Ahmed Abu Artema / Bassel Abou Nadi - play debate
Two guests will present themselves in the following debate on the Gaza Strip, the Israeli blockade and non-violent Palestinian resistence:
Ahmed Abu Artema is Palestinian poet, journalist, peace activist who inspired the Great March of Return. He helped organize it as a cry for help against Israeli more than decade-long land, sea and air blockade of the Gaza Strip, upon which it has waged three wars. Ahmed Abu Artema believes in civil nonviolent struggle to achieve justice, freedom, and equality and wanted the movement to follow the examples of Martin Luther King Jr. and Mahatma Gandhi. Ahmed’s family was expelled from their home in the Ramle district in 1948, and he was born in 1984 in Rafah, Gaza, where he now lives with his wife and four children. As an independent journalist in Gaza, he has written for dozens of publications (and in English in several U.S. publications The New York Times, the Nation, and the Journal of Palestine Studies) and authored a book in Arabic called “Organized Chaos.” He has also contributed to several documentaries, including the Al Jazeera film “Which Rafah Are You From?” about the tragic separation of Rafah following the Camp David Accords and its impact of displacing thousands of families, including his own. In 2018 he was featured in a documentary film by Karim Shah produced by Al Jazeera news network, “Gaza: Between Fire and Sea.”