Joel Beinin, professor at Stanford University, will present “High-Risk Activism and Popular Struggle Against the Israeli Occupation in the West Bank” Monday, March 2, at 4:30 p.m. in Tinkham Veale University Center, Ballroom A.
Scholars have long distinguished between normal political protest and what can be termed “high-risk activism,” best exemplified in the Mississippi Freedom Summer Project of 1964. The International Solidarity Movement consciously invoked the precedent of Mississippi Freedom Summer by designating its 2002 campaign of Palestine solidarity action “Freedom Summer.”
Beinin, the Donald J. McLachlan Professor of History and professor of Middle East history at Stanford University, will discuss what he refers to as new high-risk activities related to protesting, such as social reprobation, arrests and trials, tear gas asphyxiation and other forms of severe physical discomfort, serious bodily injury and, in a few cases, death.
Beinin is past president of the Middle East Studies Association of North America. His research focuses on workers, peasants and minorities in the modern Middle East and on Israel, Palestine, and the Arab-Israeli conflict.
The Department of Political Science, the Department of History, the Northeast Ohio Consortium for Middle East Studies, and Kent State University are sponsoring the event.
