The Society for Biblical Studies

Keynote Speaker:
7:30 PM, Thursday, 17 September
Prof. Noam Chomsky
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
author of
Manufacturing Dissent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media (with Edward S. Herman)
Fateful Triangle: the U.S. Israel and the Palestinians

Professor Noam Chomsky is a world renowned political activist, writer, and Professor Emeritus of Massachusetts Institute of Technology where he taught since 1955. Chomsky has written and lectured widely on linguistics, philosophy and politics. He is sometimes described as the "father of modern linguistics" and has authored over 100 books. He has been described as a prominent cultural figure, and was voted the "world's top public intellectual" in a 2005 poll.

The Speakers:
Prof. Stephen Walt
John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University
author of The Israel Lobby & U.S. Foreign Policy(2008)

Professor Walt is an American professor of international affairs at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government. Among his most prominent works are Origins of Alliances and Revolution and War. He coauthored The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy with John Mearsheimer. He has been a Resident Associate of the Carnegie Endowment for Peace and a Guest Scholar at the Brookings Institution, and a consultant for the Institute of Defense Analyses, the Center for Naval Analyses, and the National Defense University.

Prof. Ilan Pappe
European Centre for Palestine Studies , University of Exeter, United Kingdom
author of
The Idea of Israel: A History of Power and Knowledge(2014)
A History of Modern Palestine: One Land, Two Peoples(2006)

Professor Pappé obtained his BA degree from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem in 1979 and the D. Phil from the University of Oxford in 1984. He founded and directed the Academic Institute for Peace in Givat Haviva, Israel between 1992 to 2000 and was the Chair of the Emil Tuma Institute for Palestine Studies in Haifa between 2000 and 2006. Professor Pappé was a senior lecturer in the department of Middle Eastern History and the Department of Political Science in Haifa University, Israel between 1984 and 2006. He was appointed as chair in the department of History in the Cornwall Campus, 2007-2009 and became a fellow of the IAIS in 2010. His research focuses on the modern Middle East and in particular the history of Israel and Palestine.

Mrs. Jean Zaru
Presiding Clerk, Ramallah Friends Meeting Quakers
author of Occupied With Non-Violence: A Palestinian Woman Speaks(2008)

Jean Zaru was born in Ramallah, Palestine in 1940; eight years before the Palestinian diaspora. Her life has been devoted to dialogue and non-violent social change. As a Palestinian woman living under military occupation and at the same time finding herself in a traditional culture, her life has been nothing less than an active engagement in the struggle for liberation liberation for Palestinians, for women, and for all peoples. She has done this through work in her own community, as well as regionally and internationally. Jean is the presiding clerk of the Ramallah Friends Meeting in Palestine and has served in that capacity for over 23 years. Currently, Jean is spearheading an effort with an international steering committee to restore the historic Meetinghouse and establish an International Friends Center with the aim of contributing to the building of a culture of peace and nonviolence in Palestine. Jean Zaru is also an author. She has published her book Occupied with Nonviolence in 2008, which is composed of a series of her writing about her life as a Christian Palestinian woman (leader) in the Occupied Territories of the West Bank.

Dr. Mark Braverman
Executive Director, Kairos USA
author of
The Fatal Embrace: Christians, Jews and the Search for Peace in the Holy Land(2012)
A Wall in Jerusalem: Hope Healing and the Struggle for Justice in Israel and Palestine(2013)

Dr. Braverman serves on the Advisory Board of Friends of Sabeel North America and is a cofounder of Friends of Tent of Nations North America, a nonprofit dedicated to supporting Palestinian land rights. Dr. Braverman has been closely involved in the growth of the international church movement in support of Palestinian human rights. In 2009 he participated in the launch of the Kairos Palestine document in Bethlehem. He was the U.S. delegate and lecturer at the Southern Africa-Palestine Kairos Encounter in Johannesburg in 2011 and lectured at the launch of Kairos Britain in 2013. He was instrumental in the founding of Kairos USA, a movement to unify American Christians to take a prophetic stance for a just peace in Israel and Palestine, and now serves as its Executive Director.

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