Khalil Jahshan has been serving as Executive Director of Arab Center Washington DC (ACW) since its inception in 2014. Between 2004 and 2013, Jahshan was a lecturer in International Studies and Languages at Pepperdine University and Executive Director of Pepperdine’s Seaver College Washington DC Internship Program. Previously, Jahshan served as Exec…

Internationally acclaimed author and media critic Dr. Jack G. Shaheen is a committed internationalist and a devoted humanist. His lectures and writings illustrate that damaging racial and ethnic stereotypes of Arabs, blacks, and others injure innocent people. He defines crude caricatures, explains why they persist, and provides workable solutions t…

Tom Hayes, Lecturer in the Film Division at Ohio University, originally hails from Vermont. At the age of 15 he won the Kentucky Educational Television Young Peoples Film Competition. He worked his way through film school in the 70’s crewing on cargo ships, and working as a drive-in projectionist. Working as media freelance on commercial production…

Jim Moran is a former U.S. Representative for Virginia's 8th congressional district in Northern Virginia, including the cities of Falls Church and Alexandria, all of Arlington County, and a portion of Fairfax County. Moran served from 1991 to 2015, and is a member of the Democratic Party. While in congress, Moran was a staunch critic of moving the …

Maria LaHood is a Deputy Legal Director at the Center for Constitutional Rights, with expertise in constitutional rights and international human rights. She works to defend the constitutional rights of Palestinian human rights advocates in the United States in cases such as Davis v. Cox, defending Olympia Food Co-op board members for boycotting Isr…

Grant Smith is the director of the Washington, DC-based Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy (IRmep). He is the author of the 2016 book Big Israel: How Israel’s Lobby Moves America about the history, functions and activities of Israel affinity organizations in America. Smith has written two unofficial histories about the American Israel Pu…

Catherine Jordan is the award-winning producer and co-editor of Valentino’s Ghost: Why We Hate Arabs. A journalist for 14 years, she spent five years working with director Michael Singh to shape the film’s structure, narrative and aesthetics, as well as researching the storylines and current events which form the narrative thread for their document…

Philip Weiss is an American journalist who co-edits Mondoweiss, a news website devoted to covering American foreign policy in the Middle East, chiefly from a progressive Jewish perspective. Weiss has written for the New York Times Magazine, Harper's Magazine, Esquire, and the New York Observer. In 2006 he began writing a daily blog called Mondoweis…

Rula Jebreal is an award-winning journalist, author, and foreign policy analyst. Her first novel, Miral, sold two million copies and was made into a major motion picture. She frequently appears on CNN, HBO and Bloomberg News, and has contributed op-eds to The New York Times, The Washington Post, Foreign Policy, The Guardian, Newsweek, The Nation, a…

Huwaida Arraf is a Palestinian-American lawyer and human rights advocate. As the daughter of an Israeli-born Palestinian, she is also a citizen of Israel. Arraf received her Bachelor's degree from the University of Michigan, and her Juris Doctor from the American University Washington College of Law, where she focused on international human rights …

Susan Abulhawa is a Palestinian novelist, poet, and essayist. Her debut novel, Mornings in Jenin (Bloomsbury, 2010), became an instant international bestseller and was translated into 27 languages. Her most recent novel, The Blue Between Sky and Water (Bloomsbury, 2015), has likewise been translated into 26 languages thus far. Abulhawa’s first poet…

Maria LaHood is a Deputy Legal Director at the Center for Constitutional Rights, with expertise in constitutional rights and international human rights. She works to defend the constitutional rights of Palestinian human rights advocates in the United States in cases such as Davis v. Cox, defending Olympia Food Co-op board members for boycotting Isr…

Tareq Radi is a Palestinian-American organizer based in Washington, DC. He is currently the Public Affairs Coordinator at Georgetown University’s Center for Contemporary Arab Studies. Under the umbrella of the Arab Studies Institute, Radi is leading an initiative to mine historical and contemporary documents related to the Palestinian solidarity mo…

The following is a presentation made at the 2016 Israel Lobby Con held at the National Press Club. Justin Raimondo is an American author and the editorial director of Antiwar.com. In addition to his thrice-weekly column for Antiwar.com, Raimondo is a regular contributor to The American Conservative and Chronicles magazines. Raimondo's books include…

The following is a presentation made at the 2016 Israel Lobby Con held at the National Press Club. Jim Lobe served as the chief of the Washington bureau of Inter Press Service (IPS) from 1980 to 1985 and again from 1989 until 2015. He has managed and produced LobeLog, a blog focused primarily on U.S. policy toward the Middle East, since 2007. LobeL…

The following is a presentation made at the 2016 Israel Lobby Con held at the National Press Club. Col. Lawrence Wilkerson's last positions in government were as Secretary of State Colin Powell's Chief of Staff (2002-05), Associate Director of the State Department's Policy Planning staff under the directorship of Ambassador Richard N. Haass, and me…

The following is a presentation made at the 2016 Israel Lobby Con held at the National Press Club. Kirk James Beattie is the author of Congress and the Shaping of the Middle East as well as two books on Egyptian politics: Egypt During the Nasser Years and Egypt During the Sadat Years. Beattie is a professor at Simmons College in the Political Scien…

The following is a presentation made at the 2016 Israel Lobby Con held at the National Press Club. Roger J. Mattson is the author of the recently published book Stealing the Atom Bomb: How Denial and Deception Armed Israel. Dr. Mattson has experience in engineering and management with Sandia National Laboratory, the Atomic Energy Commission, the Nu…

The following is a presentation made at the 2016 Israel Lobby Con held at the National Press Club. Grant F. Smith is the author of Big Israel: How Israel's Lobby Moves America, his eighth book about the Israel lobby. Smith is the director of the Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy (IRmep), a nonprofit organization that studies U.S. Middle…

The following is a presentation made at the 2015 Israel Lobby Con held at the National Press Club. Reza Marashi joined the National Iranian American Council (NIAC) in 2010 as the organization’s first research director. He came to NIAC after four years in the State Department’s Office of Iranian Affairs. Prior to his tenure at the State Department, …

The following is a presentation made at the 2015 Israel Lobby Con held at the National Press Club. Gareth Porter is an investigative journalist and historian who specializes in U.S. foreign and military policy. He has written five books, including Perils of Dominance, Imbalance of Power and The Road to War in Vietnam. His most recent book is Manufa…

The following is a presentation made at the 2015 Israel Lobby Con held at the National Press Club. Paul Findley served the 20th District of Illinois during 11 terms in Congress, from 1961 to 1983. Findley wrote the very first book to analyze the pervasive influence of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) on U.S. politics, policy, an…

The following is a presentation made at the 2015 Israel Lobby Con held at the National Press Club. Dr. Paul Pillar is a Nonresident Senior Fellow of the Center for Security Studies in the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. He also is a Nonresident Senior Fellow in Foreign Policy at the Brookings Institution and an A…

The following is a presentation made at the 2015 Israel Lobby Con held at the National Press Club. Former Congressman Nick Joe Rahall II, a grandson of Lebanese immigrants, represented West Virginia in the U.S. Congress from 1977 to 2015. When he was elected, the 27-year-old became the youngest member of Congress. Rahall was one of only 8 House mem…

The following is a presentation made at the 2015 Israel Lobby Con held at the National Press Club. M.J. Rosenberg is a writer, primarily on matters relating to Israel. He is a regular contributor to The Nation and Huffington Post, with his writing widely reprinted throughout the world. He has special expertise on the Israel Lobby, having been emplo…

The following is a presentation made at the 2015 Israel Lobby Con held at the National Press Club. Gideon Levy is a columnist for the Israeli daily Haaretz and a member of its editorial board. Levy joined Haaretz in 1982, and spent four years as the newspaper’s deputy editor. He is the author of the weekly Twilight Zone feature, which covers the Is…

The following is a presentation made at the 2015 Israel Lobby Con held at the National Press Club. Miko Peled is an Israeli writer and activist living in the U.S. He was born and raised in Jerusalem. Driven by a personal family tragedy to explore Palestine, its people and their narrative, he has written a book about his journey called The General’s…

The following is a presentation made at the 2015 Israel Lobby Con held at the National Press Club. Ahmad Saadaldin is a filmmaker/producer, creative writer, actor, and grassroots organizer. He is dedicated to sharing untold stories in order to raise awareness and create positive change. Through grassroots organizing and filmmaking, he does his best…

The following is a presentation made at the 2015 Israel Lobby Con held at the National Press Club. Dima Khalidi is the founder and Director of Palestine Solidarity Legal Support (PSLS), and Cooperating Counsel with the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR). Her work includes providing legal advice to activists, engaging in advocacy to protect thei…

The following is a presentation made at the 2015 Israel Lobby Con held at the National Press Club. Amani Alkhatahtbeh is the founding editor-in-chief of MuslimGirl.net, a blog aimed at eliminating stereotypes surrounding Islam and promoting the place of Muslim women in Western societies. Alkhatahtbeh’s dedication to building bridges across differen…

The following is a presentation made at the 2015 Israel Lobby Con held at the National Press Club. Internationally acclaimed author and media critic Dr. Jack G. Shaheen was a committed internationalist and a devoted humanist. His lectures and writings illustrate that damaging racial and ethnic stereotypes of Arabs, blacks, and others injure innocen…

Since 2015 the annual IsraelLobbyCon conference series at the National Press Club explores the latest research, innovations and tactics for countering the Israel lobby’s damaging policies in the U.S. and around the globe. Alice Rothchild is a Boston-based physician, author and filmmaker who since 1997 has focused on human rights and social justice …

The following is a presentation made at the 2015 Israel Lobby Con held at the National Press Club. Jeffrey Blankfort is a photojournalist and radio host. His articles have appeared in CounterPunch, Dissident Voice, Mondoweiss, Pulse Media, Left Curve, the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs and the Encyclopedia of the Israeli-Palestinian Confl…

The following is a presentation made at the 2015 Israel Lobby Con held at the National Press Club. Seth Morrison has held leadership posts in various local, regional and national Jewish organizations, starting in college as a youth leader in Young Judea. He is currently active in Jewish Voice for Peace, serving on the DC Metro Chapter Steering Comm…

The following is a presentation made at the 2015 Israel Lobby Con held at the National Press Club. Grant F. Smith is the director of the Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy (IRmep) in Washington, DC. He is the author of two unofficial histories about the American Israel Public Affairs Committee–America’s Defense Line: The Justice Departme…

The following is a presentation made at the 2022 Transcending the Israel lobby at Home & Abroad conference held on March 4 at the National Press Club. Roger Waters is an English rock musician, singer-songwriter and composer best known for his work with the legendary rock band Pink Floyd. Over the last few years, he has emerged as one of the world’s…

The following is a presentation made at the 2022 Transcending the Israel lobby at Home & Abroad conference held on March 4 at the National Press Club. Sut Jhally is a professor of communication at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and the founder and executive director of the Media Education Foundation. He has won the Distinguished Teacher Aw…

The following is a presentation made at the 2022 Transcending the Israel lobby at Home & Abroad conference held on March 4 at the National Press Club. Radhika Sainath is a senior staff attorney at Palestine Legal. Her writing has appeared in Jacobin, The Nation and Huffington Post. She's working on her first novel, set in Palestine during the Secon…

The following is a presentation made at the 2022 Transcending the Israel lobby at Home & Abroad conference held on March 4 at the National Press Club. John Kiriakou is an author, journalist and former CIA officer specializing in the Middle East. He was the first U.S. government official to confirm in December 2007 that waterboarding and other forms…

The following is a presentation made at the 2022 Transcending the Israel lobby at Home & Abroad conference held on March 4 at the National Press Club. Gideon Levy is a columnist for the Israeli daily Haaretz, which he joined in 1982. He spent four years as the newspaper’s deputy editor and is currently a member of its editorial board. He is widely …

The following is a presentation made at the 2022 Transcending the Israel lobby at Home & Abroad conference held on March 4 at the National Press Club. Rev. Dr. Don Wagner recently retired as national program director of Friends of Sabeel-North America. Prior to that he was a professor of Middle East studies at North Park University, where he was al…

The following is a presentation made at the 2022 Transcending the Israel lobby at Home & Abroad conference held on March 4 at the National Press Club. Longtime Palestinian human rights activist and civil rights attorney Huwaida Arraf explains why she is running for the U.S. Congress. Since 2015 the annual IsraelLobbyCon conference series at the Nat…

The following is a presentation made at the 2022 Transcending the Israel lobby at Home & Abroad conference held on March 4 at the National Press Club. Edward Ahmed Mitchell is an attorney and former journalist who serves as the deputy director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organiza…

The following is a presentation made at the 2022 Transcending the Israel lobby at Home & Abroad conference held on March 4 at the National Press Club. Jeanne Trabulsi, coordinator of the Virginia Coalition for Human Rights "eject Energix" committee explains why Energix Renewable Energies Ltd. was listed on the UNHCR list of human rights violators i…

The following is a presentation made at the 2022 Transcending the Israel lobby at Home & Abroad conference held on March 4 at the National Press Club. Jeanne Trabulsi, coordinator of the Virginia Coalition for Human Rights education committee, reveals how Israeli affinity organizations insert Israeli propaganda into textbooks behind the scenes. She…

The following is a presentation made at the 2022 Transcending the Israel lobby at Home & Abroad conference held on March 4 at the National Press Club. Paul Noursi, co-President of the Virginia Coalition for Human Rights, discusses the recent win against anti-BDS legislation in the commonwealth of Virginia. Since 2015 the annual IsraelLobbyCon confe…

The following is a presentation made at the 2022 Transcending the Israel lobby at Home & Abroad conference held on March 4 at the National Press Club. Since 2015 the annual IsraelLobbyCon conference series at the National Press Club explores the latest research, innovations and tactics for countering the Israel lobby’s damaging policies in the U.S.…

The following is a presentation made at the 2022 Transcending the Israel lobby at Home & Abroad conference held on March 4 at the National Press Club Since 2015 the annual IsraelLobbyCon conference series at the National Press Club explores the latest research, innovations and tactics for countering the Israel lobby’s damaging policies in the U.S. …

The distinguished historian and WRMEA columnist Dr. Walter L. Hixson discussed the unique and distinctive aspects of the US-Israel "special relationship." What assumptions underpinning the “special relationship” traditionally fit neatly into America's own history and national identity, such as "manifest destiny," "chosen" peoplehood, vanquishing th…

Expert analysis of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee's (AIPAC) interaction with political action committees (PACs). We also explored what factors may be driving AIPAC to be more interested in tightly coordinating campaign spending. We also discussed what impact this may have on Americans and took questions from participants. Janet McMaho…