 Okay, welcome everyone to this very special event, which is really a combination of a discussion around Palestinian rights at a very crucial moment in Palestinian history. And also the launch of a very special book by Professor Lynn Welshman, which details the history of Al Haq, which is the first Palestinian human rights organization. This event is co-hosted by the Center of Palestine Study, which I, at SOAS, which I chair, I'm Dina Mata, and I'm the chair of Center of Palestine Studies. You have all the details on the website. It's also co-hosted by Professor Bishara Doumani's Center for Middle East Studies at Brown University, and of course, and not least by the School of Flow at SOAS, which is chaired by Scott Newton, who's going to be in the discussion. I don't want to talk much about what is, what the discussion is going to be about, but what we're going to do here, I'll just tell you about the way we're going to manage this forum, is that each of the panelists, five panelists will be talking, we have six panelists will be talking about issues related to human rights, Palestinian rights, the law, struggle and resistance, and all kind of speaking to and with the lens book from different perspectives. So it's going to be a very interesting discussion, I hope. I'm going to give each speaker about 10 minutes, and then we go on to the next speaker. I introduce each speaker as we get to them. And I encourage everyone to put their questions in the Q&A questions kind of icon at the bottom of Zoom and also for those people who are joining us on Facebook to put their questions in the chat. So looking forward to this discussion, and without further ado, I'm going to call on Scott Newton to give the first intervention here. And Scott is the head of the School of Flow. He is the chair of the SOAS Center of Contemporary Central Asia and Caucasus. His research interests encompass post-Soviet, post-colonial Eurasian legal geographies, post-colonial regulatory and institutional frameworks. And he also works on critical constitutionalism and the allied globalization projects of human rights, rule of law, conflict resolution and global governance. If I missed anything, Scott, I'm sure you can put that in the discussion, but welcome. Okay. Hi everybody. Welcome from an unusually warm and sunny London. It's a particular pleasure today for me. That's a professional pleasure, a personal pleasure and a political pleasure, well rolled up at one to welcome everyone for an especially auspicious book launch and discussion. The focus of the discussion, as Dean has said, will be appropriately enough on the book and its themes on Palestine itself, the land, its people, and the role of al-Haq and law in affirming the inseparability of the one from the other and contesting the multiple modes and ruses of attempted separation. I want to focus briefly on the author and her relation to the book and her act of writing it, an act that is perfectly emblematic of Lynn's signature passion and courage and damned persistence, with all of which I have now been acquainted for more than two decades. When I first fetched up here at SOAS in 1999, Lynn was one of the very most welcoming colleagues and the impression she made on me then has only deepened with time and my admiration and respect have only grown since. Lynn is the very best of SOAS, equal ports scholar and activist, activist student of change and agent of change, critic of law and wielder of law. She earned her scholarly credentials at SOAS as a PhD student and she has burnished them ever brighter across the intervening years as a SOAS scholar. Whilst the struggle for rights and justice in Palestine has been understandably her spiritual and intellectual load star she has been pulled in other directions by her fundamental commitment to human rights as well, as far as Rwanda and Haiti. And that commitment she has made manifest in all sorts of ways here at SOAS from her Islamic family law articles and books, her honor crimes project to her amazing human rights clinic, which is one of the very luckiest tickets our post student grad students can draw. So the work we have come here today to herald and to honor is Makhtub, a writing, a writing down of ethical events and extraordinary people and compelling ideas and novel practices but but it's also Makhtub in the figurative sense, i.e. ordained destined. So Lynn's writing down of the story of Alhok, which is an amazing amazing story, her active writing was itself written Makhtub. She was made to write this book and no one but she could have done it as witness as participant as chronicler as analyst. The book itself is a meticulous profoundly informed and profoundly humane account, a kind of organizational biography about Alhok, or if you will permit as I first said to Lynn some weeks back, a hockeyography. It's it's as full of anecdote and incident as it is of argument and analysis it's just started with gems. The story of Roger's little pamphlet, the West Bank and the rule of law, for instance, or the saga of the enforcement project and the incorporation of IHL in the work of Alhok in the wake of the first into father. Each of these episodes is as rich and drama and human interest as it is in scholarly critique. It's a testament to some wood of different sorts. The sum would have lawyers is a distinctive kind manifest in a particular professional kind of diligence and detail and dedication. And the sum would have human rights lawyers in the context of occupation in the teeth of determined, defiant and diabolically clever adversaries and authorities is even more so. In this kind of professional smooth to the kind of ethical political and cultural smooth that Palestinians have so admirably cultivated for these many decades. What you get is something categorically distinct, which Alhok has made its trademark and altogether singular patients tenacity and persistence over the long journey. And I'm talking about the varieties of Samud, the Samud of Lynn Welshman deserves special mention and special honor. Because when you compound the Samud of lawyers and the Samud of human rights lawyers, in particular, with the Samud of Palestinians, and then the Samud of Lynn Welshman as rigorous scholar historian. Well then you have something overpower, something that simply was meant to be something mock tube. Congratulations, Lynn. And congratulations, Roger. And congratulations, Shevan. Thank you, Scott. That was pretty, pretty impressive. And it does tell us about Lynn and her work and her tenacity. I think it does deserve mention. I'm going to call Bishara now, and I forgot to say introduction that Bishara played a big role in this because he is the editor of the book series that published, you know, that kind of published this book as part of the series new series on new directions of Palestine studies. And so that is a double kind of accolade or that you can have Bishara before I introduce you. Bishara is the inaugural Mahmoud Derwish Professor of Palestinian Studies, the first chair of his kind dedicated to this field of study at Brown University in the US. He's the founding director of Brown Center for Middle East Studies and founder of New Directions for Palestinian Studies, a CMES initiative since 2012. His research focuses on groups, places and time periods, marginalized by mainstream scholarship on the early modern and modern Middle East, with a focus on the social economic and legal history of Eastern of the Eastern Mediterranean. He is the editor of the book series on Palestinian Studies published by the University of California Press and co editor of the Jerusalem Quarterly, among many other kind of hats that he wears and different hats that he wears at different times. I have a pleasure of meeting you at MESA and also of bringing good work and particularly your history, history books, history, historiographies. If I don't mention it properly, it's being Palestinian. You are allowed to make mistakes in pronunciation. But anyway, Bishara, welcome, looking forward to hearing what you have to say. Thank you very much, Dina. I'm honored to be here. I also want to thank Barbara Oberketter at the Brown side to help to organize this. And of course, Nadia Ali, who is familiar to most of you, who is now the director of Middle East Studies at Brown University. I met Lynn in the early 80s. And how I think it was where she lived in Ramallah. And I'm so glad that our paths have crossed over the years and especially now this book. In many ways had its genesis back in those days of the first and to father. I'm sorry that preceded the first and to father by almost a decade. So I think book launches are wonderful. They're poignant events because often what brings us to write books are very painful and sometimes insurmountable challenges that we're facing. And we decide to sort of contribute. And that leads us to write the books that we do, and especially in the case of Lynn here, especially appropriate. So wonderful events to celebrate the fact that this is a often a collective effort. And what Lynn has done beyond writing the book is give expression or articulate a larger family and network that has developed over the years and being part of that family and network is is really important considering the challenges that lie ahead. So thank you Lynn for bringing us together for writing this book. And I just want to say two quick words about where I think this book fits in the larger field of Palestinian studies and what are some of the political intellectual states that led us to publish it in the new directions of Palestinian studies book series that Dina mentioned and I hear I want to emphasize as my way of opening this point that is called Palestinian studies not Palestine studies. And that's very important, I think, because it opens up a much larger intellectual and political space for reinventing the political vocabulary that that we've inherited and that we must change. In 1995 interview, the Palestinian Port Mahmoud Darwish said quote, Palestinian poetry has, for less than a decade, become conscious of the necessity of humanizing his themes and passing from Palestine as a topic, or an object to Palestinian as I think this ontological shift in poetry also holds true for shifts in the political imagination and institution building and in knowledge production. Law and the service of man, later known as a hawk which was established in 1979 as the first Palestinian human rights organization is a prime example. The change in focus from Palestine to Palestinian is evident in the name itself, man, writ large of course. But I should say heteronormative. Nevertheless, man became the subject on three levels, the individual the collective that is to say the Palestinians as a political community, and the human as universal citizens with an elbow rights. Now huck's founders dare to imagine or reimagine politics by initially taking a quote unquote non political stance in defense of quote unquote rule of law. This in itself is not highly unusual, until one is reminded that they did so in the context of a dominant nationalist political culture that saw itself as leading the struggle against a set record your project. We're steals Palestinian lands and bills Israeli Jewish colonies, while incarcerating Palestinians and brutally repressing them. This is of course an ongoing struggle. As the first Palestinian organization of this kind, and one of the earliest in the Middle East and the world. It had an outsized influence locally regionally internationally in terms of its innovative forms of self governance and methods of data collection seasoned by working under very difficult long term conditions of foreign military rule. In other words and publish self reflections, I'll have produced insightful forms of knowledge about the external pressures on an internal contradictions of the Palestinian condition. The rise and inevitable crises experienced by luck, especially after the 1993 Oslo reports have profound lessons that teach all of us about the forms of political mobilization that are opened and foreclosed by human rights frameworks. About how the Palestinian experience enriches our understanding of larger global trends and the struggle for justice, equality and freedom. So what Lynn has done by is to look at the world through the eyes of Palestinian legal activists. It contributes to new directions in Palestinian studies book series, because among other things the book series seeks to rigorous works of scholarship that centered the Palestinian experience. To reduce new narratives and actors and utilize locally generated vernacular sources. So NDPS values, in many ways, justice centered academic works that at the same time, do not shy away from critical analysis of internal problems and convictions. One of the most important dimensions of Lin's book is her judicious and honest account of the conflicts, political, personal, institutional, ideological, which rocked. Especially after the tragedy of the Oslo course and the failures of the Palestinian Authority started to come into full view. On the inside, these conflicts were inevitable, considering the historical moment of al-Haq's formation, which straddled third worldist anti colonial worldviews, which might we call the bundle, bundle moment of the 50s and the 60s. They were concerned with social economic decolonization or development as they called it. On the one hand, but coming down the horizons on the other was a different moment. That is the moment of a universalist liberal conceptual vocabulary concerned with international law and human rights often in reaction to the fact that these colonializing project, especially in a Nasser era, sought to make major structural changes but at the expense of human rights and personal freedoms. So Welshman's book in many ways offers a prehistory of human rights work that globalizes the Palestinian experience. I want to thank Lynn really for one more thing, and that is the integrity, the integrity that one feels in the book itself, in every line, in every phrase, in every word. They don't make them like this anymore, Lynn. And I really, really appreciate the fact that it was you who put together this overview of a fight, a struggle, an institution, and a politics that has changed over the years and that has a lot to teach us. Thank you so much. By the way, I'm sorry I forgot to say the most important thing, which is Rajesh Hadi and Penny Johnson. We were talking one day and they said, you know, Lynn is doing this book, it's done, she's going in with another publisher, maybe you want to take a look at it and talk to her and of course within 24 hours, I was able to poach that book away from the other publisher. Thank you Lynn for allowing that to happen and thank you Raja and Penny for letting me know. Thank you Bishara. And we come now to Shahwan who played a major role in this book and also in that talk. Shahwan is the Palestinian, probably the Palestinian subject that Bishara was talking about, you know, kind of thinking of Palestinians and what they do as subjects of, you know, of different experiences and having lived through different experiences. And Shahwan Jabari is a Palestinian human rights defender who has been the general director of Al Haqq since 2006 after first joining it in 1987 as a field worker. He has served as a commissioner for the IDC, member for the Human Rights Watch Middle East advisory board being elected as vice president and then president of the International Federation of Human Rights Leaves. And is the recipient of many distinguished awards for his human rights work, the first being the Reebok Human Rights Awards for Young Human Rights Defenders in 1990. His reflections and interventions have been widely published, including in foreign policy, open democracy and the independent. So, Shahwan, the floor is yours. We're looking forward to hearing of your intervention here and your work, of course. Thank you, Dean Han. Thank you for the Center for Palestine's Tothers and Suez. Let me first thank you all for organizing this special event and congratulate my dear friend Lynn Welshman for the extraordinary effort. She has paid to write this book that is dedicated to Al Haqq, the first human rights organization in the Middle East. In North Africa, we will become part of the first organizations, but in Middle East, we are the first to human rights organization. Today, it's honored me to be with you to participate and celebrate the launching of this very important book that is written by the committed and dedicated colleague and several human rights defenders who succeeded in describing the process of the organization in an objective and a professional manner. This book means a lot to me and to all of us. We have been waiting for it for a time and today it's between our hands. When speaking about Lynn and Al Haqq, my testimony might be invalid as I am the general director of the organization. However, I will try to be as objective as possible. Before I share with you some lessons we have learned throughout the long building process of Al Haqq. I would like to extend my deepest appreciation to the founders of Al Haqq, especially Mr. Rajan Shahada, who was the first person to stand behind the establishment of the organization. Also, I would like to thank all early staff of the organization, as well as its present and previous staff and volunteers and board and general assembly members who have given a lot of organizations for this their work and their strong position. Here I mentioned with gratitude, my dear colleague, Emma Plefer. Too many people have worked for Al Haqq. If we look at the long process of the organization, we'll see that it has passed through different but connected faces and stations. Persons we have worked during this period have made us use of the experience of the people who proceeded them in a creative manner. The experiences are not necessarily positive in their integrity, but people learn from all of these experiences to build an organization that keeps developing and growing like living a creature. This has made the name of Al Haqq in the forefront irrespective of the persons who work for it. One of the things that has contributed to the success of the organization in its impartiality, professionality and non-partisan nature, Al Haqq does not belong to any political party. It doesn't work based on the internationally recognized human rights values and the principles in which it deeply believes. The organization tends to have people from the generations working for it. You will always see old, middle-aged and young people in the organization. This has protected the organization from aging and being traditional in its approach and opened wide the door for innovation and the creativity at various levels. When Al Haqq started to use the colonialism and apartheid frameworks to describe the case in Palestine many years ago, some believe that we should be more careful in what we say and write. Today there is a consensus among the human rights community at the international level that our perspective is correct and that what is happening in Palestine is settler colonial regime and the practices and apartheid. Al Haqq is functioning in a very complex context and the environment where international law has lost much of its value due to the absence of political will to hold perpetrators of international crimes accountable. This makes our mission even more complex as we need to double our effort to convince people, especially the young generations of the visibility of the system that has failed so far in bringing justice to them and enable them to enjoy their individual and collective rights. I don't want to go through the first intifada and what we had at that time, but I would like in spite of all of this Al Haqq has maintained its respected status among people because of its functionality, transparency and impartiality. The lens book focuses on the phase of Al Haqq's life when half of the third or third or one third of the stuff were internationals. Al Haqq has always welcomed and encouraged international to contribute to the work of the organization and learn from its experience today. And as a result of the Israeli policies and harassment, internationals can join Al Haqq easily. Three staff members are internationals these days. And all of them they are outside of the country. They are working online. The organization has been the subject of orchestrated Israeli campaign to silence its voice through different means including by defamation and drawing of financial resources. However, I assure you that Al Haqq will continue to do the work it believes in and that Israeli oppression and campaigns will not prevent us from doing our work. What makes us optimistic is the hope in the new generations that have started to make change at the international level. Before I would suggest that the present book be the first book and the preparations start for the second book as there are many things that need to be said and documented about the process of Al Haqq's life. I think it has to be ready for for that. Finally, let me say again. Thank you, Lynn. Thank you Scott. Thank you Lisa. Thank you be sure I thank you Dean and thanks to you all. We will never give up hope that justice will prevail. Thank you. Thanks. Thank you. And we'll probably have loads of questions for you. So we come to Russia. Nice to see you again. Palestinian lawyer and writer who lives in Ramallah very well known, obviously. He co-founded Al Haqq in 1979 and shared the leadership of the organization until the early 1990s. He was lead author of Al Haqq's first groundbreaking publication, The West Bank and the Rule of Law in 1980 and published significant works on international law, the Israeli occupation and Palestinian rights. He was legal advisor to the Palestinian delegation to the Madrid and Washington talks that followed the first intifada. He is also the author of highly acclaimed memoirs and diaries and has contributed reflections to the London review of books The New Yorker, The Guardian among others. And his book Palestinian walks, won the award prize for political writing in 2008 and it's just a wonderful read, which really takes you to the land as it should. So thank you for that Roger but looking forward to your intervention today. Thank you Dina. I want to thank all the other speakers but I want to reserve my main thanks for Lynn for her outstanding scholarship and the meticulous care in which she narrated the story truthfully critically and thoroughly. Her book tells the story of how a fledgling pioneering organization managed to be established and survived in one of the most complicated and critical places in the world in which to work on promoting and protecting human rights. It's a story that Lynn manages to tell with such passion and vividness that it makes for exciting reading. I want to point out that the hax uniqueness among Palestinian public institutions is that all communications were in writing documented and archived. And this made it possible for Lynn to carry out this comprehensive study of the organization. In short, I will try and provide a selective history of the use of law as an instrument of struggle and as a means of resistance against Israeli aggression. Everything I still say allude to here is discussed at length in Lynn's excellent and exhaustive work. In fact reading Lynn's work reminded me of so much of that history that I had forgotten. The hax establishment came at propitious time. It was 12 years after the start of the Israeli occupation. There was then a total absence of legal challenge to the occupation. There were also no human rights organization organizations in the occupied territory. What made matters worse was that shortly after the Israeli occupation on 5 June 1967 the entire judiciary and lawyers in the West Bank decided to go on strike. Which incidentally came to be the longest lawyer strike in history lasting for over three decades. The strike meant that the Palestinian lawyers abandoned the legal struggle against the occupation. The first obstacle faced by the founders of the new project of establishing this first human rights organization was how to register the occupation had taken over the power to register NGOs. I still remember the heated arguments we had with veteran lawyers who were adamant that the company's law the local companies law does not allow the registration of not for profit companies. They held our ground and managed to get the organization registered as a company. This marked our first success and first creative use of the law. All this is described at length in Lynn's excellent book. One of the good fortunes of the house. The International Commission of Jewel Geneva was headed by a progressive courageous man, Neil McDermott, who at that early time, the end of the 70s was the only leader of the human of a human rights organization, willing to support a Palestinian organization like Al Haqq, critical of Israel. For his for this support he had to fight constant battles with his board who are persistently trying to hold him back. Neil was a great mentor who guided us in our work and Al Haqq owes him a lot. He was willing to stand by us publicly, which at the time was no mean feed. He not only not only agreed to allow the affiliation of the Haqq with the ICJ, but also co published organizations first publication, the West Bank, and the rule of law. This was a modest book and here it is, if you can see it. It's a modest book but at that time one of great significance. It shed light on how Israel was using secret legislation to bring about changes in the law of the occupied territories. This is what Neil wrote in the preface to the book. He translated cases, as in Chile, where one or two decrease of military government have been treated as secret documents and not published. However, this is the first case to come to the attention of the International Commission of Jurists, where the entire legislation of the territory is not published in an official is that available to the general public unquote. This legislation put Al Haqq, which was then LSM law in the service of man on the map, and drew a blueprint of its future work, which consisted of adding flesh to the bones to the structure described in the book through more detailed studies on specific topics. Thus was that this thus more was done on the land expropriations, settlements, land use planning and settler violence among other subjects. The reluctance of the major Western human rights organizations to speak out made our work at Al Haqq all the more important and risky. Thus, Al Haqq, for example, was the first to call what was taking place in Israeli prisons torture, when at the time, Amnesty International, for example, only described it as mistreatment. Al Haqq was taking risks by daring to call a speedy speed. The greatest appointment to all of us at Al Haqq came a decade later, when Al Haqq's council was not short, neither in the drafting of the terms of reference of the negotiations between Israel and the PLO, nor later in drafting what emerged as the result of 1993-95. The resulting accord consolidated rather than did away with these military orders that Al Haqq had analyzed in various publications. And in this way, keeping it all in place all the legal settlements and the means at Israel's disposal to create new ones. The present international standing and increased means available to the organization enables it to manage larger challenges than has been the case in the past. Most important of these is in helping the prosecutor at the International Criminal Court at the Hague to prepare the case against Israel for war crimes, and perhaps Shaouen, the president director, can tell us more about what is happening in this regard. For decades after its establishment, the organization has much work to do. The future is likely to be of more settler violence and aggression, whether on Al Aqsa, or on the Palestinian communities in East Jerusalem, and the West Bank. This is a great apprehension, which I've already written about, is of an attempted mass expulsion of Palestinians in East Jerusalem and the West Bank by armed settlers strategically situated as they are on high grounds, around most Palestinian cities and villages. They are driven by an ideology that Jerusalem and the West Bank are theirs alone, holy lands given to them by the Almighty. If such ethnic cleansing takes place, Al Aqq would be there to ring the alarm bell, and hopefully avert its erraticious attempt by these criminal violent settlers to perpetrate a repeat performance of 1948 NACB. Let us hope it doesn't come to that. Thank you. Thank you Raja and that raises a lot of questions around the present and what is happening right now. Lisa Hajjar is a sociologist who focuses on law and conflict, human rights, political violence, and contemporary international affairs. Her work is interdisciplinary and contributes to multiple fields in the social sciences and humanities, including Middle East studies, American studies, law and society. Her current research focuses primarily on the U.S. war on terror, particularly around the issues of torture, targeted killing, and Guantanamo. She also focuses on human rights in the Arab world. Her journalistic writings have been published in The Nation, Al Jazeera English, Middle East report, and Jadaliya, but there's so much more to Lisa that I don't have time to talk about now. But I'm really looking forward to what you have to say. Welcome. Thank you. I'm really grateful to be a part of this very august group and by the way, somebody just posted my Twitter handle I only use Twitter when I'm in Guantanamo, but you can still follow me. I'll call my comments today or title them the world that Al Haq made. As I was reading, reading Lynn Welshman's rich and unsparing history of Al Haq, I was struck by a line on page 149, which begins, quote, back in the early 80s when shahad is still believed in the power of law. This line embedded in the middle of the book encapsulates one of the core paradoxes of this organization specifically legal work on behalf of Palestinians rights generally and human rights activism globally. And the criteria for judging the value of human rights work was whether it stopped or even reduced Israeli human rights violations and deterred Israeli war crimes. Excuse me, then empirical reality would demand a finding that the law did not work. It did not set Palestinians free did not protect them did not punish those who harmed killed or oppressed them. Al Haq has written a whole book about disappointment and dashed hopes, which she aptly titled the rise and fall of human rights cynicism and politics and occupied Palestine. Such skepticism about the efficacy of law and human rights activism is not unique to Palestine and Lynn writes about it sort of brilliantly and critically, it can be found almost everywhere. So she has tried to enforce the law to protect the rights of discriminated and disenfranchised groups against recalcitrant and illiberal states. Stuart shine gold in his seminal book the politics of rights characterizes the investment of time and hope and litigation and other law based strategies as quote, the myth of rights. The myth of rights is premised on a direct linking of litigation rights and remedies with social change, which he characterizes as naive in extremist shines gold's point is that law can vindicate rights only when and if there is political support for the goals of legal work. So I'm going to explain why I regard shine gold's contention that politics should come first as naive in extremist, and why the global history of al haq that Lynn Welshman's book documents supports this critique. But first let's think about the paradoxical significance of that phrase I mentioned above still believed shahada and other members of the triumvirate. That's Jonathan Cotab and Charles Shamas who formed al haq, certainly believed in the power of law when it as evidenced by the fact that they named their organization law in the service of man, and they envision their work as doing law not politics. So just to illuminate something there's a passage on page 55 in which Welshman is writing about in 1980 entry in register had his journal and the topic is the decision back in 1980 by Palestinian lawyers to mount a legal challenge to the deportation of two West Bank mayors before the Israeli High Court. So quoting Welshman, she had his father disease was preparing one affidavit to the High Court on the fourth Geneva Conventions prohibition of deportation, and another on the illegality of deportation under the Indian Constitution, and the status of the British issued defense emergency regulations of 1945, under which the orders have been made shahadi reported wild hope amongst many, and wrote that even the political die hearts who say we should appeal to or recognize any Israeli institution are excited. At the end of his journal shahadi records hopes crushed when the High Court declined to recommend the repeal of the deportation orders, and quote. So hopes crushed by the loss of a court case is the quintessential manifestation of thinking like a lawyer, but there's an analytical alternative that involves not thinking like a lawyer. Indeed, one of the great merits of Welshman's book is that she contextualizes the work of lawyers and the legalistic contributions of all Huck, without judging them as a lawyer would, in terms of wins and losses. In terms of all Huck's main goals defending the rule of law, championing justice and rights for Palestinians, advocating legal accountability for law violators and pursuing international protection against gross crimes. The threat of losses and defeats was almost unbroken. But let's examine all Huck's record as Welshman does through a global lens. I'll have changed the world, or to put it another way we live in the world that I'll have made. Huck, along with the Gaza Center for Rights and Law, which was later renamed the Palestine Center for Human Rights, pioneered the use of international humanitarian law as a cudgel to expose criticize condemn, and most importantly to explain to the world, the illegalities and illegitimate nature of Israeli rule in the occupied territories. The work chipped away at Israel's false narrative that the state was ruling Palestinians legally, and exercising legitimate prerogatives to confiscate Palestinian land to settle Jewish citizens in the occupied territories to rely on coercive interrogation techniques as a security imperative and so on. I've read a course that many other human rights lawyers and activists have followed and adapted in their own contexts, judging a powerful state against the standards of law and stripping the state of a monopoly over the interpretation of law. Today, many human rights and justice activists the world over can speak authoritatively about IHL violations and the consequences that should result because of the examples set by all Huck. In the 21st century of Huck and PCHR invested their monitoring and analyzing skill sets in the business of accountability through international criminal law enforcement. If we were to think about the results of these efforts like a lawyer, we could bemoan the fact that today, no Israeli war criminals have been indicted in any court system. It's very to the shine Goldian admonition that law can't work without strong political support. This accountability work itself, despite the lack of wins is altering global narratives about Israel and Palestine. And in that regard, legal activism is affecting the political terrain, albeit in ways the out of whose outcomes are hard to predict. The US based Center for constitutional rights, which has undertaken a number of projects and cases to defend Palestinian rights has a slogan for this success without victory. So Welshman's epilogue is a catalog of successes without victory. For example, she describes the unhappy fallout of the UN Goldstone Commission report as the impetus for all Huck and other Palestinian human rights organizations to activate more direct Palestinian access to the international criminal court. By the end of 2017, al-Huck PCHR, along with al-Mazan and al-Adamir had submitted five substantive communications to the ICC prosecutor in the Hague, supporting allegations of particular war crimes and crimes against humanity which could be attributed to specific high level Israeli military and civilian officials. While it was focused on the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, presented evidence of the crime of apartheid against Palestinians. As Welshman writes, quote, it is in giving the lie to official Israeli self images of justice and the rule of law, as the basis of its governance as well as holding the Palestinian authorities to account. So al-Huck's work deserves some of the credit for the fact that Israeli apartheid now slips easily off the tongue and has become a focus for new generations of activists in support of Palestinian rights. Official Israeli hysteria over this framing is an example of success without victory. So to conclude my argument about a world that al-Huck made, I would just draw your attention to a quote that Lynn cites from 2016 by Shawan Jabarin and quoting, Palestine in its legal and jurisprudential aspects is a test for the whole system of international law. I agree with that. Thank you, Lynn, for writing this book. Thank you, Lisa. That was great. And raises many questions. And finally, we come to Lynn to give her comments and her responses. Lynn Welshman is professor of law in the Middle East and North Africa. And founder of the International Human Rights Clinic. She has published widely on areas including family law, civic law, women's rights and human rights in the Arab world. She's a member of the Open Society Foundation's MENA office advisory board and of the board of the Euro Mediterranean Foundation for the support of human rights defenders. She worked with al-Huck for different periods and in different capacities from the early 1980s and is the author of the book that we are launching today. Lynn, welcome. And thank you. Am I unmuted? Yes, I am. And I've got a video. Thank you, everybody. I sort of had to wait a bit to think what, oh well, first of all, thanks to everybody. Thank you, Deena, for supporting this and helping to organize it and Aki for doing physicalities of it. Scott, thank you for your words. I didn't know you knew so much about me. It's a little worrying, but that's very nice. Thank you. Bishara for the publishing. It was wonderful. I was in Ramallah and I was at an al-Huck 40th anniversary. Remember that al-Huck asked me to write this book for its 30th anniversary. So I went back on the 40th and the next day I got a call from Bishara in Nablus so I met in Bottlehauer in 1984, whatever it was, saying, hey, you know, have you thought about, and it's very nice. And to be fair, Bishara, the other publisher would have been Deena, the IB tourist, the Palestine Center at Sawas Publishers. She very generously with Adam agreed to go with your press with your new series, which is, I think, I am ethically, I think it was a wonderful opportunity for me to contribute to your goal of decolonising knowledge products about the Palestinian situation. And I think it's really where the book belongs and the fact that it's free to download to anybody across the world is exactly where academia needs to be and exactly where we need to be thinking about putting that knowledge out there. So I'm really very grateful that your center made that happen. Lisa, your work, as you will have seen, I hope, was seminal to many of my arguments. So I'm very, very proud that you agreed to join us. And we also met in the 80s in Ramallah, if you don't know Ramallah, that was number eight, yeah. And Raja, as a friend and a mentor, and one of the co-founders of Al Haq, with Jonathan Cotab, and Charles Chammez. Raja, you've always been a model and an inspiration and really rather daunting until one realises that you, you don't mean to do that. And then when you realise you don't mean to be daunting, it sort of just becomes inspirational. I'm not, I'm just saying it can be quite daunting because of the concentration you bring to thinking about things. That's partly what I'm going to talk about in just in just one minute. Jaowen, the next volume should be ready by Christmas, but I'm not going to guarantee delivery just at the moment until we've agreed what you wanted to cover. Okay. And I won't tell you which Christmas probably for the moment. But thank you for inviting me to write it and thank you for your friendship over the years and thank you for not giving me as hard a time as you are entitled to do for the constant delays. It was a much harder book to write than I thought it would be and Bishara, I appreciate your words at the start about how when you pick a project, it can sometimes bring things that you didn't expect to bring and it can be more difficult than you thought. That's me making excuses. I already apologised in my 2013 professorial inaugural lecture for being Lake Del Hapbook and that was seven years ago now. So anyway, there you go, Jaowen. Thank you for your friendship and for keeping up with it. And finally, I would have to say thank you to Al Haq. The book dedication is to Al Haq, particularly to everybody, former staffers, present staffers, well future staffers but they didn't talk to me, who talked to me about the book. It really the book became a collective endeavor. I was, you know, I did have people contacting me when they heard it was being writing and so on and it became, I felt like I was sort of, well to a certain extent of course it's my responsibility for how I interpreted it but I was a bit of a repository for a lot of these stories. And part of what I want to say about that is that some of the things we talked about, well you talked about Bishore, you alluded to some of the difficult times Al Haq had was, as a former staffer told me, precisely because Al Haq meant so much and means so much to people because it meant so much and means so much is why those tensions happened along with the political background and why people kept wanting to talk about it about particular episodes, particular times and so on. And I think that's probably inevitable but it's also indicative of one thing I wanted to talk about the idea that the best work, well, certainly a lot of the best work in the world comes out to collective endeavor. It comes out of sitting around with a group of people who trust each other, who have and agreed on a not necessarily agreed on how to get there. But then, in the case of Palestinian human rights groups and I suppose, well I'm sure he writes groups elsewhere but what I learned from Al Haq as soon as I went to Palestine was that when you in the face of apparently insurmountable odds, insurmountable odds that you can't even start counting, it is absolutely imperative that you still come up with an idea. You have to have an idea about how you're going to meet those odds, how you're going to beat those odds, this is the thing about exactly about what Lisa was saying. And I think that idea of sparking off in a group worked very well, as I said in the book, for many, for many, for many years. And I think it still does inspire the idea that if you can get a collective around a table and bang, as we know, bang your ideas around. It comes out with much more than the sum of your parts. And that's ultimately what I'll have was and what I still think it is. I always see Al Haq working much more closely with a wider range of course there's more human rights organizations and this, this groundbreaking work at the ICC which has been a massively difficult struggle and a massively long war. And again that's about persistence of saying, I will get up tomorrow and do it again. And we will sit together and have another idea and we will do it again is is something, the courage of that is something that I learned for the first time when I went in 1982 and met Al Haq in 1983 LSM as it was then, and has inspired me ever since. It's interesting what you said Shaoan about there having been more non-Palestinian stuff is there because the ones also like many of them got in touch about this book. And I think for all of us non-Palestinian staffs who came, it was such a glowing time in our lives. It was so full of energy momentum and dynamism that I think it spurred people on and inspired us all in many, many ways and I'm sorry that other people can't I mean non-Palestinian staffs but I'm sure that Palestinian staffers are still getting that and that sort of the idea of being able to keep that I suppose to me what it was was seeing human rights being done in the daily day after day after day just doing it, you know, and also as I'll have management did and does trying to do it in a participatory way, especially in the early years, in a way that implemented human rights between between between people. I must remember that I'll have from the very beginning was also trying to also look at human rights in Palestinian society. It's beginning was very and they kept saying, that's the other thing, you know, there was always this reflection so I fuck is really busy lsm 1980s everything's happening, and they keep publishing these long reflective points about, who are we, why are we doing, why are we doing this. Why are you writing this because it's taking time but all this was coming out of these meetings, general meetings that where people were knocking these and coming to an agreement a consensus building themselves through building the organization of what it means to do human rights under occupation. Of course builds into discussions on like you see the first three reports that I'll have did in the annual reports in the first and to father. They were amazing gatherings of office, just amazing fieldwork and I'll talk about that in a minute underlying analyses and the analyses were talking about what areas of law can we use what applies and what doesn't. It's not a straightforward human rights reported never was with much more extraordinary work. And, you know, things like the representation to state parties you can see reflections of that from 1990 in the in the 10th emergency session from 2017 or 18 when using the same word is very very interesting. In some ways you can say yes, it's a problem because it keeps coming back because it hasn't been done but it means that having the idea of what might be useful and still coming back to it is, is, is, is, is another legacy that I'll have is still living. And the ICC work I think is testament to really, really massively hard work and to the thing that I'll have done which everybody pays testament to which is this, the methodology of its documentation and evidence to things it's first of all, is saying that everything has to be evidence and how you collect evidence and how you work with your community and communities to collect the evidence this is the field research, actually central to all of them. And then. So, at the beginning of the first into five there's a bit of a spat because the Palestinian, the Jerusalem Palestinian Center was a bit cross because I wouldn't say anything about what was going in Gaza because the time they didn't have fieldwork as in Gaza sort of a classic image. We can't say because we haven't documented itself and they got over that and they have fieldwork is in Gaza quite soon. But that idea of having evidence from the ground informing everything and also informing what I'll have looked at so it wasn't a top down. We should look at this we should find evidence that it was anyway, and that that you can see coming out of the report, very important mapping not only the violation but also then then having all that information and saying so what do we do with it. So part of what you do with it is you do what's happening elsewhere in the world a bit but another getting another area of policy and voice directly involved with the database development this is things people don't think about that. Actually, being involved in a growing idea of how do we document human how do we retrieve the information. I'll have had a major input into saying how we're going to sort out the document retrieval system that serves our needs in the West Bank in Gaza or we're not going to accept a system that doesn't actually work for us we're not doing it for research so we're we're doing it for how we need to find our information. Absolutely stunning work. And one more thing I have to check as well is of course, the library man who would think you start up a national one of the first things you do you say, oh we've got to have a library. Well, not everybody think you have to have a library but this is the idea of having sources of building and of course the idea was as a public library so people could come. How things could come from the community school students university students, you know, and learn about human rights or extraordinary thought to do it at that time so. Yeah, and I'll have course now does training and methodology. It's involved in database development all sorts of international levels, all these things we'll have is continuing are things that come from ideas that know that we can actually how and to talk for the next hour actually talk about new ideas show when you're having a talk now. And, you know, where those might go because laying the basis of rigor I mean this is one of the things. Of course I learned to happen everybody learns to help. And the field researchers who would tell me about this would say the same thing and I'm not a bunny I recoup this antidote that he said more in your bunny is now in the answer to crisis group and what fell hot in the early 1990s person to bother. And he said, you know, he's a very accomplished research now in his own right and so on. And he said, you know, I still, I feel if I publish something I go to bed and wake up in a sweat but I think I've got a footnote wrong. He blames it entirely on a couple credits it to al-haq if you like. So that and the field researchers I talked to all talked about that being drilled into them and how to coordinate the field works unit and how their work fed into development of what the organization was doing is, these are things that are not the obvious part of the product if you like of a human civilization and they need to be, I think, foregrounded especially now that show and well I'll hop and PCHR and El Mizer and and the media and are doing this work at the, at the, at the ICC which requires a particular type of coordination a particular type of collection and is particularly sensitive as somebody has already said for the Israeli authorities who are extremely clearly unsettled by it to say the least. How LSM and al-haq have inserted past me in voice directly also by saying, we will have our say on what humanitarian means we will try there was a time in 1980 it was beginning to father they didn't mean it to be them. When they asked for help knowing how to ask for help so they get all these international lawyers and experts and academics to come to Jerusalem in the West Bank. And as it turned out at the beginning of the first into father. And so these guys these guys and women are there at the beginning and looking at what's going on and when I was doing the research for this book. The people were field researchers who were involved in helping them and in getting a read and bringing witnesses and testimonies and all those. Absolutely adamant that this was such a big collective endeavor. And again, it's one of these things that apparently according to Emma place that who's booked by the way editing the papers from this conference is a seminal collection for international humanitarian law coming out of this conference which apparently started by a general meeting where everybody's saying but we don't know does the law mean that what's the meaning you have an occupation this lasted this long this long about something like 20 years or and Russia said, well, why don't we ask them ask people will ask the internet will ask them so they, you know, go around and get these people to come it was a bit before 20 years and have this conference. And it's an extraordinary thing to know also that you need to ask for help and to then go ahead and then that also becomes something so I know I'm being a little off track here but I just wanted to salute the people focused, if you like that the way that everything we're out of groups of people in small group got a bigger group is larger group. Now you've got groups across different organizations I think, bearing in mind the momentum and the energy and the creativity and the brilliance that comes from that human endeavor towards the goal of justice and dignity is something that we can all hold on to. So I want to thank all for that. Thank you. Does, does anyone want to come in show and you wanted to come in and say something in response. Or does anyone want to ask any questions of the co panelists. What Lynn said. It's like a part of that it's an emotional things because you go back also to this long journey. For me, it's an emotional. From the young generation at that time, and these days when I deal with my colleagues. Always I said to them, I used to be like you, I encourage you to continue on this way or that way. But, but, you know, we had but I would like to share with you today. About a few things just today you know the library library and she came to me and she said there is a new way of dealing with the program of the libraries. Like, for instance, developing a new program called pip library or something like that for Google. It will become like a centralized one. And I told her okay, we have to be ready you know to develop also our technology, but let's just start. Let's you know start thinking about all of these things and it brings you know, all the studies about it, what we will benefit from this, who can benefit. Another thing is they came to me and say that we don't want to print to publish let me say and to print in new box. And it has to be also to save papers from one side, save space, and we have to think, like, you know, a box or something like that publish it online. We can save money we save pay a space we save everything. So yeah, it's good. Let's also think about it. Today also I met with a naja university for the program called joint master program in English pure in English about international law. That's, we have been working on this or developing in the last a few years but today, they want to start the program jointly with our. The development of the daily life, a new ideas developing the new things in the field here that that's a hack. The expectation is high. And sometimes when the expectation is high. It become as a burden you know, also in your shoulders. My colleagues always. So I may say there's a director to them please. Please we have to have like a time to speak to each other's to have you know to develop an ideas to work on daily basis. Could you please just reduce the activities you put on the plants. They said, Okay, yes. They come with the plan, more than the other. Why they feel with the responsibility. This is also an issue, which it means the commitment. The commitment of the team. Another thing is the new generation. What's missing these days comparing with the before is the international colleagues. Still, the technology solved the problem before when we were you know together. We're dealing discussing agree disagree. This is rich in even the life of a hack in all of us. That's today, for instance, what we do is virtual things virtual is more than before when it comes to meetings. It takes long time. Keep you know until midnight. That's an issue. Yesterday, for instance, we had a meeting with the prosecutor of the international criminal court to say to her, thank you, and to see where we are in our file. I can't share this, you know, virtually, but that's an issue on a daily basis there are things but what's the main challenge before us today. How to deal with the young generation to maintain hope in their minds. This is one main thing. Another thing is, okay, we expanded our programs you know to meet also the needs the main needs like business and the human rights, like environment for instance, this is an issue into related to the work of our hack. There are many developments, but in the same time, the same line. Connecting with all of these stations is the commitment and also the transparency. Always I repeated winner hack faced a problem or a crisis or call it what you want. No one touch one main element is the financial things. Your organization it was bigger than became bigger than with millions of dollars disappeared for that reasons. colleagues you know they reach the tension between two sides, but no one say any word about for instance, the transparency of a lot. That's I think been told because of that I became also more stronger, even than before, and continue, continue in its work. Many, many I think lessons, even you know there are many lessons and other organizations I'm sure that today for instance our relations with universities. They try for instance to build which called the, the center, the center that we did a few days ago we finished the annual summer school. I received also comments and feedbacks from professors outside from judges from Africa, they participated in summer school from 27 countries over the world, they participated this time and we decided to have the summer school twice a year. People from outside they ask, and they said maybe this is the first time we understand, we understood the context of Palestine and what's going on there. I think this is one issue. Another thing is the main challenge is how to use also the new techniques in your technology, even a new way to address also your messages, and then you are not media. But, but in the same time, things affected your work, how to become more efficient these days. That's also one of the main challenge the meaning question before us, how to develop, how to digest things, you know, and continue in your work. The founders of Al-Haq, other colleagues like Lim, like Emma, like yours, like others, they still as a model also for Al-Haq generation, every day they read, they find some materials. The last thing is, a few days ago I had a discussion with the EU about financial things. I told them we have the financial records, and I don't mean by records, the audit report, I mean by records even the receipts, even handwriting, receipt, from a grocery or a small shop here or there in this village or that village, we have it since the foundation of Al-Haq, which it means no other organization keep, you know, all of these records, I mean hard, copies, saving them since 79 until today. And we would like also to digitalize and keep them, you know, and archiving them, that's even each paper. And this is a big and a huge work, it's not easy. But we are doing this, we archived around 80,000 records, papers, documents here or there in our archiving system, we built a special report for that. And we need maybe more than 300, 400,000 other records, you know, this is a big issue, we look at it as a history of the Palestinian people since late 70s until today. And what's coming next is the affidavits that we talk from the people. The affidavits that we have a huge number. I think by itself is a story I encourage Lisa, for instance, if she can think from her own perspective in new ways, for instance, to come to study these things, you know, telling the stories of the people, what's this occupation means. Another thing is today how we are facing this situation is the division, the internal situation. We don't know if the authority will continue or not. The internal explosion maybe is coming. I don't know. Roger spoke about the other things about the expulsion of the people, but I think also internally speaking, I don't know what will happen. I think we are in a dark moment. We are in the last stage of which called, you know, the transitional time. I have been saying that in the last three, four years. I think now we are in the last page, and the new things is coming. Yes, that's new things. I don't know what will be shared, you know, but the new generations will take their place. Now, pushing them back and not open the door before them. It means some danger things when you read it, because this is the normal things. The normal movement, young generations, they are leading in the street, and they are looking to lead also in other places. But the old generation, the others, they are pushing them back and trying to close the door before them. When you close the door before them, you don't know what will happen. We are now in a very critical time, critical time. It's not used to deal with the critical times before, but now we are in this critical time. This is an issue also, and this is a challenge before us. Because of that, we start thinking to build, let me say, an analysis and to study some funny minutes, or trends, social trends, economic trends, we haven't studied before. But now it's like a new way of research, and the new way we don't mean it to be like the ordinary one we do in legal issues. We are trying to produce, even if it's for internal use, like research about what's going on, you know, how we can study the situation. This is part of the process. Thank you, Lynn, again, and thank you all again. Be sure, I think, by showing the willing and encouraging, you know, Lynn also you put again the train on the track and give a push to the train. That's great things. But I do believe about the work of Lynn, her functionality, precise work, detailed research. This is a very important thing and also the analysis that she added to. And because of that I offer here, again, please, Lynn, if you have an effort, please come and have also a new book about this experience because many human rights organizations activists academics, they will benefit from this work. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Sharon. I think, before we make any other comments among panelists, I'm going to take some questions from the audience, which are coming in the chat. And please put your questions in the chat box, because we do not have the facility of having, you know, allowing you onto onto the panel. So we will all raise some important questions which we will come back to at the end, and I was taken by the idea of the myth of rights as a Palestinian myself, and that is a challenge to Lisa later on. But one of the questions here the first one from we saw Ahmad says, what, how important do you think for al-haq to push for the evolution of international law. And I agree with the regard to the prohibition of colonialism as a parametry norm of general international law. Perhaps to solve the question of Palestine we have also to eradicate colonialism from the earth and free people of the world. That's quite quite a big wish. But did you want to answer that or anyone else. Lisa. I think that that's a very good question and of course the correct answer is yes, but the one of the things that I think the implicit lesson we learn from the legacy and the work ongoing work of al-haq and as Lynn lays out is that sometimes it's more important to really tackle the problem, then try to find the solution because if you expose the nature of problems that tends to have a life of its own and so even the way that apartheid or and colonialism have become the analytical frames for looking into this context. That is, you know came about as a result of the, you know, precise and detailed methodological work of documenting and monitoring and analyzing things so, you know, I would say that you know understanding the problem is really a great contribution unto itself and then what comes of it, you know it puts information out into the world. Yeah, thank you. That means that there is a call for more for more exposure and writing about the topic is how I understand it. There's another question that is particularly important which is the grassroots human rights activism for the protection of Palestinian rights. So I won't talk about the young generation and what they are doing. So in a sense, how does that relate to the experience of al-haq and how what what advice would you give to activists from your experience of al-haq journey as a Palestinian human rights organization. And this is a question from Lowe for Palestine. Sounds interesting. So, Lynn, do you want to talk about this Bishara. That I would have to pass this to Shaowen. The question is as a policy human rights activist I think I'm not qualified. I think Shaowen you began to speak at the end of your final last intervention there about the young generation. So I think really it would be to you to say any advice to young Palestinian human rights activists, many of whom you presumably know but perhaps also outside Palestine as well as inside Palestine. Look, I think the hope is coming from the new generation and the change would come from there. The public and the young generation and the activists is a very important role, but we address this question to ourselves. We want to be like grassroots organization or to stay as professional organizations, but in the same time strengthening the and helping, let me say, cooperating with different groups and universities others to give you know our human rights perspective, low perspective. That's, and we decided not to go to that direction. But now, for instance, we have like trainings. We try to strengthen in the capacity of different you know those that are interest of more about the international law the ICC, all of these things. I think even the language of you follow the language these days of the young and the earth. The groups or those they are writing you feel you feel even the terms the language of justice, low human rights, these things. For instance, when we pushed the, the Palestinian leaders mainly, President of the best to accept to go to the ICC. We see like part of the public opinion and narrative, we used to speak every day, and who pushed more. I think the young people when they used to meet with them mainly from Fata, they ask him the first question they used to ask him, why you don't go for instance and succeeded, exceeded to the ICC. And he had no answer at that time. This is one main thing that Dr. Sahiba said, and maybe Roger, I don't know if you hear that or not. But every time he used to say this, we made it like part of the public opinion. That's the issue, I think they can make, if they can make marching in the streets, this is the role and they can make a difference. What's going on, for instance, in Jerusalem. This is an issue we document, and we don't want to say that we are accounting the stakes that the people is receiving, but we try to analyze all of these things, and we maintain the hope. We see that, for instance, from the course. I think it's not a copy that we have to write a copy of Al-Haqq and trying to make other models the same. Each one, each side, each group has their own role to play, but we are now engaging with the young generations through the universities as much as we can. But we try not to politicize Al-Haqq, and when I say politicize Al-Haqq, taking Al-Haqq to let me say to any political party to say this is Al-Haqq's belong or affiliated with. I think this is one of the main success. It started at the beginning and the first day, and it has to continue. And this is the difference a little bit between us and other organizations in the Arab region. And it was addressed during the 40th of Al-Haqq, 40th anniversary. You know, from some of the human rights activists, they said our nature is completely different because we came from, you know, political parties, and we tried to deal with the organizations as part of the political party. And I think the danger and the risk for any organization like this to play its role. Our role is to generate, you know, knowledge, addressing what's going on here, give directions, legal directions, and it can be used by anyone. That's the role of Al-Haqq, and this is what we are trying to deal with the activists and others. Is there anyone else who would like to talk about the kind of the human rights or the justice, political justice language that is coming through? Yeah, Richard, I think you. Thank you. I would like to add to these comments along the three categories that I mentioned before about the significance of Al-Haqq, which is one in terms of the political imagination. And I think that is the argument I would link to Lisa's piece. So, success without victory really has everything to do with how the political imagination has been reformulated to create a kind of a new wave, seeing a new reality along the lines that Sha'wan just gave examples of. The other category I mentioned was institution building, and here I want to refer to Jo Stilterman who wrote a wonderful comment on the chat saying, yeah, it's true, but don't discount what Al-Haqq has done in terms of building a new structure for a kind of legal judicial system for a state that may not come, or maybe so far off that we can never imagine it coming, but nevertheless everything that they've done in the last four decades or more has really built the basis for legal institutions in the best way possible. So, the last category I mentioned was knowledge production, and here I want to reemphasize again how important the lens book is and how it fits so well with the New Directions Medicine Studies series in that she did not take some theory from Rawlings or some theorist in the west and say this is a good case study of Al-Haqq of that theory. She has basically built an empirical but also theoretical framework based on centering the experience of people and events and experiences that are usually never make it, usually are erased in such studies. By centering the Palestinian experience and making it a platform. For rethinking human rights globally, for de-exceptionizing the Palestinian condition, for thinking about how Al-Haqq has really had much larger influence than just on the Palestinian question, I think puts the horse before the cart and a lot of these knowledge production topics and I'm very glad that we have yet another book that shows how effective and important that is. Thank you Bishara, this links to a question by Sami and I'll go to other questions before it. Does Al-Haqq have a strategy to reach people around the world? I can't see a social media presence and a lot of discussions today through that space to reach the younger generation so maybe a short answer to that please and then we'll go to other questions. We have no final strategy but we have a deep, deep discussion these days, but we started, we have been starting to so long, you know, in the last 10 years to receive which called the summer school and the orientation courses and received also missions from outside and collaborations with the low clinics and different universities received students because of that the Israeli groups and lobbyists for instance in the US they wrote to many American universities that Al-Haqq is anti-Semitic organization and tourist organizations why you send your students to Al-Haqq to receive for instance courses, things like that. This has happened two years ago, it was a big, big campaign, you know, and they wrote, you know, to the, not to the deans, to the presidents and to the councils of the universities like New York University, like George Washington University, like Stanford University, things like that. We have this, for instance, we have with the academics in US through organization called ARC, they bring, you know, students. These days, these days we developed a very, very important thing. For instance, to the youth of the political parties outside in Europe, to have, you know, them to receive them, or these days because everything is virtual and online, we developed which called a live, a live field tours, live. It's not, you know, edited and it's not recorded, live field tour, you take them for two hours, three hours, and for them they can engage with the victims, with the people, you know, directly and you tell them the story about every space, every place where you go. That's an issue, for instance, it started now with the Netherlands and the youth in the different political parties in the Netherlands and we want to expand it because it's a virtual and it allows you to include others mainly in Europe. This is part of the, it's not just an idea, it's a program now at ARC, it's a project at ARC. And we have many, many things, you know, how to deal with the people, but for instance, after we saw the reaction from the public and from civil society and from people, you know, around the world. I think now the big question is not before ARC only, we started discussing this also internally with the other civil society organization, which is a strategy that we have to take to strengthen the relations between here Palestine and the people outside everywhere. Thank you. There is a related response here from Francis Hasso, she says congratulations, I look forward to reading the book. Hello, Francis. Hello, hello, Francis. Yeah, and she said, if you remember her. Hello Francis. At the end she says that she she was detained on the coasting against ship via Cyprus with hundreds of Arabic affidavits. Affidavits. built by a Mustari being that I was taking to Amman. Although I kept them because I kept saying well these people are dead. Working with Al Haq radicalized me even further if that was possible. So you do remember which is really nice. So another question from Shireen says thank you for the great work is the book going to be available in Arabic and whether it is available for Palestinian students who come from impoverished backgrounds. And maybe others. I can answer the first bit and maybe Bishara wants to add. It's already on the site. It's free to download across the world. No one has to buy anything forward except your Wi-Fi fees or whatever your service provider charges you. It's free. The Arabic writes Shahwan and Bishara. I've kept Bishara knows this. I've kept the Arabic translation rights for myself. So Al Haq is free to have them. If at any point you want to produce an Arabic translation for which I'm not volunteering. Okay that answers the question. So hopefully there will be but we'll have to maybe unless Shahwan wants to pass it to somebody else but that's hopefully secured. I think it's very important that the book come out in Arabic and we discuss this and I really hope that this can happen sooner rather than later. Several people have asked you know how can we get the book or how can we ask the book. So let's repeat once again that New Directions in Palestinian Studies book series of which this is part is online open access free for all. You can download the book right now and have it for free. And the link has been provided very kindly by Aki and he can provide it again. I encourage you all to not just download this book but the other books in this series that are for free for everyone across the world. Regarding the translation I will come in a few days. Not I will not exceed one week to with answer with the clear answer about these things and they hope to have like a date. And it's not a confidential things to say that Len she speaks fluent Arabic. She reads Arabic and she used to go through you know hand writing things to read because of that I think it helps her it helped her in this also research and the tradition because she used to depends on herself not on others for instance to translate here her you know to her this or that. This is an issue she can translate it but we will not put that on her responsibility. We will take this responsibility as a thank you. Thanks. She will edit it in Arabic. I don't mind editing it. Yeah there's a comment from just Hitler man or Hitler man. Apologies for the spelling for the misspelling I cannot read. Thank you all. I would just like to add one dimension of the ones mentioned above in relation to the narrative about Luan occupation. Lynn and alluded to it but Al Haq was also part of Palestinian state building. I mean this in a non-political sense without political objectives or affiliations. Any functioning democracy needs an independent judiciary and independent oversight mechanism while Al Haq was contesting a military occupation it was also helping to build its alternative and independent state with its trappings. That state may be far off but the process itself and the institutions it generates is immensely significant. I guess that isn't is is a comment rather than a question. I think it's a comment but I think it's also something that was there it became increasingly I think it's chapter four sorry it became increasingly evident as Al Haq well first of all it became more confident in its ability to sustain itself and in front of you know hostility from the occupation authorities and its increasing profile but probably Raja is better placed to speak to this. I think that what I touched to say about human rights in Palestinian society and the idea of the rule of law if you read the early correspondence it was all about if there's a Palestinian state that's what I mean by law as future what do we want it to look like? It was so much part of this and resisting the occupation but there was always that angle quite unusually I think but I don't know perhaps Raja would like to say something about that. Yes you're absolutely right this was always in the back of in the front of our mind that if we want the Palestinian state then we have to be instrumental in building it and we are building it through making people aware of the rule of law and of the importance of law and independence of the judiciary and all of that and and we we did a lot of studies on all these aspects unfortunately there's no Palestinian state yet. Okay thanks Raja question from Lina Marhabalina thank you for a very interesting panel I wish to ask if there is an activity for al-Haqq and Bethlehem yes or no? Is there an Ja'wan? We have a field worker there and we have activities most of the time like for instance taking the groups around to show the people what's going on near Walaja and what's going on near Mahaleen, Hussein and other places. Okay there's I think I I thought that Bishara was typing an answer because someone was saying I'm not seeing the answers on question and answers example just um Hilterman's reference perhaps the questions are only visible to the organizers so I don't know whether there's an answer there that we haven't seen but there's another question from Moira the ongoing discussion of legal political strategies is very inspiring and al-Haqq's work is certainly groundbreaking I was lucky to have participated participated in it and it was extremely interested etc so that is just a comment but I think there was an interesting question around from Juwst again thank you all I would just add one dimension to the ones mentioned above which is yeah about the political organization we've asked that while al-Haqq was contesting a military occupation it was also helping to build it's often so we've we've done that question I'm just going through the other questions in the chat and I think we have answered most of them I'm just going down in the list to see whether there's anything else okay can I make a little shout out for the enforcement project I'm sure Mike well I did mention it but I wrote about it it's what I worked on during very intense years at al-Haqq after the first bit so I just wanted to say that also the impact of the enforcement project was just something I didn't talk about as well as the like other things was taking that language of insurus spec third party responsibility grave breaches a lot of that started uh you know also it was part of the zeitgeist part of the things that were going on university extension but the enforcement project has used language that was later taken up I think it's fair to say shall we're an across party in human rights movement although at the time the work of the enforcement project in al-Haqq as I documented in the book was contentious to say that the controversial contentious contended whatever so that was a period in which I was involved and really want to say it but I did say because I also wanted to bring up the role of Charles Chamez as well as Jonathan Catterbuck Charles in terms of being the the board member who worked on the enforcement project um also had a big impact in developing uh arguments and international humanitarian law which he then went on to argue with the International Red Cross in Geneva and and still is I think he's still arguing isn't he our Charles is still arguing I think we can fairly fairly safely assume Charles is still arguing correct so and very successfully often has done some amazing work so I just wanted to bring that up as another ongoing legacy with which al-Haqqq is still cooperating all in terms of business and human rights strategies and all this so there's yeah yes there's a there's a lot there as well I I thought I should say nobody else said I felt it could I make one this is one of the main thing we use Lynn and if you go to what's happened also in uh Ireland uh about the Irish motion might I think al-Haqq has some role and now in uh Chile yes I think things uh coming soon we build also in which called the enforcement a project because the enforcement now without enforcement nothing will change and this is the main thing guiding us in all of our you know analysis all of our messages and advocacy work thank you thank you Lynn and thank you for shortly oh could I make one point just a shout out about another project that's more recent that al-Haqq has been involved with which is the partnering with forensic architecture and the collaboration I'm putting in the chat the um oops sorry the um you know the link to a sort of virtual video about the extraditional execution of Ahmad Erekat but this kind of work speaks to the questions of you know bringing the work and the of enforcement and al-Haqq to an international audience appealing to younger people um and also the social media aspect of it and forensic architecture has now expanded to partner with the European Court of Human Rights and to establish a a site in in Germany and Germany is a very important place to kind of be pushing on these issues so I think that it's something that you know al-Haqq should be commended for engaging sort of really being super 21st century about this thank you for that only alisa there is which called the eyewitness things based also in uh London and this program it's an application you use it now when you go and you can document any incident happened and this application has uh gbs and it takes all the detailed information regarding the place regarding the time regarding you know everything and it goes directly it's a protected one it goes to database and we have an access to this and also the ICC you know take this database as one of the resource and this is an issue you know this is called the public documentation it's not just only the uh field workers documentation and now we are training people in the field in different areas you know those they have uh mobiles everyone has a mobile these days and now we are training online you know in Gaza people in Gaza human rights activists students anyone anyone it will become like a public training now for people uh thank you Shahwan we've got a question for Raja from Lina uh the issue of human rights and stakeholders people and access to health and other human rights are essential so how can we address these issues in relation to Palestine it's a huge question I think but it might be a good question to kind of have all the panel respond to it and maybe I would like just in case we have time I would like to think about you know the language which is Haqqouq and Haqq Haqouq al-Shab al-Falassini which was kind of embraced by the PLO you know the right to determination and so on and the word al-Haq itself which I find al-Haqq is much more kind of focused and important so maybe we can talk about that later but Raja if you could kindly come in and and and Lisa yeah the question is on the right to health yeah and and how you know right to health and the question of rights and the question of health and the stateless people and how can we address all these questions when we talk about Palestine you know these are what we call the right to health the right to home the right to live the right to exist these are you know kind of rudimentary human rights but in relation to Palestinians you know how how can we address them in relation to Palestine so it's a big question well I think I think the question is that in Palestine with the it's it's it's become more than an occupation it's become a colonial situation where where we are deprived of the environment the land the the capacity to to live normally to travel normally to expand our the the plans that is really put and these were the plans that they had already been working on since the early 80s have resulted in a concentration of Palestinian communities in cities and villages that are not allowed to expand beyond the borders of these places and so the effect on the on all aspects of one's life as a result of these plans is tremendous and and so it's all interrelated and and the haq has done a lot of work on this throughout from the beginning uh pointing out to to to these plans and to the how these violate individual laws and international laws local laws and international laws so it's all all related I think thank you Rasha Lisa you wanted to say something you wanted to come in and Lynn I would just say that the the question of um you know health access you know this the notion of public welfare you know linking that to stateless peoples when people are ruled by a state that is not theirs and doesn't you know care about them I mean the Palestine is the archetype of this but it's evident all around the world ethno national states racist states the you know treatment or criminalization of immigrants in in you know Europe or the United States and the one thing I would just say like we see this you know in the last year with the discriminatory um access to COVID vaccines against COVID-19 and what that you know sort of reinforces is the observation that we are seeing an apartheid state in action and public health where the lack of access to it is one very clear manifestation so what you do with the critique of apartheid linking it to health I think is a very important political project thank you Lisa there's a question here that maybe Scott can answer which is around what does the rule of law mean when military laws are still in practice as the recent bombing in Gaza has shown my comments here are not meant to be condescending but as a question that we need to reach also we need to kind of redefine laws as well as their function the reference point can't be international law and expecting uh and expecting Palestinian rights to be recognized is there a need to speak in to speak in a new language and the last one can Israel's continuing impunity be overcome through legal uh legal means um Scott do you want to kind of come in with any idea about do we need to and do you need to unmute yourself yes a couple of points in response to that which is which is obviously an excellent and obvious challenge and why continue to work within a framework within a regime which is itself fundamentally oppressive and rights denying and and this is the same question of course that that that apartheid lawyers had to face during the apartheid era why you cooperate uh to the extent of of of working with in the in and under an oppressive regime um and and that's a question for which there's no sort of pat already answer i mean in a sense one has to struggle on two fronts and one has to struggle at the same time on the terms that one is given that one is dealt to play the hand one that's dealt at the same time um as one stands back and offers a critique of the unfolding regime and and this brings to mind something that that that Lisa said the title of her her her response here the world al-haq made i mean beyond the the the the slow case by case fight that al-haq has been ways waging sort of within the terms dictated um when one also has to bear in mind the larger consequences of its of its role and its actions over time the world al-haq made and and and i see and i think one sees that at the very moment right so so the the colonialism apartheid framings which once upon a time were fiercely resisted and contested right and are gaining increasing recognition and becoming common currency and moreover they're now being applied outside the case of the occupation to the Israeli state itself which i think is hugely significant right so now and and and we spoke at the outset about the seriousness the criticality of this moment in Palestinian history and and i think recent events um have have have have showcased not just the the the apartheid regime under the occupation but the apartheid regime in the Israeli state itself um and to me that's you know that that again is a manifestation of a success without a clear victory um at least without without an immediate victory um that the so this this issue of framing um goes right to the point of of the regime under which one is you know on the terms of which one is continuing to struggle so so one wins um occasional victories both within the terms of of the regime and one and one wins or not just successes when the understanding or the framing of the regime itself is challenged and altered and i think those are both part of the world that ohaka's made sorry for the thank you scott that's very very articulate and important points anyone else would like to come in as we are coming to the end of this i would like to comment on one of the questions regarding the rule of law yeah here we have to differentiate between the definition and the meaning of the rule of law and the implementation of law and when we speak about rule of law we are taking it in a very wide uh meaning but the the the cornerstone in that is justice and here it refers me the first thing i learned when i came to al-hak it was the blue book i think it's it's not the blue book it's how to to make a citation no it's the color of the book it was blue at that time the i cj i think conference on the rule of law and what's the meaning of rule of law we are not taking it in a very limited way for instance the military orders mentioned the military orders are illegal most of them are illegal because it changed the heritage law and the occupied territory and all of these things and also we are not recognizing their pitrary detention according law all of these things and here you speak about just law and in just law and here you know that's the meaning of rule of law part of that thank you thank you anyone else would like to come in to say anything well in the in the early days there was a question at al-hak whether we it is right to intervene to the military and whether it is right to take cases into the high court and it is really high court and we knew the limits of intervening to the military and of going to high courts but without doing that we couldn't prove that there claims that this is a just a benevolent occupation which allows the residents of the occupied territory to to appeal to the high court without having done the appeal and shown how ineffective it is we couldn't have proven their claims as wrong so that that was important and I think sometimes that is a consideration in in taking part in a system that you don't believe in and I think sorry go ahead I want to see the same idea must have been faced by the people in lawyers in in south apartheid at South Africa yeah so I want to disentangle a little bit this success without victory sort of idea thank you Lisa for that and Rajesh I want for addressing it in more nuanced detail now it is a much more but I mean I'd love to give the title the world a hot bed on this panel deserves it but of course it's a bit of an exaggeration because it's not just a legal issue it's it's a legal mobilization project so the numbers of people who became involved and the case workers and their families and the issues that kept them busy and the consequences of their work and their social networks and relationships really were very important in helping to and and were affected by larger changes I mean when I think about the shift to a human rights framework to Palestinians that are Palestine this is something as the rich said and many others have been going going on since the 70s if not earlier I would say even in the mid 60s and this required an enormous amount of work on an activist level etc etc so I think Al Haq crystallized a lot of these efforts made it a kind of a tip of the spear move and help open up new pathways etc but overall really its significance is not in a particular case but in legal mobilization on a social level that it both influenced and participated in and that gives us more hope because it wasn't just out of the blue that they somehow gave us this gift but really they helped crystallize an ongoing process when the movement on social security here in Palestine started you know the trade unionists and the others they came to Al Haq and we make like an analysis what it means that's right and they took it and it became as you know a guide for them and their languages and their letters to teachers for instance when they were when they had the strike you know they can also they consulted with Al Haq what's your legal opinion what's things this is what's going on internally here also about all of these things but we have a lot of things to do we have many challenges in the same time to be honest with you at the end we have a limit capacity but I think we have a clear direction where to go that's the the issue well with this note thank you I know there's a late question around the work with ICC and so on so for that question maybe you should read the book available online again and we've put it all up thank you to Bishara for allowing this book to be available online in his book series and for the other books that he's publishing thank you to Lin for writing the book to Raja for working and being such a you know a diligent hardworking scholar activist lawyer on behalf of Palestinian rights to Lisa of course for all her work on human rights to Shahwan and to Scott so thanks all and it was a fantastic panel I really enjoyed it and it will be recorded for everyone who is here you can see the recording on Facebook which we will share so thanks and thank you Dina for thank you Dina yeah thank you okay thank you bye bye thanks everybody Salamat to Judith and if you learn can let me say initiate or the friends of our heart I will eat on behalf of all of you fix these days please do eat them please I will do I will send you the pictures please virtual you know plate of teen wonderful torture I know exactly exactly I I thought you were pleased with the Shahwan thank you Salamat to Akram okay both and Salamat to Judith I saw her yes I saw her name Judith Dick also had a Salamat documentation thanks she's also an alha yes thank you thank you all and have a good evening goodbye bye everybody