University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Office of the Vice Chancellor for Diversity, Equity & Inclusion

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In Dialogue: Yossi Klein Halevi and Mohammad Darawshe on Israel and Palestine

Moderated by Chancellor Robert J. Jones

Tuesday, April 6, 2021 at 12 pm

Please join us for a conversation with Yossi Klein Halevi, New York Times bestselling author of Letters to My Palestinian Neighbor, and Mohammad Darawshe, a leading political analyst who has spent more than three decades advocating for Israel’s Arab sector. They will discuss their evolving views on Israeli-Arab relations and, more generally, how we can engage meaningfully with one another across deeply-held divisions.

Sponsored by the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Diversity, Equity & Inclusion and the Program in Jewish Culture & Society.

Speakers

Speaker Yossi Klein Halevi in a sunny room lined with bookshelves.

Yossi Klein Halevi is a senior fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem. Together with Imam Abdullah Antepli of Duke University, he co-directs the Institute’s Muslim Leadership Initiative (MLI), which teaches emerging young Muslim American leaders about Judaism, Jewish identity and Israel. He is the author of Letters to My Palestinian Neighbor (2018), his attempt to untangle the painful lived experiences and histories that define the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Born in Brooklyn, he moved to Israel in 1982, and lives in Jerusalem with wife, Sarah. They have three children. 

Professional headshot of speaker Mohammad Darawshe.

Mohammad Darawshe is the Director of Planning, Equality and Shared Society at Givat Haviva, Israel’s oldest organization promoting cohesion and understanding between its Jewish and Arab citizens. He has also served as a strategic advisor on initiatives for the Arab sector in the Prime Minister’s office; a Knesset parliamentary assistant; Elections Campaign Manager for the Democratic Arab Party and for the United Arab List; and as an elected member of the town council of his hometown, Iksal, near Nazareth. He lives with his wife and four children in Iksal, and is a Muslim, Palestinian citizen of the State of Israel.