Featured Speakers

Click the photos for bios of our featured speakers!

Ziad Abbas is a Palestinian refugee from Dheisheh Refugee camp in the West Bank. He is the cofounder of the Ibdaa Cultural Center in Dheisheh where he served as Co-Director from 1994 to 2008. Ziad is also a journalist who has worked with Palestinian and international media and has participated in the production of several documentary films. He recently completed his Master of Arts in Social Justice in Intercultural Relations from the School for International Training Graduate Institute. Ziad is the Associate Director of the Middle East Children’s Alliance in Berkeley. Top

Dalit Baum, Ph.D. is the founder of “Who Profits from the Occupation” (whoprofits.org) in the Coalition of Women for Peace in Israel. During the last four years, “Who Profits” has become a vital resource for dozens of campaigns around the world, providing information about corporate complicity in the occupation of Palestine. She is a feminist scholar and teacher, teaching in the Haifa University and the Beit Berl College.This year she an activist in residence with Global Exchange, directing the Economic Activism project which aims to support existing divestment campaigns in the U.S. as well as help new ones through education, training, networking and the development of dedicated tools. Top

Will Delphia is a 3rd year, undergrad student at Hampshire College in western massachussetts. He came to this work through a project undertaken last year to document the history of the Hampshire College divestment victory, a campaign lead by Hampshire College SJP which eventually resulted in the college severing financial ties with 6 transnational companies profiting off repression in Palestine. The product of this investigation, “To Know is Not Enough,” is available to watch online (and at this conference!) and was created to put down in record the Hampshire divestment story so that it might inspire and assist other campuses. He does a lot of media/movement movement/media work and can be a resource to groups thinking about video as a tool in their campaigns. Top

Dr. Elia is a diaspora Palestinian from Jerusalem, an organizer with INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence, and serves on the national coordinating committee of USACBI, the Unoted States Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel. Top

Amal Eqeiq is a native Palestinian born in the city of Al-Taybeh. She is a PhD candidate in Comparative Literature at University of Washington where she is also a teaching assistant in English and Comparative Literature. Her research interests include: Modern Arab Literature and Popular Culture, Palestinian Studies, Feminism(s), Translation and Indigenous Studies in the Americas. Amal’s latest publication “Louder than the Blue I.D: Palestinian Hip Hop in Israel” just came out in Displaced at Home: Palestinians in Israel: Gender and Ethnicity edited by Rhoda Kanaaneh, and Isis Nusair (SUNY, 2010) Top

Noura Erakat is a Palestinian attorney and activist. She is currently an adjunct professor of international human rights law in the Middle East at Georgetown University and the Legal Advocacy Coordinator for the Badil Center for Palestinian Refugee and Residency Rights. Most recently she served as Legal Counsel for a Congressional Subcommittee in the House of Representatives. Prior to her time on Capitol Hill, Noura received a New Voices Fellowship to work as the national grassroots organizer and legal advocate at the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation where she helped seed BDS campaigns nationally as well as support the cases brought against two former Israeli officials in U.S. federal courts for alleged war crimes. Prior to attending law school, she helped launch the divestment campaign along with the Students for Justice in Palestine at UC Berkeley. Noura has helped to initiate and organize several national formations including AMWAJ- Arab Women Arising for Justice and the U.S. Palestinian Popular Conference. Noura spent the Spring 2010 academic semester in Beirut, Lebanon where she is working with a human rights attorney on a several issues including administrative detention of Iraqi refugees. Top

Melissa Franklin is a member of the Comanche Nation of Oklahoma. She received her bachelor’s degree in Indigenous and American Indian Studies from Haskell Indian Nations University in Lawrence, Kansas. She is a community volunteer, organizer, and activist. Melissa co-organized the first Indigenous Youth Delegation to Palestine in the summer of 2009 which continues to foster relationships and build solidarity with the youth in Palestine and Native Americans. Top

Johan Genberg is a local activist, filmmaker and techie. Top

Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb, one of the first 10 women to serve as rabbi, is storyteller, activist, writer, percussionist and ceremonial artist. She began congregational life in 1973 with Temple Beth Or of the Deaf and then lived for 22 years in NM where she cofounded Congregation Nahalat Shalom, The Muslim Jewish Peacewalk for Interfaith Solidarity and Shomer Shalom Network for Jewish Nonviolence. She moved to California in 2005 to direct Interfaith Inventions Wilderness Peace Camp, and AFSC’s Israel Palestine program with Noura Khouri. Lynn serves on the advisory and rabbinic council of Jewish Voice for Peace and leads delegations to Israel, Palestine, and Iran with the Fellowship of Reconciliation. She currently resides in Stonypoint, NY where she cofounded The Community of Living Traditions, a multifaith residential community dedicated to nonviolence in study and action. She is currently working on Trail Guide to the Torah of Nonviolence which will be published in the coming year. Top

Andrew Kadi is a human rights activist and the New Media Specialist at the Institute for Middle East Understanding. In the past he has written for the Guardian’s Comment is Free, Mondoweiss, the Electronic Intifada, and other media outlets. Top

Sara Kershnar is the co-founder and co-coordinator of the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network. Sara began her Palestinian solidarity work during the second intifada. Sara is also a co-founder of Generation FIVE, an organization working on transformative justice approaches to addressing child sexual abuse. After her father tested positive for HIV, Sara began her organizing and social justice work in the harm reduction and HIV movements. Top

Sharif Abdel Kouddous joined the Democracy Now! staff as a producer in 2003. Since then, he has covered news stories around the world, including reporting from Baghdad during the Iraq war, New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Haiti in the days after the January 2010 earthquake as well as the Democratic and Republican conventions in 2004 and 2008. Sharif grew up in Cairo, Egypt. Top

Susan Landau is a passionate and outspoken advocate for justice in Israel-Palestine. She is a founding member and serves on the Coordinating Committee of American Jews for a Just Peace. As an organizer with Philadelphia Jews for a Just Peace, she helped to form the coalition that is now Philly BDS (Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions). In addition to her longtime career as a psychotherapist, Susan has worked as a Jewish educator, committed to creating honest curriculum on Israel-Palestine that makes the distinction between Judaism and Zionism. As a Philadelphia organizer and activist, Susan offers courses and presentation on justice in Israel-Palestine for faith-based communities, secular groups, and on college campuses. Top

Al-Qaws for Sexual and Gender Diversity in Palestinian Society is a community-based grassroots organization that works with LGBTQ Palestinians throughout the occupied Palestinian Territories and Israel. Al-Qaws has focused on Palestinian society and specifically civil society with the intention of enlarging the scope of human and civil rights in Palestine. In the last year, Al-Qaws members have teamed up with BDS activists in order to start Palestinian Queers for Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (PQBDS). Top

Phan Nguyen is a long-time Palestine solidarity organizer who has worked with the Olympia Food Co-op boycott campaign and The Evergreen State College divestment campaign. Top

Ilana Rossoff is a fourth-year student at Hampshire College. She has been active in Students for Justice in Palestine since the fall 2009 and was involved in the campaign that resulted in the college’s decision to divest from the Israeli occupation in February 2009. She has also been involved in the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network as a student organizer since the summer 2009 and helped to organize the first national assembly of Jewish anti-Zionist activists this past summer before the US Social Forum- the US Assembly of Jews: Confronting Racism and Israeli Apartheid. She has studied US history, race studies, and Jewish studies, and is doing her senior thesis on Jewish anti-Zionist politics in US political-organizing history. Top

Josie Shields-Stromsness lived and worked in Palestine for six months before joining the staff of the Middle East Children’s Alliance. She worked for the Palestinian Environmental NGO Network (now the Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign) in Jerusalem and for the Ibdaa Cultural Center in Dheisheh Refugee Camp. Josie now lives in Palestine and regularly visits MECA partners and projects. She also co-leads MECA delegations to Palestine/Israel. Top

Ron Smith is a doctoral candidate at the University of Washington in the Department of Geography. He has conducted qualitative research in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip for the past five years. Before pursing his doctorate in Geography, he worked as a documentary film maker and journalist throughout Latin America. His primary research interests revolve around contemporary political geographies of colonialism and diverse forms of local and transnational social organizing and resistance. Top