This House believes it is time for the Arab League to disband
Tuesday April 25 2006
MOTION PASSED
by 60% to 40%
Speakers
Shafeeq Ghabra
Speaking for the motionDr. Shafeeq Ghabra is a Professor of Political Science and the founding President of the American University of Kuwait. His previous positions include director of the Center of Strategic and Future Studies at Kuwait University, which he held from September 2002 to January 2003, and Director of the Kuwait Information office in Washington DC from 1998 to 2002.
Dr. Ghabra writes weekly columns on political affairs for Kuwait's daily Al Ra'y Al A'am, Lebanon's daily al Balad, and is a frequent writer to Alhayat Daily and the Daily Star. A veteran of the public affairs arena, Dr. Ghabra has participated in interviews and debates on American, European, Kuwaiti and other Arab television and radio broadcast programs. Dr. Ghabra is a frequent lecturer on topics including, Islam and the West, liberalism, Kuwait, Iraq, Arabian Gulf security and political issues, democratization in the Arab world, the Middle East peace process, Islamic affairs and Arab-Western relations. He is a long-time advocate of democratic reform in the Middle East.
Author of four books and scores of articles and papers, Dr. Ghabra has received Kuwait's highest award for scientific research in the Humanities and Social Sciences from the Kuwait Foundation for the Advancement of Sciences, chaired by the Emir of Kuwait Sheikh Jaber Al Ahmed Al Sabah. He has just started a company dedicated to leadership and communication in public and private institutions in the region.
Hesham Youssef
Speaking against the motionHesham Youssef is currently the Chief of the Cabinet for the Secretary General of the Arab League, Amre Moussa. Mr. Youssef is a career diplomat who joined the Arab League as their official spokesman in 2001.
Prior to joining the Arab League, he worked for Egypt's Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He joined the Ministry in 1985 and his postings included the Egyptian Embassy in Canada and the Egyptian mission in Geneva focusing mainly on trade issues in the World Trade Organization.
Mr. Youssef graduated with a Bachelor's degree in Physics from Cairo University in 1980. He was a teacher at Cairo University for several years. He then received a Master's degree in Philosophy from the US and another Master's degree in Economics from the American University in Cairo.
Chibli Mallat
Speaking for the motionChibli Mallat is a presidential candidate in Lebanon, an academic and lawyer. He is the EU Jean Monnet Professor of Law at Saint Joseph's University in Lebanon, Senior Fellow at Yale law school in the US, and Principal at Mallat Law Offices in Beirut. He was an active member in the Cedar Revolution, both in street participation and at the leadership level, and an active supporter of voting rights for Lebanese abroad in 2005. He spearheaded the constitutional opposition to 'exceptional' appointment and extension of President Emile Lahoud's mandate in 1998 and 2004.
As a human rights advocate, Chibli Mallat co-founded and coordinated organizations for democracy and judicial accountability in mass crimes in Iraq, and conducted judicial action leading to the indictment of Libyan leader, Muammar Qaddafi, for the disappearance of Imam Musa Sadr in Libya. He was a lead counsel in a case against Ariel Sharon in Belgium in 2001. The case was brought by survivors of the 1982 massacre of Palestinians at the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in Lebanon. The Belgian Supreme Court decided in their favour, but the case was stopped by retroactive legislation in 2003.
Chibli Mallat served as the Director of the Centre of Islamic and Middle Eastern Law at the University of London. He is the author or editor of some twenty books and is active on a number of international boards for human rights.
Azmi Bishara
Speaking against the motionDr. Azmi Bishara is an Israeli-Arab politician and elected member of Israel's Parliament, the Knesset. He has been active in politics since he was in high school, when he established the National Committee of Arab High School Students.
Dr. Bishara was elected to the Knesset in 1996 and three years later, he became the first Arab Israeli to run for election as prime minister. But he withdrew on the eve of the election. He is a founding member of the Arab party, the National Democratic Alliance or Balad (Homeland).
A controversial public appearance in 2002 with the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah and Palestinian radical leaders in Syria prompted an electoral ban on both him and his party. The ban was later overturned.
Dr. Bishara is a political scientist and worked at the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute and Bir Zeit University. He is a strong supporter of the concept of turning Israel into a state of all its citizens. He was one of the founders of Muwatin, the Palestinian Institute for the Study of Democracy, and of the Society for Arab Culture.
He has published writings in Arabic, English, German and Hebrew on the issues of democracy and civil society, national minority rights in Israel, Islam and democracy, and the Palestinian question both in Israel and outside of it.
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