Palestinian Cities and Civic Culture

On Saturday 20 October at 7:30 PM, AICafe invite you to attend a presentation about PALESTINIAN CITIES AND CIVIC CULTURE: Civic Siege and Absence of City with Bilal A.A. Salameh, an instructor at Bethlehem University, Social Science Department. This presentation will tackle issues in the Palestinian context, with regard the significance of the city as incubator of civic culture and its style of life. Salameh will talk about the historical, sociological and political experiences Palestinian Society has undergone over a period of 62 years. His focus will be on spatial demolition policies adopted by the Israeli Occupation, including the Judization of Palestinian cities such as Jerusalem and Hebron, policies with the specific aim of emptying selected cities of their Palestinian residents. These colonialist politics, as expressed through policies of siege, year long curfews, confiscation of some Palestinian houses, schools, loans, the closure of the central market adjacent to the Abraham Mosque, and the general state of isolating cities through the deprivation of Palestinian\'s minimum civil, political, cultural and national rights, in combination with obstructions Palestinians face from having any development and expansion of central cities, prevent Palestinians from undergoing any sort of cultural and social integration. The resulting situation is that which creates local loyalties, conservative and traditional trends within Palestinian cities that contradict with the civic model. This can be seen in the way Israeli polices are applied to Hebron city, a city experiencing a clear conflict of identity between Israelis and Palestinians. Please join for this informative evening! The AIC is a joint Palestinian-Israeli activist organization engaged in dissemination of information, political advocacy and grassroots activism. The AICafè is a political and cultural café open on Tuesday and Saturday night from 7pm until 10pm. It is located in the Alternative Information Center in Beit Sahour, close to Suq Sha\'ab (follow the sign to Jadal Center ). We have a small library with novels, political books and magazines. We also have a number of films in DVD copies and AIC publications which critically analyze both the Palestinian and Israeli societies as well as the conflict itself.