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"
*******
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
*******
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)