From our good friends at the Backdoor Broadcasting Company in the United Kingdom:

Psycho-Political Resistance in Israel-Palestine

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;

* Sami Awaida;

* Jessica Benjamin;

* Tova Buksbaum;

* Bea Campbell;

* Stan Cohen;

* Stephen Frosh;

* Uri Hadar;

* Seamas Heaney;

* Maureen Hetherington;

* Samah Jabr;

* Ghada Karmi;

* Adah Kay;

* Yehudit Keshet;

* Keith Kahn-Harris;

* 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.

Burning Memories: Sacrifice and the Unconscious in History

Wednesday 14th October

19:30 Friends House, Euston Road, London NW1 2BJ

Memory of historical events is necessarily collective, but acquires personal characteristics that are of the same nature as individual memory in general. This idea is illustrated through memories of holocaust survivors as they construct themselves in a particular biography of an Israeli child. Holocaust memories are then connected to the ethos of military strength in Israeli society, which ethos undertakes to transform the historical marking of the Jews as victims, sacrificed by the nations on the altar of ethnic power. This is where the Palestinians enter the unconscious Israeli narrative, allowing the movement of the Jew away from the position of the sacrificed. The theme of sacrifice conversion marks itself in historical events such as the Naqba and the recent attack on Gaza. The talk examines the manner in which these themes feed into personal memory systems and reconstructs the workings of memory through the entire historical cycle.

Speakers: Uri Hadar,Stephen Frosh, Eyad El Saraj,Chair: Lynne Segal