For the last two years, people in the Arab region have been trying to take things into their own hands. Their main demand is a change in the political system, bringing social justice, democracy, freedom and self-determination. Foreign powers, parts of the political Islamic movement and members of the old structures seek to control these movements for change. People in the whole area of historic Palestine are part of this regional movement.

But militarism, racism, apartheid and the denial of rights to the Palestinian majority in historic Palestine characterize the policy of the state of Israel. This is true of parties from the extreme right through to the liberal left. Egregious expulsions and discrimination against Palestinians inside the Green Line, an intensified land grab as part of the settlement building in and around Jerusalem and in the West Bank or the devastating bombing of civilians in Gaza – all in violation of international law – draw from US and EU leaders at most weak admonishments. Israel need fear no consequences: the basic human right of return of Palestinian refugees is no longer mentioned. Commentators seem helpless when they consider a solution to the so-called Palestine Question.

Our conference will show an alternative way to a just peace. How can the current apartheid state in historic Palestine be overcome, clearing the way for a democratic state for all its citizens and providing for the right of return of Palestinians? What can the European solidarity movement do to overcome the current appalling condition of human rights in historic Palestine? Especially here in Germany, a supporter of apartheid-Israel and of dictatorial Arab regimes, what can be done to bring about real change?

Friday, 10th May

5.30 pm Registration and Dinner

7.00 pm Opening Address
Verena Rajab – Journalist, Palestine Solidarity Committee Stuttgart
Evelyn Hecht-Galinski Patron, Author/Journalist, Germany

7.30 pm
Richard Falk – Emeritus Professor for International Law, Princeton University; UN Special Rapporteur, USA
BDS and the perspective for one democratic state in Palestine

Ilan Pappe – Professor of History, Exeter University, England
Palestine after the UN-Resolution: a turning point?

Joseph Massad – Professor of Modern Arab Politics and Intellectual History at Columbia University, New York
Zionism, antisemitism and the Palestine question

Moderation: Ian Portman – publisher, web-developer, Palestine Solidarity Committee Stuttgart, Germany

Saturday, 11th May

8.30 am Coffee, Tea and Refreshments

9 am
Haneen Naamnih – Lawyer and writer, Palestine
The Jewish National Fund, the Praver-Plan in Negev, citizenship in a settler colonial state and the struggle for the land

Yoav Bar – Former member of the steering committee of Abnaa Al-Balad, Initiator of the Haifa Conference for ODS, Palestine
The common democratic state: preconditions and realization.
Initiatives in Palestine and Germany

Moderation: Ivesa Lübben – Research associate at Marburg University, Germany

10.45 am Coffee, Tea and Refreshments

11.15 am
Ilan Pappe – Professor of History, Exeter University, UK
The One State Solution: Utopia, bitter reality or realistic alternative for a just peace in historic Palestine?

Raji Sourani – Director of the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, Gaza, Palestine
Israeli War crimes, the human rights situation in historic Palestine and the decisions of the Russell-Tribunal

Moderation: Norman Paech – Emeritus Professor of International Law, Hamburg, Germany

1 pm Lunch

2.15 pm
Ghada Karmi – Doctor of Medicine, Research Fellow at Exeter University, UK
The right of return and the one-state solution. How can it be implemented?

Samah Idriss – PhD Columbia University, NY, co-founder of CBSI, activist against zionism and the sectarian system in Lebanon
The Arab revolutions and perspectives for civil resistance – outlook for a boycott of the apartheid state, Israel

Moderation: Birgit Althaler – Translator, Palestine Solidarity
Basel, Switzerland

4 pm Coffee, Tea and Refreshments

4.30
Mhamed Krichen – one of the best known journalists at Al Jazeera; reported on the events of the Arab uprising, Tunisia
The Arab revolutions and their influence on the Palestine question

Asaad Abu Khalil – Professor for Political Science, California State University, Stanislaus, USA
Resistance and liberation from dictatorship and settler colonialism in the age of Political Islam

Moderation: Willi Langthaler – Author/journalist, Vienna, Austria

6.15 pm Dinner

8 pm
Arab songs and music Samir Mansour and the Hiwar Choir
Samir Mansour is a Palestinian musician and composer, Stuttgart, Germany

Sunday 12th May

8.30 pm Coffee, Tea and Refreshments

9 pm
Attia Rajab – Civil Engineer, Palestine Solidarity Committee, Stuttgart, Germany
Two states / one state: the solidarity movement in Germany at a turning point

Hermann Dierkes – Member of Duisburg City council and of the Party Die Linke, Germany
Israel as a national interest for Germany and the solidarity movement

Shir Hever – Economist with the Alternative Information Center, PhD, candidate at the Free University of Berlin, Germany
Military cooperation between Israel, the European Union and Germany; a global context of Israeli militarism

Moderation: Reinhold Riedel – Agricultural economist, Palestine Solidarity Committee Stuttgart, Germany

10.45 pm Coffee, Tea and Refreshments

11.15 pm
Podium discussion: Perspectives for a new political system in historic Palestine
I.Pappe, J. Massad, Asaad Abu Khalil, Raji Sourani, Ghada Karmi, Haneen Naamnih, Yoav Bar, Shir Hever, H. Dierkes

Moderation: Mhamed Krichen – Journalist at Al Jazeera, Tunisia

13.15 pm Lunch (End of conference)

Evelyn Hecht-Galinski will chair the conference

Evelyn Hecht-Galinski is a Jewish-German author and activist, an outspoken critic of Israel's policies towards Palestinians. She writes weekly commentaries about Zionism, anti-Zionism, anti-Semitism and the conflict in the Middle East.

Speakers:

UK

1. Ilan Pappe is a historian and socialist activist. He is currently a professor at the College of Social Sciences and International Studies of the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom, director of the European Centre for Palestine Studies at the university, co-director of the Exeter Centre for Ethno-Political Studies.

2. Ghada Karmi is a physician, writer and academic. She is currently a research fellow at the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies, University of Exeter. She has been writing about the one-state solution since 1990, and it is the topic of her most recent book Married to Another Man: Israel's dilemma in Palestine.

USA

3. Richard Falk is an American professor emeritus of international law at Princeton University. On March 26, 2008, the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) appointed Falk for a six-year term as United Nations Special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967.

4. Asaad Abu Khalil is a professor of political science at California State University, Stanislaus, USA. He maintains a blog, The Angry Arab News Service.

5. Joseph Massad is Associate Professor of Modern Arab Politics and Intellectual History in the Department of Middle Eastern, South Asian and African Studies at Columbia University, New York.

Gaza

6. Raji Sourani is widely considered the Gaza Strip’s foremost human rights lawyer. He is the 1991 recipient of the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award, was an Amnesty International prisoner of conscience in 1985 and 1988, member of the International Commission of Jurists and Vice President of the International Federation of Human Rights. He is the founder and director of the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights.

Lebanon

7. Samah Idriss is a co-founder of the Campaign to Boycott Supporters of Israel (CBSI) in Lebanon. He holds his PhD in Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures at Columbia University in New York. He is an activist against Zionism and the sectarian system in Lebanon and a former editor-in-chief of al-Adab, a Lebanese arts and culture magazine based in Beirut, a lexicographer, and a children’s author.

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8. Haneen Naamnih is a writer and a former land rights attorney with Adalah. She holds a Masters degree in Law (LLM), with specialty in colonial law, from The School of Oriental and African Studies of the University of London.

9. Yoav Bar was a member of the political bureau of Abnaa elBalad, a Palestinian movement active inside 1948 occupied Palestine, and one of the initiators of the Haifa Conference for the Right of Return and the Secular Democratic State in Palestine.

Tunisia

10. Mhamed Krichen is a TV presenter and member of the Board of Directors of CPJ (The Committee to Protect Journalists) in New York. He is one of the most recognized journalists at Al Jazeera. Krichen is a Tunisian journalist and a consistent face at the Al Jazeera news desk.

Germany

11. Hermann Dierkes from the party „Die Linke” is a political activist. He is active in the trade union movement and environmental policy as well as tackling anticolonial subjects such as the Palestine question. He works closely with the Alternative Information Center in Palestine (Beit Sahour, Jerusalem). Nowadays he is chairman of the municipal council faction of „Die Linke” in Duisburg, Germany.

12. Shir Hever is an economic researcher in the Alternative Information Center, a Palestinian-Israeli organization active in Jerusalem and Beit-Sahour. He specializes in researching the economic aspect of the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories. He is author of the recent book The Political Economy of Israel's Occupation and is currently writing his PhD in the Freie Universität in Berlin. He lives in Göttingen, Germany.

13. Attia Rajab was born in the Gaza Strip, Palestine. A civil engineer and human rights activist, he is one of the founders of the Palestine Solidarity Committee in Stuttgart.

The German-Arab Hiwar Choir
The Hiwar Choir comprises forty singers from very diverse backgrounds, accompanied by lute, qanun and flute. Binding the group together is a delight in Arab music and culture and the conviction that people from different cultures and religions can come together through music and poetry. Through their singing, they seek to promote intercultural exchange and set an example of tolerance and respect.

Samir Mansour
Palestinian born in Damascus, Samir Mansour studied Music at the Damascus Conservatory. His main instruments are the Arab lute (oud), the tuba, the oriental zither (qanun) and the drum. He played oud with the Syrian State Orchestra and tuba in the Syrian Symphony Orchestra. He became well known via radio and television performances. He has also arranged film music. His compositions range from an operetta to prize-winning stage music for several plays.

For all details and registration contact the organizers:

Palästinakomitee Stuttgart e. V.
www.palaestinakomitee-stuttgart.de
pakos@online.de