Educating ourselves is one way we are called to faithfully respond to the Resolution of Witness affirmed at the HCUCC ‘Aha Pae‘āina in 2024, ‘A Call to Education and Action Regarding the Crisis in Gaza.’
This presentation will situate the Israeli genocide, funded by the U.S., in Gaza that started in October 2023 in relation to the history of Zionism starting in the late 1800s, and in the context of Israel’s practices of settler colonialism, apartheid, ethnic cleansing, and military occupation, ongoing since its establishment in 1948. Presenters will discuss Gaza in the context of global politics to shed light on U.S. interests not only in West Asia, but also in terms of the rivalry between the U.S. on one hand and China and Russia on the other. The presentation will conclude with attention both to Hawai‘i and Palestine as interconnected sites of settler colonialism and occupation, and also to solidarities between Kānaka Maoli and Palestinians who are engaged in liberation struggles.
ABOUT THE PRESENTERS:
Cynthia Franklin is a professor of English at University of Hawai’i at Mānoa. She has visited Palestine several times since 2013, including to work on a special issue of Biography journal, coedited with Ibrahim Aoude and Morgan Cooper, on “Life in Occupied Palestine” (2014), and to teach at Al-Quds University in 2018. Her most recent book is Narrating Humanity: Life Writing and Movement Politics from Palestine to Mauna Kea (2023). She founded the group now known as Students and Faculty for Justice in Palestine in 2014, and that same year co-founded the Hawai’i chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace.
Ibrahim G. Aoudé is Professor Emeritus of Ethnic Studies at the University of Hawai‘i-Mānoa and the Editor of Arab Studies Quarterly, an international journal about the Arabs and their culture. His research and publications are in the areas of global geo-politics, the political economy of Hawai‘i, and the politics of West Asia and North Africa.
