Journalist Amira Hass, an Israeli Jew who has lived in Palestinian territory for 10 years, arrives on campus tonight to offer her views on reporting the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and recent developments on the region's road to peace.
Hass' vantage point is unique, according to Jennifer Loewenstein, a senior lecturer in the School of Business. Her parents survived the Holocaust and as a result, Hass \saw injustice in multiple places,"" including Israeli treatment of the Palestinains, Loewenstein said.
Hass' journalism is known for its detailed revelations of daily life in the Palestinian Occupied Territories, according to Barbara Olson, a member of the Madison-Rafah Sister City Project who helped organize the event.
""She champions the humanitarian interest of the Palestinians ... because she actually lived among the situation, but most of her writing is very factual,"" Olson said.
Hass began her life among Palestinians in 1993 when she went on assignment for the center-left Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz to cover the status of the Oslo Peace Process in Gaza, Loewenstein said.
Olson explained Hass is coming to Madison on a tour to promote her latest book, ""Reporting from Ramallah,"" which focuses in part on the Israeli decision to construct a physical barrier between parts of the West Bank and Israel.
""She looks upon [the wall] as a serious crime and definitely a form of Apartheid. I would go as far as to say that she probably sees it as a form of ghettoization,"" Loewenstein said.
Hass' speech, at 7:30 p.m. in the Morgridge Auditorium of Grainger Hall, will focus on what Hass calls Israel's ""policy of closure,"" a policy which Loewenstein, Jewish herself, claims encroaches on Palestinian territory and livelihood.
Loewenstein added Hass is interesting because, though she has not visibly impacted the public opinions of Israelis or Palestinians, the Israeli government has regarded her with some hostility.
""[The current Likud government] is a very hardline government, especially with regard to the Palestinians, and Amira Hass has been routinely exposing their crimes and their policies ... for the last decade, and they're going to look upon her as, who knows, a terrorist sympathizer,"" Loewenstein said. ""The fact is, if you're not Jewish and you live in Israel, you're not a first class citizen, and she's very critical of this.""
In addition to her lecture, Hass will sign books today at the Rainbow Bookstore Cooperative, 426 W. Gilman St., between 4 and 5:30 p.m.
