Palestinian Academics Speak in UL

limerick | anti-war / imperialism | event notice Monday March 23, 2009 21:23 by Zoe Lawlor - Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Limerick Branch

UL John Holland Theatre Tuesday 24th March 7.30pm

Two Palestinian academics from Nablus University are speaking tomorrow evening Tuesday 24th March at 7.30 in the John Holland Theatre (D1050) in UL. They will be speaking about the call for an academic boycott of Israeli institutions and about life as a Palestinian. All very welcome, free entry, it should be very interesting.

Ala Abu Dheer & Saed J. Abu-Hijleh (An-Najah University Nablus, Palestine)

Two Speakers from Palestine.

Ala Abu Dheer & Saed J. Abu-Hijleh (An-Najah University Nablus, Palestine)

Brief Biographies of Ala Abu Dheer and Saed J. Abu-Hijleh

Ala Abu Dheer is a Palestinian Oral History and Ethnographic researcher and public relations practitioner who is currently working as the Coordinator of the Youth Exchange Program and the website manager of the Palestine Media Unit at the Public Relations Department of An-Najah National University in Nablus, Palestine. Since 2003, he organized and led numerous international voluntary projects and activities including international work camps, study visits, and videoconferences.

Born to a refugee father in 1969 in Nablus, Palestine, he got his Masters Degree in Modern Arabic Studies 2001 from Birzeit University in Ramallah, Palestine, and his BA in Literature and Philosophy from Damascus University, Syria, in 1992.

He Published "Al-Aqsa Uprising in Cartoons: A Palestinian Perspective" (English version), "The Image of the Palestine Question in the American Cartoons: An American Perspective" (Arabic version), "The Image of Iraq in the American Cartoon: An American Perspective" (Arabic version), "The Oral History of 1948: The Oral History of the Palestinian Refugees of 1948" (English and Arabic versions), and the forthcoming "Tales from Palestine" (English version). He also published many reports on the Right to Education in Palestine.

Saed J. Abu-Hijleh is a Palestinian human geographer, poet, and radio show host, who is currently working as a lecturer of political and environmental geography at An-Najah National University in Nablus, Palestine. He is the founder & director of the Center for Global Consciousness (CGC), an independent media and cultural exchange institute dedicated to building bridges between Palestine and the world.

Mr. Abu-Hijleh holds a BS in International Development Studies from the University of Iowa and an MA in Political Geography from the University of Northern Iowa, USA. In the past fifteen years, Mr. Abu-Hijleh worked with key Palestinian public and private organizations in the fields of international development, public relations and protocol, and small and medium enterprises development projects. Mr. Abu-Hijleh is the former Director Public Relations Department of An-Najah University (2005-2007). Since 2004, Mr. Abu-Hijleh prepared and hosted a talk show on An-Najah University FM station called “Global Perspectives” in which he interviewed many international personalities who visited Palestine on key contemporary political, economic, and cultural issues. Mr. Abu-Hijleh has conducted academic research on the political geography of Palestinian statehood and the multidimensional obstacles facing its realization. His current research interests focus on the geography of religions and belief systems, the human geography of Palestinian identity & Diaspora, citizenship and liberation theology, and the geography of the Palestinian environmental movement. Mr. Abu-Hijleh is presently preparing to publish a poetry collection entitled “Words of a Palestinian Dinosaur!”

Like many other Palestinians who grew up under the Israeli military occupation, Mr. Abu-Hijleh started his political activism at an early stage in his life. He was only 10 years old when he joined student demonstrations against the occupation authorities. In April 1982, at the age of 15, he was seriously wounded by Israeli soldiers when they opened fire on a student demonstration in the city of Nablus. This did not stop him from continuing his activism for the realization of peace and justice in Palestine and around the world.

On October 11, 2002, Israeli soldiers assassinated his mother Shaden Abu-Hijleh, a renowned Palestinian peace activist and philanthropist, and injured him and his father Dr. Jamal Abu-Hijleh. (www.remembershaden.org)