We have had an excellent morning. I think that that was refreshing, and the afternoon is no different. Our second panel for the next two hours, as you can see in the brochure, is a timely subject. Living with islams hegemony. We have a panel of experts to present that. [inaudible] is in syracuse, she could not be here, so that is the onlity very is generals from the brochure. The panel will be moderated by Mohamed Mohamud who is the interim executive director of the jerusalem fun. Health care amed has been here hamed has been here for over two years and actually he holds two master degrees, master of art in International Relations and a master of science in political economy. Thats much more than a surgeon like me. So im going to turn it to mohamed who will introduce the speakers, and im looking forward to hearing what they have to say. Hamed . Let me negotiate my way out of here. Good afternoon, everybody. Thank you for joining us today at our annual conference, and thank you for bearing with the heat. I know its pretty hot in here. Finish but we cant do much but we cant do much once the coldwet kicks in. Again, please silence your cell phones so that we keep december tractions at a minimum. There will also be a question and answer session afterwards. And, again, web audience can tweet their questions to palestinecertain, and we have a twitter handle of, which is whis pcconf2016. Today we are israels hegemony in the region. In this panel were going to look at the conditions of israels hegemony to consider future prospects. Panelists will analyze the continuing real estate of israel reality of Israeli Military occupation and and incurlses into incursions into gaza, intensified domination of jerusalem and the tensions of palestinian children. They will also offer expert perspectives on washingtons policy toward israel and palestine, especially in light of this years president ial elections as well as the very serious consequences of israels claims to and encroachment on jerusalem and the unsustainability of the ongoing sieging of [inaudible] for this panel we are pleased to have three distinguished speakers, all of them who are experts in their field. Again, as dr. Ali mentioned, deanna couldnt make it today unfortunately. But that gives more time to our speakers who im sure have a lot to talk about. First to my right we have dr. Thomas abowd, urban anthropologist and historian. He received his ph. D. From Columbia University in 2003. His book on spatial politics and contemporary jerusalem is titled colonial jerusalem the spatial construction of identity and difference. And it was published in 2011 by syracuse university. In 2006 he received a Postdoctoral Research award to study housing politics in contemporary jerusalem. From 20082009 dr. Abowd was the recipient of a faculty fellowship from the Humanities Center of Wayne State University to continue research on housing rights, activism in jerusalem. Today dr. Abowd will talk about jerusalem, settlements, economic isolation and efforts at judeoization. To his right we have brad peaker, staff attorney and International Advocacy officer at defense for children international, palestine, which is an independent child rights organization, and it is dedicated to defending and promoting the rights of children living in the west bank, East Jerusalem and gaza. He specializes in issues of juvenile justice and great violation against children during armed conflict, and he leads dcips legal advocacy efforts on palestinian childrens rights. Parker regularly writes and speaks on the situation of palestinian child in the occupied palestinian territory, particularly issues involving detention, ill treatment and torture of child detainees within the Israeli Military detention system as well as violations of International Humanitarian law and International Human rights law. He leads dcips u. S. Program and is a graduate of the university of vermont and received his j. D. From the City University of new yorks school of law. To his right we have dr. Abdelhamid siyam from rutgers, university. Hes a United Nations veteran having served 27 years in the department of public information, the department of Political Affairs and the department of peacekeeping for which he served as a spokesman in western sahara, iraq and pakistan as well as afghanistan. In this last capacity, dr. Siyam was a positionman for the late special representative of the attorney general, sergio, who was killed in baghdad on august 19, 2009, when the u. N. Headquarters were attacked. Results in the resulting in the deaths of 21 other colleagues. He is also the bureau chief of the panarab daily [inaudible] hes also the authority of the book that horrible day, and he has appeared as a commentator on many arab and nonarab radio and satellite stations including aljazeerakuwait tv, bahrain tv, bbc, and sky news. So please join me in welcoming our speakers. [applause] and dr. Abowd will be first. Thank you, everyone. Now, do i have to be wired or this good enough . Okay, great. Thanks to the organizers and for all of you for coming today. This is one of my favorite events in november, every november. This wonderful conference. Even if it happens a few days after certain elections. [laughter] that tend to be somewhat depressing. Let me say a few words today about jerusalem. I want to flush out both the contemporary situation in jerusalem and also look at some of the screenologies of rural genealogies of rule and power that have produced the kind of arrangement of very much separate and unequal, even apartheidlike arrangements that we see today. And earlier presentations, as many of you know, today address colonial legacies, and i too want to do that as well. But i want to connect what is undeniably a colonial legacy, namely the british period of colonial rule in palestine, with what is a little bit more controversial to aearth which is that the present assert which is that the present israeli maybe not in this room. [laughter] but with regard to the present governance which i contend is a certain kind of colonialism. This other colonialism based as all are on elimination of the native and indigenous but not necessarily through genocide as was done on this continent or through, you know, there are different sorts of colonialism. But to say that israel has been intent in jerusalem and elsewhere to largely try to eliminate palestinians or a large number of to regulate the populations of palestinians is not inconsistent with what settler colonialism has done internationally and throughout time. Its important to note as many of you probably are aware that theres a sad, particularly sad anniversary thats coming up in june, namely the 50th anniversary of israels conquest of East Jerusalem as well as the west bank, the gaza strip and the Golan Heights and the sinai. But the palestinian territories, which have not yet even really one square meter been liberated or returned to the palestinians, israels tocalled withdrawal from socalled withdrawal from gaza aside. I think theres some order that needs to be under. And to remind ousts about ourselves about what Israeli Military rule has meant. And one of the factors that i want to argue, and this is part of a larger project that im doing on zionists by nationalism in particular, but in looking at thinkers like martin buber or the other israelis who are alive today and talking about different arrangements beyond two states or beyond an apartheid state, i want to contend that one of the factors that militates today and probably into the future i hope im wrong against a more democratic by national arrangement is the refusal to see israeli governance as colonial governance. And because with that, if you deny that or if you dont want to talk about those realities, then you deny the elementary, seminal offense that has produced the Palestinian Catastrophe which is not just one note 1948 or one moment in 1967, but a continuation of a logic of elimination that i mentioned before that is with us today. And i would say, you know, im going to contend that its not just the wing of the Zionist Movement whose grandsons is and granddaughters, mostly grandson, are in power in israel and have been for the past decade, but in certain realms and assumptions, in formerly zionist or jewish binationallism that has ignored and sought to, has sought to erase or be silent about the colonial beginnings of the israeli state which grew out of British Colonialism too which we heard earlier in the day. Its important to remember as we come upon the 50th anniversary of israels conquest of East Jerusalem that thus far in israeli history its rule over East Jerusalem, think of to it this way, its two and a half times longer than the british rule in palestine. And thats just from 67. If you go back to 1948, were talking about a period of time. I know this is a contentious argument, to think of israel as a settler colonial state. But if you will hear that argument or subscribe to it provisionally, its important to understand were talking about a period of Israeli Government involuntarily thats more than three times as long as british rule in palestine. So what has this half century wrought . Ive got some maps to share with you, as you can see. I want to see how israeli rule has remade jerusalem spatially and demographically. Many of you are aware of that. Perhaps youre also aware that as i want to emphasize, israel has made the city historically. And let me remind all of us of a few crucial realities with regard to the Rapid Transformation of the city. Fifty years is not a short period of time, but quite a bit has been done in East Jerusalem since 1967 which has radically remade the city. For one, okay, so this is a map before is the 67. As many before 1967. As many of you know, the west side having been almost completely ethnically cleansed of pal palestinians in 4849. In 1967, wheres this 196 no, this is not working. Ill do it manually. Lets see, there we go. So in 1967 as most of you are aware, when israel conquered the west bank in East Jerusalem, among the first few things it did within a few weeks was begin to expand the boundaries of what is jerusalem. Which is not some fixed, eternal space, right . But which has been depicted by israeli mainstream discourse as an eternal place, an unchanging, immutable part of jewish history. But, in fact, the is city has been radically remain and was expanded between was expanded after 67 about ten times. From what i understand is about seven square kilometers to 70 square kilometers represented by this blue line which was a largely gerrymandered boundary which israel drew in violation of International Law and unilaterally. And the logic here was a racial logic. It was a spatial logic, very crucial and central to colonialism, but it was also a racial logic which had as its intent to draw a boundary and to annex a territory under the idea that israel jerusalem was israel, and israel belongs, israel is jerusalem and jerusalem is israel to include as much as possible Palestinian Land that was empty with the minimum of Palestinian People. And maximum, if you interviewed the israeli city planners, she was in these planning circles in the urban municipal planning circles right after 67, and she said openly to me that this was i dont know the hebrew, but, it wasnt said in hebrew probably, but in english it is the maximum, taking as much land with the fewest number of arabs. They probably would have said arabs. Now, what this meant was that in 67 there were no settlers in East Jerusalem, and by today roughly there are, you know, 200,000 jewish settlers just in East Jerusalem and about 600, roughly 630,000 throughout the entire west bank. Its almost unbelievable to remember back, but if you do remember, in 1967, right on the eve of the party taking power in israel, this were only 5,000 jewish settlers in the west bank. There were 50,000 in East Jerusalem. So 55,000 in the territories occupied in 67. But it was with the ascension of [inaudible] that the expansion of a Settlement Movement beyond East Jerusalem which was the labor partys planning, this was done by the labor party primarily, but after 77 they began to expand the settlement, the settlement enterprise radically, even more radically. That means that, essentially, 1970s the israeli population has increased almost twelvefold in the west bank outside of jerusalem and within occupied jerusalem fourfold. And ive mentioned that in addition to that came i dont have, theres no easy way to do this, but the darker colored areas in the east part of jerusalem are jewish settlements that have been built after 67, and the beige or the lighter colored are palestinian neighborhoods that are hemmed in and surrounded by these hilltop fortresses known as settlements. I submit that if one examines this massive transformational prompt, you see project, you see an interracial project. There are openly, i mean, soon in the United States well have more openly racist discourses about too many people from this country or this religion or whatever. But in israel, those in the mainstream know there are pretty open discourses about arab demographic time bombs and anxieties about arab birth crates. You can get ahold of those documents. I keep doing this, but its also not uncommon for israeli leaders to express real concern about the wrong kind of people having too many children. So there is a real racial logic here, not just a spatial logic. And what i want to also emphasize here, i dont want to speak forever and ever, but whats important to understand about colonialism, i contend, is that its not simply a project for creating territorial con kansass. Its also conquests. Its also a project that requires substantive ideological armaments, if you will, kind of the weaponization of myths. Representation that was called, a couple decades ago there was a piece called projecting jerusalem, and he talks about efforts to assert and project a certain kind of jerusalem that in the city of many different heritages and religious traditions extracts one and privileges that one to the exclusion of all others. So you get this deep sort of biblical historical notion of an unchanging jewish essence and connections to the holy land. And then totally ahistorical accounts of other peoples presence there. Or the fact that within jewish life there were different opinions about zionism, for one. So israeli rule is enabled by a range of potent myths such as a few of the ones ive already provided with regard to whose city this wrong belongs to belongs to and for whom the city is most important to. And those myths both construct or enable colonialism and are created by colonialism. These forms of colonial knowledging, as i mentioned projecting jerusalem, are linked up with what phyllis and earlier speakers regarded with dominant be israeli narratives and how theyre shaping and have shaped u. S. Politics and how thats changing. Though, i mean, hegemony is in the title of this panel, im not so sure its hegemony with regard to israelis israel doesnt rule palestinians by hegemony in the classical sense, but maybe the occupation of the u. S. Imagination in political circles has a lot to do with the acceptance of ideas about the city and East Jerusalem that the vast majority of the world does not share at all. But there was an incident in march of 2010 which some of you might remember as we were moving from come into the post obama eric, it might it come its interesting to remember it was a moment in the early first term when you think about doing Something Different with regard to this conflict. There was a moment in march 2010 in which joe biden was sent to israelpalestine to talk about maybe creating a new formula arrangement that starts talks whatever that might met. But on the day the joe biden arrived, i dont know if you remember this, jerusalem municipality, the israeli jerusalem municipality approved the construction of an additional 1600 settlement units or apartments. That announcement coincided right with the dissent of joe biden into the airport, angering and humility humiliating him and others. The next day. Ran a story about this. Let me say that the 1600 that were announced were to be in relatively recently constructed jewish settlement in East Jerusalem, which is not come which is a little older, not as new as some but a subtle but those built at about the time oslo was happening in the early 90s. The New York Times following the lead of what was a pretty upset u. S. Administration had begun to think about, little rumblings about East Jerusalem settlements being illegal, the New York Times didnt follow that because in the original story to mention this controversy was because israel announced more settlement units. The next day the New York Times corrected their story and in come this is a picture from the story which is a neighborhood of 20,000 mostly older orthodox might. It built for ultraorthodox communities in the city which are generally poor and have housing crises. Not quite like the palestinians but the cell so that was built just for them. New york times ran a correction under this picture in the next edition that said the following, a picture captured on thursday with the continuation of a News Analysis article in the ship article in the shi