Lulu Hammad • Estee Chandler • Omar Zaza

Sunday, October 13, 12:40 p.m.

The panel will focus on the founding of Israel as a settler colonial movement and the ensuing and ongoing ethnic cleansing; the development and entrenchment of the Israeli Apartheid system. It will address the following issues:

• Why the political Zionist movement chose Palestine?
• The decision, carrying out and continuing ethnic cleansing of Palestine
• Separate and Unequal: The Development of the Israeli Apartheid System

Lulu Hammad, is a Palestinian American human rights activist. She’s the co-leader of Indivisible OC48 and the cofounder of Adalah-NY: The Campaign to Boycott Israel. Lubna is based in Orange County and focuses her work on the intersectionality of the struggles against racism in the US.

Estee Chandler is a member of the Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) Board of Directors. In 2010 she founded the Los Angeles chapter of JVP, a national organization promoting solutions based on human rights and international law for both Palestinians and Jewish Israelis that works in broad coalition with other like-minded organizations. Along with Nagwa Ibrahim, Estee hosts and produces KPFK’s long running radio show, Middle East in Focus.

Omar Zaza

Rich Chertoff •Dennis Kortheuer • Dick Platkin

Sunday, October 13, 11 a.m.

Los Angeles peace and justice activists talk about the books that have most informed their education on the subject of Palestine-Israel history and struggle for justice and peace.

Rick Chertoff is a Los Angeles born community activist in Jewish communal affairs including advocating equal rights in Palestine/israel. He was Executive Director of Jewish Labor Committee in L.A. out of the Jewish Federation; a former member of Women In Black; a former founding member and Co-Chair of L.A. Jews for Peace. He has contributed interviews on CNN, on KPCC, KCRW, on numerous KPFK programs, and been written about in the L.A. Weekly and Los Angeles Times. He initiated a course in the Israel-Palestine Conflict at UCLA Labor Studies Center that brought in both Israeli and Palestinian scholars. He also served on the Coordinating Committee for Jewish Voice for Peace and is currently an active Chapter member. 

Dennis Kortheuer is a retired actor and Lecturer in Latin American History at Cal State Long Beach. He is a co-founder of People for Palestinian – Israeli Justice, a founding member of USACBI, the US Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel, and a founding member of California Scholars for Academic Freedom where he serves on the Executive Committee. He has also severed on the Coordinating Committee of Jewish Voice for Peace – Los Angeles. 

Dick Platkin has been involved with Middle East peace groups since the early 1970s, most recently LA Jews for Peace and the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions-USA. He is a retired city planner with 30 plus years of experience working in the public sector (Seattle and Los Angeles), as well as the private and nonprofit sectors in Los Angeles.Since retiring from the LA City Planning Department, he has taught planning classes at the University of Southern California and California State University-Northridge, consulted to many community groups in Los Angeles, and joined the boards of United Neighborhoods for Los Angeles (UN4LA) and the Planners Network. He also writes a weekly column on planning issues in Los Angeles for City Watch LA and has edited two special issues of Progressive Planning, the journal of the Planners Network.