Speakers for the Palestinian Israeli Conflict

Speakers:

Difficult Dialogues
January 8, 2004

Mohammed Abu-Nimer (American University)
Professor Abu-Nimer specializes in Peace and Conflict Resolution. He has conducted research on conflict resolution and dialogue for peace among Palestinians and Jews in Israel; Israeli-Palestinian conflict; application of conflict resolution models in non-western context; conflict resolution training models; and evaluation of conflict resolution programs. As a practitioner, he has been intervening and conducting conflict resolution training workshops in Israel, Palestine, Egypt, Turkey, Ireland, Switzerland, Sierra Leone, and the U.S. Some of the themes that Professor Abu-Nimer covers in his practice of conflict resolution are: facilitation of dialogue in intergroup conflicts, assistance in identifying peacebuilding capacities in areas of conflict, and specific skills of facilitation, mediation, negotiation, and analysis. He has published articles on these subjects in the Journal of Peace and Changes, the American Journal of Economics and Sociology, and in various edited books. His first book on conflict resolution and political change will be published in the Spring of 1999.

Rabbi Seth Goldstein (Temple Beth Hatfiloh)
Rabbi Goldstein is the Rabbi of Congregation Beit Hatfiloh in Olympia, Washington. He received his rabbinical ordination from the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College in 2003 and also holds a Masters in Judaic Studies from the Jewish Theological Seminary. Rabbi Goldstein has published articles in several magazines and journals on the topics of Jewish identity, American Judaism and Biblical criticism.

History of the Conflict
January 22, 2004

Ellis Goldberg (University of Washington)
Ellis Goldberg is a professor of political science at the University of Washington and chairs the Middle East center there. His first book, Tinker, Tailor and Textile Worker (University of California Press, 1986), deals with the Egyptian labor movement. His most recent book is an edited collection of essays, The Social History of Labor in the Middle East (Westview Press, 1996). In 2004 Palgrave will publish his new book, Trade, Reputation and Child Labor in Egypt. Other publications include work on Muslim political movements in Islam, the origins of the post-colonial trade union movement in Egypt, and human rights. He was the UW Social Science Professor for Spring 1990, received an NSF grant in 1991, a Ford Foundation grant to improve graduate education in 1993. In 1999 he co-chaired a conference of Arab intellectuals that met at the Rockefeller Foundation's Bellagio Center in Italy. During the 1997-98 academic year, he was a Visiting Professor of Transregional Studies at Princeton University. In 1999-2000 he was a visiting professor in the Department of Near East Studies at Princeton University. He teaches courses in Middle Eastern and comparative politics.

Farhat Ziadeh (University of Washington) 
FARHAT ZIADEH taught Near Eastern Languages and Civilization at the University of Washington. He received his PhD from the University of London in 1940. He specializes in Arabic language and literature, Islamic law, and Islamic institutions. He is an author of “Reader in Modern Literary Arabic, 1964 and several other works.

Religious Dimensions
February 12, 2004

Marc Ellis (Baylor University)
Marc H. Ellis is University Professor of American and Jewish Studies at Baylor University in Waco, Texas. He earned B.A. and M.A. degrees in Religion and American Studies at Florida State University. He received his doctorate in contemporary American social and religious thought from Marquette University in 1980. He is a member of the editorial board of Tikkun and director of the center for American and Jewish studies at Baylor.

Ellis is a Jewish theologian specializing in modern Judaism and post-Holocaust thought. He is on the board of Deir Yassin Remembered and of the Council for Palestinian Restitution and Repatriation (CPRR), an organization which declares that "every Palestinian has a legitimate, individual right to return to his or her original home and to absolute restitution of his or her property." Professor Ellis has authored fifteen books and edited five others, among them: Toward a Jewish Theology of Liberation; Unholy Alliance: Religion and Atrocity in Our Time; His latest book is Israel and Palestine: Out of the Ashes; The Search for Jewish identity in the 21st Century

Lance Laird (The Evergreen State College)
Lance Laird teaches comparative religion at The Evergreen State College. He has a B.A. in Religious Studies from the Uersity of Virginia and an M.Div. in Theology from The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. He has a Th.Dniv. in Comparative Religion, with an emphasis in Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations from Harvard Divinity School. His research focuses on how religious tradition and nationalism interact in religiously plural societies.

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