PSM lists planned speakers

The Palestine Solidarity Movement released Sunday night the list of panelists for its annual conference Oct. 15 to 17 at Duke.

The Palestine Solidarity Movement released Sunday night the list of panelists for its annual conference Oct. 15 to 17 at Duke.

The eight speakers will comprise three panels: one on divestment—or the selling off of stocks—as a tool to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, a second about the historical background of the conflict and a third about garnering support for the Palestinian cause.

Rann Bar-on, local spokesperson for PSM and a graduate student in mathematics, noted the organization advocates only non-violent solutions to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and all the speakers support that goal. “They are all on the left wing, but they vary in their views, and they’re not all political,” Bar-on said.

Leaders from Hiwar said they were part of the organizing committee and are happy with the speaker list.

Several groups have accused PSM of supporting terrorists and advocating militant activity in the Middle East conflict, and they have awaited the speaker roster to reinforce their claims.

Groups that have historically opposed PSM alleged that several of the speakers maintain ties to militant organizations. David Horowitz, author and conservative political commentator, accused the conference of being a political rally rather than an academic endeavor. “I think our universities are becoming in danger of becoming like talk radio instead of like universities,” he said, noting that the roster of speakers “lacks an appropriate diversity for a university.”

Specifically Horowitz accused speaker Diana Buttu, legal advisor for the Negotiations Affairs Department of the Palestine Liberation Organization, of being affiliated with a “terrorist group.”

The University viewed the proposed speaker list earlier this month, but at that time it did not investigate potential security concerns individual speakers might generate, said John Burness, senior vice president for public affairs and government relations.

Duke will take the speaker list into account when constructing a security plan for the weekend, he added. Burness reiterated that the University would not influence the content of the conference—even if it is controversial.

The Joint Israel Initiative, a coalition of primarily Jewish pro-Israeli student groups, declined to comment on the list until it had time to discuss the individual speakers.

Planned panelists:

• Dennis Brutus, professor of African Studies and African Literature at the University of Pittsburgh

Brutus was active in the anti-apartheid campaign in South Africa and involved with South Africa’s exclusion from the Olympic games. The Zimbabwean native has written poetry and books and spoken out against the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund on behalf of developing nations.

• Diana Buttu, legal advisor for the Negotiations Affairs Department of the Palestine Liberation Organization

Buttu is a Stanford-educated Palestinian. Although people accuse PLO of supporting terrorists, the organization pledged to cease all “violence and terrorism” in 1993, according to a U.S. government document. Several splinter organizations that left the PLO in protest have continued sporadic violent activities, but they are no longer associated with PLO. Buttu spoke at Duke last year.

• T.B.A., a leader of the First Presbyterian Church in Durham, N.C.

The church has halted investments in Israel and discouraged people from contracting with companies who do business with Israel. These actions are the hallmarks of PSM’s divestment plan.

• Mazin Qumsiyeh, associate professor of genetics at Yale University

Qumsiyeh was born near Bethlehem and has written about politics and environmental issues, concentrating on the Middle East. He served as director of the Cytogenetics Laboratory at Duke. Walid Shoebat, a pro-Israeli advocate since 1993 who said he grew up with Qumsiyeh, said Qumsiyeh tormented and abused Israeli soldiers in his childhood, but The Chronicle found no evidence of Qumsiyeh’s connections to organizations that advocate violence. Qumsiyeh is co-founder of Al-Awda, an organization that advocates for the right of Palestinians to return to the land of Israel, and he has been active in several groups advocating divestment from Israel.

• Rebecca Stein, assistant professor of cultural anthropology at Duke University

Stein is an expert in the culture of the Middle East, particularly of Arab Jews. She has worked as an activist in the Israeli peace movement and is a founding member of Jews for Justice in Israel and Palestine, a group that has published a history of the conflict.

• Nasser Abufarha, author of the Alternative Palestinian Agenda and founder of Palestine Fair Trade Association

Abufarha has advocated a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that includes two states, but a single military force and federal parliament. Jerusalem would remain a separate district.

• Rania Masri, fellow at the Institute for Southern Studies in Durham, N.C.

Masri is a Lebanese native and an environmental scientist who has written about the situations in Iraq and the Palestinian and Israeli areas. She is a human rights advocate and served as the Arab Women’s Solidarity Association’s representative to the United Nations.

• Brian Avery, International Solidarity Movement volunteer

While the Jenin area of Israel was under curfew in January 2003, Avery resisted by throwing stones at tanks and other military vehicles of the Israeli army, according to an account from his friends. As Avery stood in the path of a tank, he was hit by a burst of machine gun fire that ISM claimed was from the Israeli military. Avery now works as a Palestinian rights activist.