Psychology Deptment, Tel Aviv University, Uri Hadar http://freud.tau.ac.il/faculty/Uri%20Hadar.html

http://jfjfp.com/?p=5363

Sites of Conflict: Psycho-Political Resistance in Israel-Palestine

15th & 16th October 2009

Organised by Psychosocial Studies & Birkbeck Institute for Social Research

This conference, the first of its kind in the UK, addresses the remarkable projects of certain groups working in Gaza, Israel and the West Bank involved in joint resistance to ongoing military conflict and occupation. Working for mental health and human rights on the front lines involving military aggression, internal group violence, systemic interference with basic human rights, brutalization on many fronts and deep pessimism on all sides, speakers will address any and all resources for combined resistance and shared hope, whether close to home or coming from abroad. The recent catastrophic attack on the civilian population of Gaza, at the eye of the storm of sites of conflict in Western eyes, makes this event both critical and significant.

Themes:

*Survival and Non-Violent Resistance in Gaza and the West Bank

*Psychoactive Political Resistance in Israel.

*Possibilities and Limitations of Therapeutic Approaches to Conflict Resolution.

*The Politics of Apology and other forms of Acknowledgement

*Denial in the Face of Atrocity

*Mental Attrition of Activists

* Diasporic and all other forms of Support for Peace from Afar.

Speakers:

Mohamed Altawil; Nissim Avissar; Jessica Benjamin; Tova Buksbaum; Bea Campbell; Stan Cohen; Yasmeen Daher; Stephen Frosh; Uri Hadar; Seamas Heaney; Maureen Hetherington; Samah Jabr; Ghada Karmi; Keith Kahn-Harris; Adah Kay; Yehudit Keshet; Richard Kuper; Elana Lakh; Moshe Landsman; Tony Lerman; Sheila Melzak; Mohamad Mukhaimar; Rateb Abu Rahmeh; Jacqueline Rose; Jihan Salem; Andrew Samuels; Eyad el Sarraj; Lynne Segal; Felicity de Zulueta.

Cost: Standard £70 Birkbeck staff/all students/unwaged £35

Registration, payment & information: www.bbk.ac.uk/bisr/news/Psychopolitical

Contact: j.eisner@bbk.ac.uk

Sponsored by: Barry Amiel & Norman Melburn Trust; FFIPP UK; IJV.

Eve of Conference meeting,14 October at 7.30pm:

Burning Memories: Sacrifice and the unconscious in history

Uri Hadar, Stephen Frosh, Eyad El Saraj,

Chair Lynne Segal

Friends House, Euston Road, 7.30pm

£10 employed; £5 unemployed. No reservations: payment at the door.

Organised by School of Psychosocial Studies, Birkbeck Institute of Social Research, Friends House

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The sponsors of this conference are: 

• Barry Amiel & Norman Melburn Trust: http://www.amielandmelburn.org.uk/ The general objectives of the Trust are to advance public education,
  learning and knowledge in all aspects of the philosophy of Marxism, the history of socialism, and the working- class movement.
• FFIPPI http://www.ffipp.org/about_us is an international network of academics and students that support a complete end to the illegal Israeli occupation of lands seized in the 1967 war and removal of all the settlements and the separation wall built on occupied land.
• IJV- Independent Jewish Voices: http://jewishvoices.squarespace.com/israelnext/ "If, at times, it turned violent and involved deadly atrocities, it was not because the perpetrators were Palestinian, or Arab or predominantly Muslim, but because they were an occupied people. "In parallel, if there has been a persistent pattern of serious human rights violations in the occupied territories, it is not because the perpetrators are Israeli, nor even because they are Zionist ... and certainly not because they are Jews. It is because they are occupiers... " Tony Klug, one of the founders of Independent Jewish Voices.