Palestine

Palestinian peace negotiator Hanan Ashrawi (“hahn-NAHN hah-SHROW-ee”). She is a member of the advisory board for the Council on Foreign Relations, the World Bank Middle East and Africa Regions and the UN Research Institute for Social Development. Ashrawi is the author of several publications supporting an independent and self-governing Palestine.

"The Lemon Tree" is a special documentary marking the 50th Anniversary of the State of Israel and the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. It was produced for Fresh Air by Homelands Productions, producers of other public radio documentaries. It is narrated by producer Sandy Tolan and uses excerpts from his conversations with Bashir, a Palestinian man, and Dalia, an Israeli woman, to tell how their 31 year friendship reveals much of the painful history of the last 50 years experienced by both Palestinians and Israelis.

Film critic John Powers reviews three new foreign films: the French film "Nenette et Bonni," the Palestinian film "Chronicle of a Disappearance," and the film from China, "Happy Together" by director Wong Kar Wai.

Award-winning Israeli journalist Danny Rubinstein. He has a new book called The Mystery of Arafat (Steerforth Press) which looks into the image of the P-L-O leader, Yasser Arafat. Rubinstein is a columnist for the Hebrew daily Ha'aretz and has been writing on Palestinian issues since 1967. He is also the author of the book The People of Nowhere. Rubinstein presently lives in Jerusalem where he teaches in the department of Middle East History at Ben-Gurion University.

Merchant Seaman Captain Rudolph Patzert. In 1947 he captained a ship that was part of a clandestine effort by the Jewish underground to smuggle Holocaust survivors into Palestine. Palestine at that time was under British rule, and a British air and sea blockade prevented immigration to the country. Patzert's ship, the Paducah, was a 45 year-old rundown converted gunboat, his crew inexperienced; and they were thwarted every step of the way: British intelligence hounded them, preventing them from refueling and re-watering.

Political writer and correspondent in the Middle East for the New Yorker, Milton Viorst. Terry will talk with him about the massacre last week in the mosque in the West bank, and it's affect on the peace process between Israel and the P.L.O. They'll also discuss his new book "Sandcastles: The Arabs in Search of The Modern World" (Knopf). Called by one commentator "a psychological and social tour of the Arab people and the wondrous cities they live in", "Sandcastles" features VIORST's travels in Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon.

Israeli peace activist and novelist Amos Oz. He lived on a kibbutz for many years and is a veteran of the Six-Day War in 1967 and the Yom Kippur War in 1973. Oz is a leading acivist for peace between the Arabs and the Israelis. His new book is called "Fima" (Harcourt Brace), he has written eleven novels in all. Amos Oz received the German Publishers Peace Prize in 1992.

Columnist Rami Khouri. Khouri, a Palestinian Jordanian, is the former editor-in-chief of the Jordan Times newspaper and is now columnist there.

Biographer Andrew Gowers. He's co-written (with Tony Walker) a new biography of Yasser Arafat, "Behind the Myth: Yasser Arafat and the Palestinian Revolution." (Olive Branch Press). The book explores Arafat's nearly 40 years as a Palestinian activist. Gowers and his co-author spent hundreds of hours interviewing PLO officials, including Arafat, as well as American, Arab and European officials. Gowers is a Features Editor of the Financial Times and was the paper's Middle East Editor. He comments frequently on the Middle East for British radio and TV.

Palestinian-American Naseer Aruri. He's a professor of Political Science at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. He's the author of a number of books, his latest is"Occupation: Israel Over Palestine," in it's second edition (1989), which was selected by Choice magazine as one of the "Outstanding Books for 1984/85." Aruri has written many articles on human rights, the Palestine question, Lebanon, Islam, and U.S. policy in the Middle East in scholarly journals and weekly magazines.

American-Israeli Ze'ev Chafets. He is editor of "The Jerusalem Report," a news magazine published in Israel. He was the director of the government press office under prime minister Menacham Begin. He's also the author of "Inherit the Mob," a comic novel about a journalist lured into the Jewish Mafia, baited by a large inheritance.

Khalidi is currently the senior member of the Jordanian-Palestinian delegation to the Middle East Peace Conference. He's considered one of the most influential thinkers about the Arab-Israeli conflict, and a man who has never shied away from criticizing policies pursued by all parties involved. His latest book is a collection of his essays about the history and politics of the Arab-Israeli conflict, called "Palestine Reborn."

Deputy General Counsel of Israel in New York, Mark Sofer talks with Terry about the possible arrest of Hanan Ashrawi, a spokesperson and advisor for the Palestinian delegation.

Arab scholar Edward Said ("sigh-eed") discusses the recent Middle East peace conference, and the changing leadership of the Palestinian movement. Said is a member of the Palestine National Council (the Palestinian government in exile) and a professor of English at Columbia University.

Terry talks with Roger Fisher, the head of the Harvard Negotiation Project, and author of the bestseller, "Getting To Yes." He'll discuss how to make the Mideast Peace Conference a success.

Editor Ze'ev Chafets (SHAY-fetz) of "The Jerusalem Report," a news magazine published in Israel. He's also the author of "Inherit the Mob," a comic novel about a journalist lured into the Jewish Mafia, baited by a large inheritance. Chafets will talk to Terry about his own life as an American living in Israel and about the upcoming peace talks.

Terry Gross interviews Israeli scholar Mark Heller and Palestinian scholar Sari Nusseibeh ("sorry nah-seb-bay"). The pair spent months debating a way to achieve lasting peace. The plan they came up with is the subject of their new book, "No Trumpets, No Drums: A Two-State Settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict." (It's published by Hill and Wang).

We explore the roots of the Israeli-Arab problem with Charles Smith, a professor of Middle Eastern history at San Diego State University, and the author of "Palestine and the Arab Israeli Conflict."

Terry talks again to some of the our guests from earlier in the Gulf coverage. Two interviews in this segment:

Iraq emigre Laith Kubba, the leader of the London based group, "The Conference on Human Rights and Democracy in Iraq." He talks with Terry about planning for democracy in a post-Saddam era.

Rashid Khalidi is a professor of modern Middle East history at the University of Chicago. He and Terry talk about the proposal for an international peace conference on the Mideast, which includes calls for further negotiations in the Israel-Palestine conflict.