Across Western mainstream discourse, the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas has been subjected to intense vilification. Branding it as “terrorist” or worse, this demonization intensified after the attack of October 7, 2023. This program aims to deepen understanding of a movement that is a key player in the current crisis and in Palestinian politics. It looks at, among other things, Hamas’s critical shift from social and religious activism to national political engagement; the delicate balance between Hamas’s political and military wings; and its transformation from early anti-Jewish tendencies to a stance that differentiates between Judaism and Zionism.
The event will be based on a series of rich and probing online conversations with leading experts on Hamas, held in May 2024 by Helena Cobban, British journalist and the founder of Just World Educational, and Rami Khouri, distinguished Palestinian-American academic and journalist. The series resulted in the book Understanding Hamas and Why That Matters, published in September by OR Books. Books will be available for signing by pre-order and at the event.
Our speaker, Helena Cobban, lived in Lebanon for seven years during the civil war, and this experience shaped her worldview and showed her first-hand the human rights abuses that people living in a war zone face on a daily basis. During this time, she worked as a Beirut-based correspondent for news outlets including The Christian Science Monitor, The Sunday Times, ABC News, and the BBC. Later, she was a regular contributor to The Christian Science Monitor and the Arabic-language daily newspaper Al-Hayat, and she has continued to contribute to these and to other news sources. She has published seven books of her own on international issues and conflict resolution, as well as contributing to many others.
The event will be moderated by Valentine Moghadam, Iranian-American professor of sociology and international relations at Northeastern University, MAPA board member, and author of the standard textbook, Modernizing Women: Gender and Social Change in the Middle East, now in its third edition.
The event will be held in the Parish Hall of St. James Episcopal Church, which lies beyond the church on Mass. Ave. Enter the courtyard and the door on the left says 1991.
Sign up here to attend and/or to order your copy of the book. Donations will defray the costs of the event and benefit Just World Educational and Massachusetts Peace Action Education Fund.
Featuring contributions from Paola Caridi, Jeroen Gunning, Khaled Hroub, Mouin Rabbani, and Azzam Tamimi, this book provides much-needed insight into a widely misunderstood movement whose involvement in a just resolution of the Israel/Palestine conflict will be critical.
— Max Blumenthal
—John J. Mearsheimer
—Medea Benjamin
—Amb. Chas W. Freeman, Jr.
—Jonathan Kuttab
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