Hauser Center Brown Bag Lunch
Series Presents:
The
First Intifada and the Transformation of Palestinian Civil
Society
Presented by
Dr.
Salim Tamari
Wednesday, May 6, 2009,
12:30-1:45 pm
Hauser Center Conference Room
5 Bennett Street (Charles Hotel
plaza)
Ottoman rule, the British Mandate administration, the 1948
and 1967 wars, and the Israeli occupation of the West Bank
and Gaza since 1967 have each had profound effect on the
scope for civil actors and civil society organizations to
influence the character of social and political life in the
Palestinian community. The first Palestinian Intifada
spawned broadly based action on the part of civil society
organizations in Palestine against Israeli occupation.
Importantly, a number of Palestinian civil society actors
and groups subsequently played key roles in the process
that led to the convening of the Madrid peace talks and
ultimately the Oslo Agreement with Israel, which created
great hopes for a peaceful territorial settlement, but had
disastrous consequences in its application, leading to the
collapse of the peace process and the emergence of the
second Intifada.
Salim Tamari is director of the Institute of Jerusalem
Studies and professor of sociology at Birzeit University.
He is currently a visiting fellow at the Aga Khan Program
for Islamic Architecture at MIT. Dr. Tamari, who holds a
PhD in sociology from Manchester University, is one of
Palestine’s most distinguished scholars. His research draws
heavily on archival materials and personal diaries to
examine the social and political forces that shaped and
re-shaped Palestine in the 20th century. He is author of
“Jerusalem 1948: The Arab Neighborhoods and Their Fate in
the War,” “Palestinian Refugee Negotiations: From Madrid to
Oslo II,” and most recently, “Mountain against the Sea:
Essays on Palestinian Society and Culture,” published in
2008 by the University of California Press. Dr. Tamari
served on the refugee committee in the multilateral peace
talks that began in the wake of the 1991 Madrid Peace
Conference.