GRASSROOTS ADVOCACY TRAINING & LOBBY DAY

February 1 - 2, 2009 · Washington, DC

Presenters and Workshop Leaders
(For a schedule of events, click here)

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Phyllis Bennis is a fellow of the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington and the Transnational Institute in Amsterdam. Her books include Understanding the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict: A Primer. She is also author of primers on the US-Iran conflict and the Iraq war in the same series. Earlier books include Challenging Empire: How People, Governments and the UN Defy US Power. She serves on the steering committees of the US Campaign to End Israeli Occupation and the United for Peace and Justice anti-war coalition. Phyllis will join the keynote panel on the subject of US Policy and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict.

Mark Braverman is Executive Director of Friends of Tent of Nations North America, a nonprofit devoted to peacebuilding in the Occupied West Bank and specifically to the support of a Palestinian farming family attempting to hold on to their land and live in peace with their Jewish neighbors. He is a charter member of American Jews for a Just Peace. He is on the Board of ICAHD-USA and is a member of the Washington Interfaith Alliance for Middle East Peace. Mark also serves on the Advisory Boards of Friends of the Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center of Jerusalem and Friends of Sabeel, North America. A clinical psychologist and organizational consultant, since 2006 Mark has traveled twice to Israel and Palestine with Interfaith Peace-Builders delegations and has served as co-leader of one delegation. He is the grandson of a fifth-generation Palestinian Jew, has lived in Israel and has deep family roots in the region. Mark has spoken before diverse groups on his experiences and his work, focusing on his journey as a Jewish American firmly committed to peace and dignity for all peoples of the land, the role of religious beliefs in the current dialogue here in the United States, and education about the facts of and impact of the occupation on both Israelis and Palestinians. He is deeply committed to an interfaith approach to the resolution of the Middle East conflict. Mark will co-lead a workshop on Faith-Based Organizing: Raising Voices of Conscience in Faith Communities.

Michael Brown is a member of Interfaith Peace-Builders' Board of Directors and has long worked with organizations in Washington, DC advancing a just regional peace. Previously, he was a fellow at the Palestine Center, executive director of Partners for Peace, and Washington correspondent for Middle East International. He lived and worked in the Gaza Strip off and on between 1993 and 2000, first with the Gaza Community Mental Health Programme and later with the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights. His op-eds have been published in the Baltimore Sun, International Herald Tribune, San Diego Union-Tribune, and News & Observer. Michael will co-lead the workshop on Challenging Mainstream Discourse in Your Local Media.

Mike Daly is Program Coordinator at Interfaith Peace-Builders. He has worked with the organization since 2004. Before coming to IFPB, he studied in Damascus as a Fulbright Scholar, worked as a public relations consultant with the United Nations Development Programme in Ramallah, and completed a year of intensive Arabic at the American University in Cairo. Mike co-led two IPFB delegations (March 2006 and 2008), has presented at numerous conferences and workshops and taken on leadership roles in national, regional and local organizing initiatives and coalitions.

Noura Erakat is a Palestinian activist and lawyer. A graduate of Boalt Law School at the University of California, Berkeley, Noura recieved a New Voices Fellowship to work as the National Grassroots Organizer and Legal Advocate at the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation in 2005. There she developed the Israeli Accountability Campaign which highlighted Israel's impunity using two ATCA suits filed against former Israeli military officials in U.S. federal courts. While at the US Campaign she also developed and published an Anti-Apartheid Framework Training Curriculum. Prior to attending law school, she helped launch the divestment campaign along with Students for Justice in Palestine at UC Berkeley. She has volunteered in Palestinian refugee camps in Bethlehem, Jericho, Beirut and Tripoli and interned at the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel as well as at the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York. Most recently she was a visiting scholar at Georgetown University where she examined the political bias influencing cases involving the Arab-Israeli conflict in US Federal Courts. Noura is an experienced lecturer and has appeared on national and international television programs including Al Jazeera International, MSNBC, HBO's "Politically Incorrect" and Fox's "The O'Reilly Factor." She has also worked as counsel for a United States Congressional Committee. * Noura was scheduled to join the keynote panel on the subject of US Policy and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. However, she has been called to urgent business in Palestine/Israel and will no longer be able to attend. Will Youmans (bio below) will now join the panel.

Katherine Fuchs is National Organizer at the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation and a masters candidate at UNESCO's Chair for the Philosophy of Peace in Castellon, Spain. Before joining the US Campaign Katherine organized and lobbied for Peace Action in Washington, DC and in her hometown of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. She has also worked as a community organizer in Wisconsin for fair trade, voting rights, and LGBT equality campaigns. In her personal time, Katherine enjoys gardening and expressionist art. Katherine will co-lead the workshop on A Civil Society Response to Apartheid: Campaigning for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions.

Joe Groves is Senior Fellow at Interfaith Peace-Builders. He has been working with IFPB since 2001, first as Coordinator for the program under the Fellowship of Reconciliation, then as Co-Director of IFPB in 2006-08. He has worked on Middle East issues for over 40 years, in the US, Israel and Palestine, and Iraq. He was Professor of Religious Studies and Director of Peace and Conflict Studies at Guilford College and is currently an Adjunct Professor in the International Peace and Conflict Resolution Program at American University. He draws on popular education methods and critical studies to actively involve students in the subjects he teaches. He is a frequent presenter and workshop leader on a variety of issues, including Middle East politics, US movements for justice, and the theory and practice of nonviolence. Joe will moderate the keynote panel on the subject of US Policy and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict.

Susanne Hoder is founder of the Interfaith Peace Initiative, a member of the Providence Committee on Foreign Relations, and a member of the Divestment Task Force of the New England Conference of the United Methodist Church. She is also founder of Hoder Investment Research which coordinates and assembles information on companies supporting the Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands. Susanne will co-lead the workshop on Faith-Based Organizing: Raising Voices of Conscience in Faith Communities.

Adam Horowitz is Program Director for the American Friends Service Committee's Israel/Palestine Program, where he coordinates AFSC's education and advocacy work on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the United States. Adam currently serves on the steering committee of the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation and has been engaged in social change work since 1995, working in Atlanta, New York City and Philadelphia. Before coming to the AFSC, he was active in the Jewish community as board member of Jews for Racial and Economic Justice and a founding member of the organization, Jews Against the Occupation. Adam holds a master's degree in Near Eastern Studies from New York University. Adam will co-lead the workshop on A Civil Society Response to Apartheid: Campaigning for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions.

Darryl Jordan is Director of the American Friends Service Committee's Third World Coalition (more coming soon). Darryl will co-lead the workshop on Coalition Building in Diverse Communities.

Charles Lenchner is editor of "Peace in the Middle East" at Change.org and staff of Democracyinaction.org, where his work focuses on helping nonprofits use the internet for organizing, advocacy and fundraising. He is a former Israeli refusenik, a veteran of the Israeli and Jewish peace camps, and a participant in interfaith and intrafaith dialogue efforts. He brings 20 years of experience working with nonprofit organizations in Israel, Palestine and the US to his work. Charles will co-lead the workshop on Online Organizing 101: Applying Online Technologies for Justice in the Middle East.

Lora Lumpe is Legislative Representative for Conventional Weapons at the Friends Committee on National Legislation where she lobbies and campaigns for more responsible US arms export policies — including a ban on US use and export of cluster bombs and anti-personnel landmines. She coordinates the US Campaign to Ban Landmines on behalf of FCNL and represents FCNL on the steering committee of the global campaign to achieve a universal Arms Trade Treaty. Before joining FCNL’s staff Lora served for six years as a consultant for Amnesty International USA. She has also worked in various capacities for the Open Society Institute, Small Arms Survey, the United Nations, AFSC, Swiss Government, the Peace Research Institute, Oslo (PRIO), and numerous other organizations. Lora founded and directed the Arms Sales Monitoring Project at the Washington, DC-based Federation of American Scientists (FAS) and is a former editor of FAS's quarterly journal, the Chemical Weapons Convention Bulletin. She is the author of The Arms Trade Revealed: A Guide for Activists and Investigators (Washington, DC: FAS, 1998) and Small Arms Control—Old Weapons, New Issues (London: Ashgate, 1999) and the editor of Running Guns: The Global Black Market in Small Arms (London: Zed/New York: St. Martins, 2000). She has published numerous book chapters, conference papers, and opinion pieces. Lora will co-lead the workshop on Engaging Elected Officials for an End to Military Aid and a Just Foreign Policy.

Omar Masri is National Membership and Outreach Director at the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation (more coming soon). Omar will co-lead the workshop on Coalition Building in Diverse Communities.

Jacob Pace is Communications and Grants Coordinator at Interfaith Peace-Builders. Jake joined the organization in 2007 after first traveling to the region with an IFPB delegation in 2003. He previously worked with Partners for Peace, the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation and the Resource Center for Nonviolence in Santa Cruz, California. He spent more than a year in Israel/Palestine between 2003 and 2005 working with the Applied Research Institute of Jerusalem in Bethlehem and the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights in the Gaza Strip. His work experience has focused particularly on media advocacy and grassroots organizing. He co-led an IFPB delegation in August 2008. Jake will co-lead the workshop on Challenging Mainstream Discourse in Your Local Media.

Josh Ruebner is the National Advocacy Director of the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, a national coalition of more than 250 organizations working to change US policy toward Palestine/Israel to support human rights, international law, and equality. Josh is a former Analyst in Middle East Affairs at the Congressional Research Service (CRS), a non-partisan federal government agency which provide Members of Congress with policy analysis. He holds a graduate degree in International Affairs from Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies. Josh will co-lead the workshop on Engaging Elected Officials for an End to Military Aid and a Just Foreign Policy and the workshop on Building Political Change: Advanced Methods for Engaging Elected Officials.

Chris Toensing is editor of Middle East Report and director of the Middle East Research and Information Project. Toensing has written for the Los Angeles Times, The Nation, The Progressive and other US newspapers and magazines, and has appeared hundreds of times on radio and TV programs to discuss Middle East politics. He holds an MA in Near Eastern Studies from Princeton University. An Arabic speaker, Toensing also lived in Egypt for three years. Chris will join the keynote panel on the subject of US Policy and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict.

Koyuki Yip is Program Director of the American Friends Service Committee's Third World Coalition (more coming soon). Koyuki will co-lead the workshop on Coalition Building in Diverse Communities.

Will Youmans is a fellow at the Palestine Center, the educational program of the Jerusalem Fund for Education and Community Development. He is a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley School of Law and the University of Michigan. Youmans is a writer for the Detroit-based Arab-American News, as well as the multi-author blog, KABOBfest. He is also a host on a satellite TV variety talk show, ART's What's Happening. Will will join the keynote panel on the subject of US Policy and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict.

 

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