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Raja Shehadeh to Present Lecture-Discussions in Chicago

February 21 and 22, 2002
"Strangers in the House: Reflections on the Relation of Human Rights and Politics in Palestine and Israel"

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Thursday, February 21 at 7:00pm
Ramallah Club of Chicago
2700 N. Central Ave.
Contact: Yacoub Zayed (630) 325-5870

Friday, February 22 at 12:00noon
International House, University of Chicago
1414 E. 59th St.
Contact: Anthony Chase, achase@uchicago.edu

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As part of a national lecture/book tour of the United States, Raja Shehadeh will be in Chicago to present two lecture discussions entitled "Strangers in the House: Reflections on the Relation of Human Rights and Politics in Palestine and Israel."

Raja Shehadeh was born in 1951 in Ramallah, on the West Bank. He was called to the Bar in England in 1976 and since then has worked as a lawyer on the West Bank. He is the founder of Al-Haq--Law in the Service of Man--a West Bank human rights organization and affiliate of the International Commission of Jurists, headquartered in Geneva. Mr. Shehadeh was legal counsel to the Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations in Madrid. He is the recipient of human rights awards including the Issam Sartawi award and the second Rothko Chapel Award for Commitment to Truth and Freedom.

Mr. Shehadeh's recently published autobiography, STRANGERS IN THE HOUSE: COMING OF AGE IN OCCUPIED PALESTINE (Steerforth, February, 2002), was praised by Israeli writer Amos Elon as "a remarkable human document that explains better than a hundred political treatises why there is still no peace in the Middle East." The book, writes The New York Times' Anthony Lewis in his preface to it, "shatters the stereotype many Americans have of Palestinians." In addition to his new autobiography, Mr. Shehadeh as published several memoirs, including THE THIRD WAY (Quartet Books, 1982), THE SEALED ROOM (Quartet, 1992), and OCCUPIER'S LAW: ISRAEL AND THE WEST BANK (Institute for Palestine Studies, 1985).

Mr. Shehadeh was interviewed by Terry Gross on NPR's "Fresh Air" on February 6, 2002 (audio archive at www.npr.org)