The Stand-Up to AIPAC Forum is one in a series of events to protest the AIPAC National Summit scheduled to take place in Chicago on October 26-27 at the Sheraton Chicago Hotel & Towers. We will also sponsor a rally beginning at 11 AM on October 27 at the Thompson Center at Clark & Randolph, Chicago. At 12 PM following the rally we will march to the site of the AIPAC National Summit.

The American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and related institutions (known as the “Israeli Lobby”) support a dangerous status quo, including support of the over $3 billion a year in U.S. military aid to Israel. We will examine its support for the worst of Israeli policies and for further U.S. military action in Iran.

We are very honored to have James Abourezk, Allison Weir, and Ghada Talhami as speakers for this forum.

James G. Abourezk was born in 1931 on the Rosebud Sioux Indian Reservation in South Dakota, the youngest son of Lebanese immigrant parents. He attended schools in Wood and in Mission, South Dakota , where his parents owned general stores, then enlisted in the U.S. Navy at the age of 17, following his graduation from high school, serving four years during the Korean War period.

He began practicing law in Rapid City , South Dakota , during which time he ran for, and lost a political race for South Dakota Attorney General. In 1970, he ran for South Dakota 's Second District Congressional seat and won, serving one term in Washington, D.C., after which he ran for, and won, Senator Karl Mundt's U.S. Senate seat. He served one term in the U.S. Senate before voluntarily stepping down in 1979.

In the U.S. House of Representatives, Abourezk was a member of the Interior and the Judiciary Committees. In the Senate, Abourezk served on the Energy Committee, the Budget Committee, the Space and Aeronautics Committee, and the Judiciary Committee. He created by legislation--and chaired--the American Indian Policy Review Commission, which was a two year study of American Indian policy that resulted in a series of broad recommendations for change in policy. Creation of a full Senate Indian Affairs Committee was one of the results of the Commission, a committee which Abourezk chaired until he left the Senate.

After leaving the Senate, Abourezk in 1980 organized and chaired the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, a nationwide civil rights organization which worked to end discrimination and racism against people of Arab descent. He served as its chairman for fifteen years, stepping down in 1995.

Abourezk has published two books, Through Different Eyes, which is a debate in print on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, co-authored with Hyman Bookbinder, a former spokesman for the American Jewish Committee; and Advise and Dissent: Memoirs of South Dakota and the U.S. Senate. He has published numerous newspaper opinion pieces and Law Review articles. He was an adjunct professor of International Politics at the American University in Washington , D.C. , and lectures at universities and other public organizations, primarily on the Congress, on the Middle East , and on American Indian Policy.

Alison Weir is the founder of If Americans Knew. She was a journalist off and on for many years. As a freelance journalist, Weir went on an independent investigation to the flashpoints in the West Bank and Gaza rarely visited by American journalists. Since returning she has spoken on Capitol Hill, to business leaders, at prestigious Washington D.C. think tanks, and at a multitude of universities.

Former Congressman Tom Campbell said of Weir: “Ms. Weir presents a powerful, well documented view of the Middle East today. She is intelligent, careful, and critical. American policy makers would benefit greatly from hearing her first-hand observations and attempting to answer the questions she poses.”

A New York Times article about one of her speeches: “When the speech ended, Ms. Weir was met with thunderous applause, and across the room there was a widespread sense of satisfaction that someone was saying what needed to be said.”

Ghada Talhami
D.K. Pearsons Professor of Politics
Lake Forest College

Areas of Expertise
Human Rights, Jerusalem, Palestine, Women

Dr. Talhami is the past editor of Arab Studies Quarterly, and the co-editor of four other publications. She was a Fulbright Scholar to Syria. She has authored more than 50 articles on various subjects as the Jerusalem question, the Palestine issue, Islam, women, Arab nationalism, Zionist history, and Egyptian media. She has authored six books: Palestine in the Egyptian Press, Suakin and Massawa under Egyptian Rule, Palestine and the Egyptian National Identity, The Islamic Mobilization of Women in Egypt, Syria and the Palestinians: The Clash of Nationalisms, and Palestinian Refugees: Pawns to Political Actors. Her latest book, Palestine in the Egyptian Press: From al-Ahram to al-Ahali, will be published by Lexington Books. She has received a Masters degree in US Foreign Policy from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and a Ph.D. in African History from University of Illinois-Chicago.

Chicagoans Against Apartheid in Palestine - CAAP
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