A chat on Israel and Palestine is being scheduled by the American NGO Partners for Progressive Israel (PPI) this coming Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Monday January 18, between 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm (US Eastern Standard Time). The chat will be hosting Yousef Jabareen, Member of the Israeli Knesset from Hadash (Joint List).

Jabareen, an Arab-Palestinian citizen of Israel, studied law at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and continued his studies at the Washington College of Law at the American University in Washington, DC. In 2003, he went on to receive his PhD at Georgetown University Law Center for which he wrote his doctoral thesis which compares the civil rights struggles of African-Americans and the Palestinian Arab minority in Israel. It is for this reason that Dr. Jabareen is such an appropriate and relevant speaker for Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

Hadash MK Yousef Jabareen (Photo: Al Ittihad)

While completing his doctorate, Jabareen lectured at the Washington College of Law and the Center for Jewish Studies at the University of Maryland in 2003, before becoming a member of the Faculty of Law at the University of Haifa and Tel Aviv University in 2004. In 2009, he transferred to the faculty of Tel-Hai Academic College in northern Israel.

MK Jabareen also heads the Dirasat Arab Center for Law and Policy in Nazareth, and was the legal director of the northern branch of ACRI (Association for Civil Rights in Israel) between 1997 and 2000.

Among the questions to be raised by PPI staff in the chat with MK Jabareen will be:

• Martin Luther King Jr. used a non-violent strategy that was ultimately successful in repealing the Jim Crow laws in the southern states of the US. What parts of this strategy are feasible for the Palestinian struggle? What parts are not?
• Are there allies in the Israeli Jewish community that would support the civil rights struggle of Palestinians, like American Jews supported Martin Luther King Jr.?
• What can we do to fight growing racism in Israeli society?

To reserve a place in the chat with Dr. Jabareen, visit the following page at the PPI Website:

http://progressiveisrael.org/events/civil-rights-for-palestinian-israelis-a-mlk-day-chat/