We present the first of our monthly ICDI Dialogues podcast series that accompanies ICDI’s monthly newsletter Diplomacy Now. This episode, What’s Next for Gaza? features Raji Sourani, a Gazan lawyer and Director of the Palestinian Center for Human Rights and Palestinian, and Zaha Hassan, a human rights lawyer and fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
In this hour-long episode we discuss plans for ‘the day after’ in Gaza that have been initiated by think tanks in Washington and Tel Aviv, at the exclusion of Palestinians. We also discuss the Arab plan for the reconstruction of Gaza, how a national dialogue should be structured and organized and what must be done differently, moving forward.
Sadly, not long after the podcast was recorded, Israel decided to resume war and the day after still appears far from sight. While the end to the conflict and the senseless bloodshed has to take priority, we must also continue these discussions to ensure that Palestinians are at the helm of their future when the conflict ends, as our guest Zaha Hassan wrote earlier in her piece ‘Beyond ‘Bomb, Rebuild and Repeat’ in Gaza’ that featured in Edition 17 of Diplomacy Now, titled A Day After for Gaza?
As with every edition of Diplomacy Now, the views expressed by the guests appearing on ICDI Dialogues are not necessarily our own. However, ICDI remains committed to the ethos and philosophy that open debate, dialogue, diplomacy, and mediation, rather than armed conflict and war, offer the way forward to resolving any conflict.
Guest Bios
Raji Sourani
Raji Sourani is a veteran human rights lawyer and the Director of the Palestinian Center for Human Rights, an organization based in Gaza City that he founded in 1995, to document human rights abuses committed by the Israeli military in the Gaza Strip and the Occupied Palestinian Territories. A native Gazan, Raji has defended Palestinians in Israeli courts, and has been imprisoned six times by Israel and the Palestinian Authority for his human rights work.
Zaha Hassan
Zaha Hassan is a human rights lawyer and a fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Her research focus is on Palestine-Israel peace, the use of international legal mechanisms by political movements, and U.S. foreign policy in the region. Previously, she was the coordinator and senior legal advisor to the Palestinian negotiating team during Palestine’s bid for UN membership and was a member of the Palestinian delegation to Quartet-sponsored exploratory talks between 2011 and 2012.
