The governments of France, Spain, and Germany have ramped up efforts to repress Palestine solidarity activism. Palestinians and their allies in these countries are facing more legal measures to criminalize their rights to boycott and critique the Israeli regime than ever before. How does each context differ? What is at stake for Palestinians and their allies in each country? What has been done and what needs to be done to counter these troubling developments?
Abir Kopty and Nadia Silhi Chahin join host Nadim Bawalsa in conversation to answer these questions and more.
Nadim Bawalsa is Associate Editor with the Journal of Palestine Studies. From 2020-2023, Nadim served as Al-Shabaka’s commissioning editor. He is a historian of modern Palestine, and author of Transnational Palestine: Migration and the Right of Return before 1948 (Stanford University Press, 2022). His other work has appeared in the Jerusalem Quarterly, the Journal of Palestine Studies, NACLA Report on the Americas, and as well as in edited volumes. He earned a joint doctorate in History and Middle Eastern & Islamic Studies from New York University in 2017, and a Master’s in Arab Studies from Georgetown University’s Center for Contemporary Arab Studies in 2010. In 2019-2020, he was awarded a PARC-NEH fellowship in Palestine.
Abir Kopty is Deputy Director of Communication at the European Legal Support Center (ELSC), based in Berlin. She holds an MA in Political Communication from City University London and a PhD in Communication and Media Studies from the Freie Universität Berlin. She has worked as a communication officer and spokesperson for Palestinian human rights and media organizations in Haifa and Ramallah, and her political analysis and reporting have appeared in Middle East Eye, TRT, Mondoweiss, and The Nation.
