BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 PRODID:-//wp-events-plugin.com//7.0.5//EN TZID:America/Detroit X-WR-TIMEZONE:America/Detroit BEGIN:VEVENT UID:619@test.arabamerica.com DTSTART;TZID=America/Detroit;VALUE=DATE:20150410 DTEND;TZID=America/Detroit;VALUE=DATE:20150411 DTSTAMP:20150314T220131Z URL:https://test.arabamerica.com/events/israel-lobby/ SUMMARY:Israel Lobby DESCRIPTION:DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA\nWe are honored to announce confirmed spea kers for the April 10 conference on the Israel Lobby.\nHave you heard eno ugh this winter from Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and his AIPAC frien ds? Register for this spring’s conference to hear experts examine the Is rael Lobby: Where it came from\, what it really does and its impact on Ame rica. The daylong event\, to take place April 10 at the National Press Clu b in Washington\, DC\, will focus on two questions: Is the Lobby good for the US? Is it good for Israel? (We know the Lobby isn’t meant to be good for Palestinians!)\n\nPurchase Tickets: A limited quantity of discounted $75 conference and lunch tickets are available for online purchase thank s to donor subsidies. Journalists may request online credentials to att end. Students may apply online for free entry. For more information vis it IsraelLobbyUS.org.\n\nIf you prefer to register by mail\, there is sti ll time for you to download a registration form (372KB PDF) and mail a check for $75 made out to AET (American Educational Trust)\, PO Box 53062\ , Washington\, DC 20009. Write “conference” on the memo line.\n\nThe f ollowing experts are confirmed speakers:\n\nAmani Al-Khatahtbeh is the f ounding editor-in-chief of MuslimGirl.net\, a blog aimed at eliminating st ereotypes surrounding Islam and promoting the place of Muslim women in Wes tern societies. She ran into trouble with The Daily Targum\, Rutgers Un iversity’s daily newspaper\, and trustees\, which decided that criticism of Israel is anti-Semitic. In June 2014\, the American-Arab Anti-Discrimi nation Committee named Al-Khatahtbeh its media relations specialist.\n\ nJeffrey Blankfort is a photographer\, journalist and radio programmer. His articles have appeared in CounterPunch\, Dissident Voice\, Mondoweis s\, Pulse Media\, Left Curve\, the Washington Report on Middle East Affa irs and the Encyclopedia of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. He curren tly hosts a twice-monthly international affairs program for public radio s tation KZYX in Northern California’s Mendocino County\, where he now liv es. Blankfort was a founding member of the November 29th Committee on P alestine\, a co-founder of the Labor Committee on the Middle East and edit or of its publication\, The Middle East Labor Bulletin (1988-95).\n\nRich ard Falk is professor emeritus of international law at Princeton Universi ty. In 2008\, the United Nations Human Rights Council appointed him to a s ix-year term as a United Nations Special Rapporteur on “the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967.” Falk is author of the recently released book Palestine: The Legitimacy of Hope .\n\nFormer Congressman Paul Findley served the 20th District of Illino is for 11 terms\, from 1961 to 1983. He is the author of the groundbreakin g book They Dare to Speak Out: People and Institutions Confront Israel’ s Lobby\, which documents how the Lobby works to influence U.S. elections and U.S. foreign policy. The book also criticizes AIPAC’s pressure on un iversity professors and journalists who are critical of Israeli policies.\ n\nDima Khalidi is the founder and director of Palestine Solidarity Lega l Support (PSLS)\, and cooperating counsel with the Center for Constitutio nal Rights. She provides legal advice to activists to protect their right to speak out for Palestinian rights.\n\nGideon Levy is a columnist for th e Israeli daily Haaretz and a member of its editorial board. He is the a uthor of the weekly Twilight Zone feature\, which covers the Israeli occup ation in the West Bank and Gaza over the last 25 years\, as well as the wr iter of political editorials for the newspaper. His 2010 book\, The Puni shment of Gaza\, was published by Verso Publishing House in London and New York.\n\nSeth Morrison has held leadership posts in various local\, regi onal and national Jewish organizations\, starting in college as a youth le ader in Young Judea. He is currently active in Jewish Voice for Peace\, se rving on the DC Metro Chapter Steering Committee and on the national Congr essional Outreach Committee. In 2011\, Morrison resigned from the Washingt on\, DC Board of the Jewish National Fund in protest over Israel’s repea ted evictions of Palestinians from their homes in East Jerusalem. He chair ed the Washington\, DC Metro Chapter of J Street in 2013 before becoming a ctive in the BDS movement.\n\nMiko Peled is an Israeli writer and activi st living in the U.S. He was born and raised in Jerusalem. Driven by a per sonal family tragedy to explore Palestine\, its people and their narrative \, he has written a book about his journey called The General’s Son: Jo urney of an Israeli in Palestine. The book covers Peled’sfamily history since his grandparents immigrated to Palestine in the early 20th century. \n\nPaul Pillar is a Nonresident Senior Fellow of the Center for Security Studies at Georgetown University’s Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Se rvice. He also is a Nonresident Senior Fellow in Foreign Policy at the Bro okings Institution and an Associate Fellow of the Geneva Center for Securi ty Policy. He retired in 2005 from a 28-year career in the U.S. intelligen ce community\, his last position being National Intelligence Officer for t he Near East and South Asia.\n\nGareth Porter is an investigative journal ist and historian who specializes in U.S. foreign and military policy. H e has written five books\, including Perils of Dominance\, Imbalance of Power and The Road to War in Vietnam.  His most recent book is Manuf actured Crisis: The Untold Story of the Iran Nuclear Scare. The book highl ights the impact that the United States’ alliance with Israel had on Was hington’s turning the International Atomic Energy Agency into a tool of its anti-Iran policy.\n\nFormer Congressman Nick Joe Rahall II\, a grand son of Lebanese immigrants\, represented West Virginia in the U.S. Congres s from 1977 to 2015. When he was elected\, the 27-year-old became the you ngest member of Congress. Rahall has repeatedly expressed concern about Am erica’s relationship with Israel\, stating\, “Israel can’t continue to occupy\, humiliate and destroy the dreams and spirits of the Palestinia n people and continue to call itself a democratic state.” He has affirme d that America’s interests would be served by getting the peace process back on track and regretted the U.S. vetoes of U.N. resolutions against Is raeli settlement building.\n\nM.J. Rosenberg was a senior foreign policy fellow at Media Matters Action Network from 2009-2012. From 1998-2009\, he was director of policy at the Israel Policy Forum. He previously worked o n Capitol Hill for 15 years for various Democratic members of the House an d Senate\, and was a Clinton political appointee at USAID. In the early 19 80s\, he was editor of AIPAC’s weekly newsletter\, Near East Report.\n\ nAlice Rothchild is a Boston-based physician\, author and filmmaker who since 1997 has focused on human rights and social justice in the Israel- Palestine conflict. In 2003 Dr. Rothchild began co-organizing health and human rights delegations to Israel\, the West Bank\, and Gaza. She writes and lectures widely and is the author of Broken Promises\, Broken Dreams : Stories of Jewish and Palestinian Trauma and Resilience (2007\, Pluto P ress) and On the Brink: Israel and Palestine on the Eve of the 2014 Gaza Invasion (2014\, Just World Books).\n\nAhmad Saadaldin is a filmmaker/p roducer\, creative writer\, actor\, and grassroots organizer. Saadaldin  organized the largest grassroots campaign in University of South Florida h istory and collected more than 10\,000 signatures calling on the universit y to divest endowment funds from corporations complicit in human rights vi olations: “#USF4HumanRights.”\n\nJack Shaheen is an acclaimed author and media critic. His lectures and writings illustrate that damaging raci al and ethnic stereotypes of Arabs\, blacks\, and others injure innocent p eople. He defines crude caricatures\, explains why they persist\, and prov ides workable solutions to help shatter misconceptions. Dr. Shaheen is a uthor of numerous books on the subject.\n\nGrant F. Smith is the director of the Washington\, DC-based Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Polic y (IRmep). He is the author of two unofficial histories of AIPAC: Americ a’s Defense Line: The Justice Department’s Battle to Register the Isra el Lobby as Agents of a Foreign Government and Foreign Agents: AIPAC fro m the 1963 Fulbright Hearings to the 2005 Espionage Scandal. He is also t he author of the books Divert\, Spy Trade\, Deadly Dogma\, and Visa Den ied\, and co-editor of the book Neocon Middle East Policy. Before joini ng IRmep\, Smith was senior analyst and later program manager at Yankee G roup Research\, Inc. in Boston.\n\nSpeakers’ books will be available at the conference for sale and signing. Those unable to attend can purchase t he books from AET’s Middle East Books and More.\n\nConference organizer s are the American Educational Trust\, publisher of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs\, and the Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy.\n\nBe sure to follow us on Twitter @IsraelLobbyUS and on <\;Fac ebook.com/USIsraelLobby>\;.\n\nPlease forward this message to your frien ds. We hope to see you on April 10! ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://test.arabamerica.com/wp-content/uploads/ 2015/03/2015the-israel-lobby_logo_color.png CATEGORIES:Advocacy,Lecture LOCATION:National Press Club\, 529 14th St. NW\, 13th Floor\, Ballroom \, W ashington\, DC\, United States GEO:38.9071923;-77.03687070000001 X-APPLE-STRUCTURED-LOCATION;VALUE=URI;X-ADDRESS=529 14th St. NW\, 13th Floo r\, Ballroom \, Washington\, DC\, United States;X-APPLE-RADIUS=100;X-TITLE =National Press Club:geo:38.9071923,-77.03687070000001 END:VEVENT BEGIN:VTIMEZONE TZID:America/Detroit X-LIC-LOCATION:America/Detroit BEGIN:DAYLIGHT DTSTART:20150308T030000 TZOFFSETFROM:-0500 TZOFFSETTO:-0400 TZNAME:EDT END:DAYLIGHT END:VTIMEZONE END:VCALENDAR