Chair: Charles Glass

Glass is an author, journalist and broadcaster specialising in the Middle East and the Second World War. He began his journalistic career in 1973 at the ABC News Beirut bureau with Peter Jennings. He covered the October Arab-Israeli War on the Egyptian and Syrian fronts. He also covered civil war in Lebanon, where artillery fire wounded him in 1976. He was ABC News Chief Middle East correspondent from 1983 to 1993. Since 1993, he has been a freelance writer in Paris, Tuscany, Venice and London, regularly covering the Middle East, the Balkans, southeast Asia and the Mediterranean region. In 1986, Glass interviewed the hostage crew of TWA flight 847 on the tarmac of Beirut Airport. He broke the news that the hijackers had removed the hostages from the plane and hidden them in the suburbs of Beirut, causing the Reagan Administration to abort a rescue attempt. In 1987, Glass himself was abducted and held hostage for two months before escaping from his Shiite Muslim captors. In 1988, he exposed Saddam Hussein’s then-secret biological weapons program. The U.S. government rejected Glass’s claims, until Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990. In addition, Glass was the only U.S. television correspondent in northern Iraq covering the entire Kurdish rebellion in 1991. He has covered wars in the Middle East, Eritrea, Rhodesia, Somalia, Iraq and Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Speakers

Ian Black

Black is the former Middle East editor at the Guardian, where he has worked since 1980 as a reporter. In recent years he has reported extensively on the Arab uprisings and their aftermath in Syria, Libya and Egypt. 2017 marks the publication of Black’s new book, Enemies and Neighbours: Arabs and Jews in Palestine and Israel, 1917-2017, which traces the history of conflict in the region including important milestones such as the Balfour Agreement. Black joined the LSE Middle East Centre as a Visiting Senior Fellow in August 2016.  In 2010, he was awarded a Peace Through Media Award by the International Council for Press and Broadcasting at the International Media Awards in London.

Ghada Karmi

Karmi is a Palestinian doctor of medicine, author and academic. Ghada was born in Jerusalem and was forced to leave her home with her family as a result of Israel’s creation in 1948. They moved to England where Karmi eventually practised as a doctor for many years, working as a specialist in the health of migrants and refugees. Karmi is the author of several books, including her memoir In Search of Fatima, Jerusalem Today, What Future for the Peace Process? and The Palestinian Exodus 1948-1998. She has held a number of research appointments at SOAS and the universities of Durham and Leeds. From 1999 to 2001 she was an Associate Fellow of the Royal Institute of International Affairs, where she led a major project on Israel-Palestinian reconciliation. In 2009, she became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. Currently Ghada Karmi is a Research Fellow at the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies, University of Exeter.

Lord Leslie Turnberg

Lord Turnberg is a medical professional, author and Labour peer. Leslie Turnberg graduated in medicine from Manchester University in 1957. He was appointed President of the Royal College of Physicians in 1992 and received a knighthood in 1994 Birthday Honours for services to medicine. He continues to be active in medical affairs in the House of Lords and is a member of the Committee on Sustainability of the NHS. He was a Jewish Medical Association (UK) founder patron.  In 2008 Lord and Lady Turnberg, in partnership with the Academy of Medical Sciences, established the Daniel Turnberg Memorial Fellowships. These fellowships are in memory of their late son, a doctor and researcher with a keen interest in fostering links between the UK and the Middle East. In recent years Lord Turnberg has turned his attention increasingly to the thorny problems of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He has used his experience in research and in large organisations to analyse the reasons behind the inability of the Zionists and the Arabs to reach a compromise. As a Labour Peer he focuses on the problems that abound in the Middle East in his interventions in debates in the House of Lords. In April this year, Lord Turnberg published his book Beyond the Balfour Agreement marking the anniversary of the landmark letter and the misconceptions surrounding the declaration ever since.

Dr Jacob Norris

Jacob Norris is a social and cultural historian of the modern Middle East. He completed his PhD in 2010 at the University of Cambridge where he spent a further 3 years as Research Fellow, before coming to Sussex in 2013. Jacob’s research is mostly focused on Palestine in the 19th and early 20th centuries, albeit within global and transnational frameworks. His monograph, Land of Progress: Palestine in the Age of Colonial Development, 1905-1948 was published in 2013 by Oxford University Press.

Featured image: From left to right: Lord Allenby (commander of British forces in Palestine 1917), Lord Balfour, and Sir Herbert Samuel, first British High Commissioner of the Mandate attending the 1925 opening of Hebrew University.

Based on new archive research and original interviews with leading correspondents and diplomats, the book explores why this fiercely contested region exerts such a pull over reporters: those who bring the story to the world. Despite decades of diplomacy, a just and lasting end to the conflict remains as difficult as ever to achieve.

Lyse Doucet, Chief International Correspondent at BBC News, said: “At a time when reporting on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is under unprecedented scrutiny, James Rodgers provides an essential and insightful historical perspective on the long “war of words” behind a major conflict of our time. Rodgers’ book is essential reading for those seeking a greater understanding of the difficult dynamics behind reporting – and resolving conflicts.”

James Rodgers is an author and journalist. His previous books are Reporting Conflict (2012) and No Road Home: Fighting for Land and Faith in Gaza (2013). A former BBC correspondent in Moscow, Brussels, and Gaza, James lectures in Journalism at City University.

Guests are encouraged to read the book before the event, although you are also welcome to join if you’ve just started your exploration. Previous experience has shown that members often gain insight and inspiration from discussions with the author, which enable them to continue reading the book in a new light.

This will be an in-depth discussion rather than a standard format Q&A. The evening will start with drinks at 7:00 PM, following by a sit-down dinner at 7:30 PM. We will get to know one another over starters before the introduction of the evening’s guest author.

The event will be hosted by Frontline Club director, Pranvera Smith, and founding member and senior correspondent at The Guardian and The Observer, Ed Vulliamy.

SPECIAL DISCOUNT FOR THE FRONTLINE CLUB: Save 30% when ordering on palgrave.com. Please e-mail Sophie Kayes for the code. Valid until 31 October 2015. Terms and conditions apply.

Menu £25 per person excluding drinks. 

The idea behind members’ BookNights is to have a thoroughly good time, encourage reading and discussion, and to end the night both happier and wiser than when it began. For more information about membership and the other benefits on offer, please contact membership coordinator Sophie Kayes.

On Friday 15 May, the Frontline Club hosted the UK premiere of This Is My Land, followed by an insightful discussion with director Tamara Erde. Screened on the 67th anniversary of Israeli Independence and Nakba Day, the film poses an important and highly relevant question: how does teaching of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict affect younger generations in the contested region?

This Is My Land follows several history teachers and students in six schools over an academic year. It provides a nuanced perspective of how educational institutions across Israel and the West Bank grapple with national identity, curriculum censorship and a relentless fear of the ‘other’. Observational in style, the film reveals gaping discrepancies between concepts of freedom and historical truth, and a sense of how trauma and conflict are transmitted onto the next generation through the pages of a textbook.

At the beginning of the film, Erde explains how, as an Israeli student, she was never taught to consider Palestinian history. It was not until she joined the army that she gained greater awareness of the other side of the conflict. During her discussion at the Frontline Club, she commented on her motivations for making the film.

“For me, something that is really important and lacking in education, is the other side’s vision, narrative and history. The first step is just to realise that there is another side and story, that is today being completely ignored. It’s [about] opening up to tolerance and understanding that you are not alone in the world… to see people on the other side with their pain from the past, all this complexity.”

Thought provoking evening @frontlineclub: This is my land | Tamara Erde http://t.co/VHnxaohRFM

— Stephanie Biden (@StephanieBiden) May 15, 2015

Asked by an audience member how she had approached each school, Erde said:
“You have to get approval from the Ministry of Education for each teacher. From the Israeli side, all the teachers who were centre-left were not authorised.”

She added that while there were numerous schools from which she was denied access, the teachers she filmed were intriguing, both in their characters and the way they approached teaching.

“What I was looking for was teachers who on the one hand represent the national curriculum, but on the other hand do try to challenge themselves or ask questions within what they can do.”

Despite the complex personalities of the teachers, several audience members noted how bleak the film seemed in terms of optimism, and asked whether Erde felt any sense of hope that the two sides could find a solution.

She responded: “While editing, there were times when I thought I’d like it to have a happy ending. But at the same time, I wanted to stay loyal to what I felt and what I saw during this process… From what we’ve seen over the long years, the solution doesn’t come from politics. We need to try and bring it from other places, and I think education could have been one of the major places. But today, it’s just following politics completely.”

One audience member asked whether the film had been screened in Israel or Palestine and, given the contentious topic, the reactions it received.

Erde said: “We did some private screenings in the cinemas on the Israeli side and Ramallah… There were many good responses from teachers who saw the film and said it raised many important questions for them. On the Israeli side we did some screenings in April. There were first reactions saying, it’s okay for us to see it inside Israel but don’t show it outside so you don’t reveal anything about the problems here.”

She added that her ultimate aim would be to screen the film in schools.

“What I would have loved to do is to bring it to schools, to teachers and to kids from both sides to see. I think it will be a long process. We managed to do it in the schools that we filmed, and in some private teachers organisations. We tried through the Ministry [of Education], but I’m not surprised it didn’t work. On the Palestinian side, we are trying now and I hope it will work in some way.”

Visit the This Is My Land website for more information on the film and upcoming screenings.

Journalist and filmmaker Joshua Baker documents the stories of three lives caught up in the on-going Israeli–Palestinian conflict. He highlights the void between the political negotiations around the peace process and the reality on the ground.

This reality is depicted through the life of a 20-something Israeli settler, a seven-year-old Palestinian boy and the ambitions of an over-confident 17-year-old Palestinian. Their stories illustrate the human dimension of the recently collapsed Middle East peace talks.

The Process gives a snapshot of contemporary life inside the conflict, revealing what the politics mean for those who are waiting for peace. It is a tale from the ground, of life governed from above.

Directed by Joshua Baker
Duration: 59′
Year: 2014

In a journey across the settlements, the roads and the Separation Wall of the West Bank, Eyal Weizman demonstrates how architecture is central to the Israeli occupation of Palestine and how his work on the architecture of occupation has led him to understand the discipline’s role in modern urban warfare.

Israelis and Palestinians explain how it feels to live in a landscape where everything, from walls and roads, terraces and sewage pipes, to settlements and surveillance are designed to ensure the separation of the two peoples, while simultaneously maintaining control.

This Al Jazeera Rebel Architecture preview screening will be followed by a discussion with director Ana Naomi de Sousa and protagonist and architect Eyal Weizman. Weizman will talk about his latest project Forensic Architecture, which makes innovative use of architectural and visual technologies to present architecture as evidence in the investigation of war crimes and human rights violations.

Directed by Ana Naomi de Sousa
Duration: 24′
Year: 2014

Premiering 18 August 2014, Rebel Architecture features inspiring architects that are using design to tackle the world’s urban, environmental and social crises.

This summer the Frontline Club is heading to Wilderness Festival – we hope to see you all there.

Just a few months ago Palestinians might have had reason to be cautiously optimistic as rivals Fatah and Hamas formed a unity government. But when in mid-June three Israeli teenagers were killed and violence between Hamas and Israel began to escalate, any glimmer of hope for progress was soon diminished.

What we have seen since is the horrific consequence of yet another escalation in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict and as always those who pay the dearest price are ordinary people, many of them children.

At Wilderness Festival the Frontline Club will be bringing together a panel of journalists who have covered the conflict, to shed light on what has been happening on the ground. They will be discussing how this latest escalation is different from those we have seen in the past and the perils of reporting this age-old conflict.

Chaired by Lindsey Hilsum, international editor at Channel 4 News.

Speakers:

Kim Sengupta, defence and diplomatic correspondent at The Independent.

Anna-Lisa Fuglesang, news editor at Channel 4 News.

Chris Morris, Europe Correspondent for BBC News.

The Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, called off early elections after a deal was reached between his Likud party and the opposition Kadima party. Five years after Hamas took power in Gaza there are signs of a shaky reconciliation between them and Fatah that could lead to elections. There is concern in Israel about the growing power and influence of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.

Across the world, the one-state solution is now openly discussed as a possible outcome. We will be bringing together an expert panel to explain the implications of these political shifts.

With:

Antony Loewenstein, an Australian freelance journalist, author and blogger. He has written for The Guardian, Haaretz, the BBC, The Sydney Morning Herald and others. He is author of My Israel Question and The Blogging Revolution, and co-editor of After Zionism: One State for Israel and Palestine. He is a research associate at the University of Technology, Sydney’s Australian Centre for Independent Journalism.

Dimi Reider, an Israeli journalist and blogger. His work has appeared in The New York Times, The New York Review of Books, The Guardian, Foreign Policy, Haaretz and The Jerusalem Post. He is also a co-founder and contributing editor of +972 Magazine. His translation of Yehouda Shenhav‘s new book, Beyond the Two State Solution: A Jewish political essay is forthcoming in September with Polity Press.

Ahmed Moor, a Palestinian-American, born in the Gaza Strip, he was a Beirut-based journalist before he moved to Cairo where he covered the Egyptian revolution. He is co-editor of After Zionism: One State for Israel and Palestine. His writing has been published in the Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, The Boston Review, Al Jazeera English, The Guardian, the San Francisco Chronicle, Mondoweiss, the Huffington Post and others. In 2012, he became a Paul and Daisy Soros Fellow.

Ghada Karmi, a leading British-Palestinian academic and writer. Currently she is co-director of the European Centre of Palestine Studies at the University of Exeter. She is a frequent media commentator on Middle Eastern issues. She is the author of a memoir, In Search of Fatima; a Palestinian story. Her most recent book is Married to another man: Israel’s dilemma in Palestine.

The Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, called off early elections after a deal was reached between his Likud party and the opposition Kadima party. But following a split of the coalition he faces fresh calls for an early election. Five years after Hamas took power in Gaza there are signs of a shaky reconciliation between them and Fatah that could lead to elections. There is concern in Israel about the growing power and influence of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. 

Across the world, the one-state solution is now openly discussed as a possible outcome. We will be bringing together an expert panel to explain the implications of these political shifts.

Chaired by Tim Llewellyn, the BBC’s Middle East Correspondent for ten years, during which time he covered the Lebanese civil war, the Iranian Revolution, the Iran-Iraq war, the First Gulf War and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Since leaving the BBC in 1992, he has been a regular broadcast and print commentator on Middle East politics.

With:

Antony Loewenstein, an Australian freelance journalist, author and blogger. He has written for The Guardian, Haaretz, the BBC, The Sydney Morning Herald and others. He is author of My Israel Question and The Blogging Revolution, and co-editor of After Zionism: One State for Israel and Palestine. He is a research associate at the University of Technology, Sydney’s Australian Centre for Independent Journalism.

Dimi Reider, an Israeli journalist and blogger. His work has appeared in The New York Times, The New York Review of Books, The Guardian, Foreign Policy, Haaretz and The Jerusalem Post. He is also a co-founder and contributing editor of +972 Magazine. His translation of Yehouda Shenhav‘s new book, Beyond the Two State Solution: A Jewish political essay is forthcoming in September with Polity Press. 

Ahmed Moor, a Palestinian-American, born in the Gaza Strip, he was a Beirut-based journalist before he moved to Cairo where he covered the Egyptian revolution. He is co-editor of After Zionism: One State for Israel and Palestine. His writing has been published in the Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, The Boston Review, Al Jazeera English, The Guardian, the San Francisco Chronicle, Mondoweiss, the Huffington Post and others. In 2012, he became a Paul and Daisy Soros Fellow. 

Ghada Karmi, a leading British-Palestinian academic and writer. Currently she is co-director of the European Centre of Palestine Studies at the University of Exeter. She is a frequent media commentator on Middle Eastern issues. She is the author of a memoir, In Search of Fatima; a Palestinian story. Her most recent book is Married to another man: Israel’s dilemma in Palestine.