Taking advantage of the high-level profile of those participating in the Palestine Seminar, IIRE -together with the Dutch bimonthly Grenzeloos, organised a public forum on Palestine.
The evening started with clips from the documentary movies 'Generation Intifada' and 'Aloha Palestine' by radical filmmakers Chris Den Hond and Mereille Court. After this, Gilbert Achcar, IIRE fellow and Middle East expert, spoke about the international context of the latest war in Gaza. Sergio Yahni, of the Alternative Information Centre, offered a general summary of the political situation inside Israel and spoke specifically on the anti-war movement and the usefulness of boycotts and sanctions against the Israeli state. The final speaker was Lot van Baaren, a trade union and Palestine solidarity activist from Rotterdam, The Netherlands. She spoke about the prospects for the Dutch labour movement stepping up its solidarity with Palestine. The entire evening placed emphasis upon the important role that grassroots solidarity can play in the search for alternatives. The audience was a mixed group of over sixty people consisting of mostly activists, students and local political figures of the Dutch left.
Download Sergio Yahni's talk "The Anti-War Movement in Israel" as mp3 file (English)