Best of Huwaida Arraf: ”The situation of Arab citizens of Israel: Views of an Arab citizen of Israel”

2021-03-26

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This talk is from the 2015 IsraelLobbyCon at the National Press Club Huwaida Arraf is a Palestinian-American lawyer and human rights advocate. As the daughter of an Israeli-born Palestinian, she is also a citizen of Israel. Arraf received her Bachelors degree from the University of Michigan, and her Juris Doctor from the American University Washington College of Law, where she focused on international human rights and humanitarian law. In 2001 Arraf co-founded the International Solidarity Movement...

This talk is from the 2015 IsraelLobbyCon at the National Press Club

Huwaida Arraf is a Palestinian-American lawyer and human rights advocate. As the daughter of an Israeli-born Palestinian, she is also a citizen of Israel. Arraf received her Bachelors degree from the University of Michigan, and her Juris Doctor from the American University Washington College of Law, where she focused on international human rights and humanitarian law. In 2001 Arraf co-founded the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), which has twice been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. She is co-editor of the book Peace Under Fire: Israel, Palestine, and the International Solidarity Movement.

Arraf was one of the initiators and organizers of a delegation of American lawyers to Gaza in February 2009, and co-authored the report on their findings, "Onslaught: Israel's Attack on Gaza and the Rule of Law." She is the former chairperson of the Free Gaza Movement, and from August to December 2008, led five successful sea voyages to the Gaza Strip to confront and challenge Israel's illegal blockade. Arraf was one of the primary organizers of the Gaza Freedom Flotilla and was traveling with it when Israeli forces lethally attacked it on May 31, 2010. She was one of the six Palestinian Freedom Riders who, inspired by the U.S. Civil Rights Freedom Rides of the 1960s, attempted to ride segregated Israeli settler public transport.

In 2012 Arraf helped conceive of and launch the Witness Bahrain initiative, an effort to provide human rights observers on the ground in Bahrain. She was arrested by Bahraini authorities and deported for her work. She currently resides in the United States with her husband, Adam Shapiro, and their two young children, both of whom she gave birth to in Israel so they would have Israeli citizenship and be allowed to visit and claim citizenship in their homeland.

Transcript: https://www.israellobbyus.org/transcripts/4.3Huwaida_Arraf.htm
Video: https://youtu.be/CyPq-TnqBPI

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