Book Talk | From Apartheid to Democracy: A Blueprint for Peace in Israel-Palestine
In “From Apartheid to Democracy: A Blueprint for Peace in Israel-Palestine,” authors Sarah Leah Whitson and Michael Schaeffer Omer-Man present concrete steps for how to transform Israel’s illegal occupation and apartheid system into a government that provides for the equal rights of all people in Israel-Palestine. The authors explain that their blueprint is not a plan for achieving national self-determination; it is a plan to create the conditions under which achieving self-determination and deciding political issues of governance are possible.
Join the authors in a discussion with Annelle Sheline, research fellow at the Quincy Institute, about the failures of the Oslo process and the need for a fundamentally different approach to the Israel-Palestine conflict that centers justice and equality.
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Michael Schaeffer Omer-Man is the director of research for Israel-Palestine at DAWN (Democracy for the Arab World Now). He is an expert on politics and society in the region, with a focus on Israel's policies of occupation and annexation, its civil and human rights record, and the influence of the US-Israel relationship over those areas. Prior to joining DAWN, Michael worked as a journalist in Israel-Palestine for more than 10 years. He served as the editor-in-chief of +972 Magazine for seven years and before that worked as an editor at The Jerusalem Post.
Sarah Leah Whitson is the executive director of DAWN, an organization that seeks to support democracy and human rights in the Middle East. Previously, she served as executive director of Human Rights Watch's Middle East and North Africa Division from 2004 – 2020, overseeing the work of the division in 19 countries, with staff located in 10 countries. She has published widely on human rights and foreign policy in the Middle East in international and regional media, including The New York Times, Foreign Affairs, The Washington Post, Foreign Policy, The Los Angeles Times, and CNN and appears regularly in global media.
Annelle Sheline is a research fellow in the Middle East program at the Quincy Institute. She previously served as a Foreign Affairs Officer at the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor’s Office of Near Eastern Affairs (DRL/NEA), before resigning in March 2024 in protest over the Biden administration’s Gaza policy. She is a senior non-resident fellow at the Arab Center of Washington DC and a non-resident fellow at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy. She holds a PhD in political science from George Washington University.