Meretz UK members and friends are in for a treat at our next meeting. For on Sunday 1 March you will hear an excellent Israeli speaker, the author, academic and pioneer of peace negotiations, Prof. Menachem Klein.
The focus will be on his latest compelling book, Lives in Common: Arabs and Jews in Jerusalem, Jaffa and Hebron. Adam LeBor’s recent review in Ha’aretz provides excellent analysis of the themes it raises.
Besides the launch itself, Menachem is happy to draw on his vast experience to investigate the torrid and often confusing world of Israeli politics, especially as polling day approaches.
Jews, Muslims and Christians praying for rain at Walajeh, a village near Hebron, November 2010 – from Jewish Chronicle
Challenging received wisdom, Lives in Common opens a window onto a largely untold history, of Jews and Arabs living cheek by jowel in the three major cities of historic Palestine before 1948…Now two are located in the State of Israel and Hebron lies in the occupied West Bank. Not only was Lives listed as a “book of the year 2014″ by the New Republic in the States, it also gleaned complimentary reviews from astute intellectuals and thinkers in the field. Many felt that it challenges negative narratives, and in the process forces us to look towards a happier future by acknowledging past errors.
Menachem Klein teaches in the Department of Political Science, Bar-Ilan University, Israel, and was a team member of the Geneva Initiative Negotiations in 2003. Having arrived this year in London to take up an academic fellowing, Menachem has in the past advised both the Israeli government and the Israeli delegation for peace talks with the PLO (2000). Klein was also a fellow at Oxford University, a visiting professor at MIT and . He is the author of numerous book, including The Shift: Israel-Palestine from Border Struggle to Ethnic Conflict, also published by Hurst, and A Possible Peace between Israe and Palestine, published by Columbia University Press in 2007.
“British loyalty meeting in Hebron, 3 July 1940″ by J Matson, Matson Photo Service – as appears on Wikipedia
You can read Menachem Klein’s essays and commentaries at the New York Times, The Guardian, Open Democracy, the Jewish Chronicle and the Palestine-Israel Journal, as well as numerous Israeli and Arab publications, such a thought-provoking interview in a 1999 edition of Palestine News.
We are pleased to say that Menachem participated some years back in a memorable discussion with the UK-based Palestinian academic, Dr Ahmad Khalidi, in an event co-hosted by Meretz UK and Brits for Peace Now.
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