africa moment?

Professor Haim Bresheeth is a filmmaker and film studies scholar, now concentrating on the Palestinian conflict, and completing a book on the formative history of Zionism. He is a Professorial Research Associate at the School of Oriental and African Studies, London University.

Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Campaign

Tom Anderson is a researcher for Corporate Watch and the co-author of Targeting Israeli Apartheid: a boycott, divestment and sanctions handbook. He has spent time in Gaza and the West Bank carrying out research to support the BDS movement.

Workshops

History repeats itself

How dehumanisation and defences against guilt silence the West’s moral response to Israel’s occupation of Palestine Dr Martin Kemp Martin is a psychotherapist and a leading member of the Steering Group of the UK-Palestine Mental Health Network.

Martin Kemp preferred his address not to be reproduced as part of a conference report. His thinking and approach can be sourced from an article, DEHUMANIZATION, GUILT AND LARGE GROUP DYNAMICS WITH REFERENCE TO THE WEST, ISRAEL AND THE PALESTINIANS which can be read in the British Journal of Psychotherapy.

Gaza: Musheir al-Farra

Originally from Khan Younis, a town in the south of the Gaza Strip, Musheir is a political and human rights activist, author of Gaza: When the sky rained white fire (2012) and Chair of the Sheffield Palestine Solidarity Campaign.

Panel Discussion: Actions speak louder than Words

Final Remarks Angela Glendenning and Mohammed Mukhaimar

The conference chair is Tony Pearce, a retired Regional Officer of the National Union of Teachers. Tony was a teacher and a local councillor in Stoke-on-Trent and in Stafford and he served on the Staffordshire County Council. In the New Year he is expected to become the chair of Sumud Palestine.

Workshop leaders: