Moroccan Prime Minister Abelilah Benkirane will be the honored guest of the Second Annual Conference of Arab Research Centers hosted by the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies in Doha, December 7-9, and addressing “the Palestinian Cause and the Future of the Palestinian National Movement,” and President of the Tunisian Constituent Assembly Mustapha Bin Jafar will contribute to the conference proceedings in presenting “The Palestinian Issue in Light of Regional and International Developments” as part of a political symposium during the conference.

ACRPS is welcoming the participation of many prominent political figures and parliamentarians from diverse Arab states, as well as public personalities and diplomats, in the conference plenaries, expert panels and discussion groups, and many media networks and journalists will also be taking part in the conference, to renew discussion of the Palestinian issue at a time when the world is witnessing a decline in interest in the Palestinian cause as a topic for research and media coverage.

In addition to the academic presentations, the conference features a number of political symposia: prior to the official opening of the conference there will be a political symposium on Saturday December 6th led by the PLO’s Central Committee member and Chief Negotiator Saeb Erakat, on the topic “The Negotiations: The Options and the Future”, and Hamas’s head of International Relations Osama Hamdan will speak on “The Resistance: The Options and the Future”.

Following the official opening of the conference, there will be a political symposium to look at the many dimensions of the Palestinian cause from a variety of perspectives. President of the Constituent Assembly of Tunisia Mustapha Ben Jafar addresses “The Arab Spring and the Palestinian Cause”; Richard Falk, the UN Special Representative on Human Rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, will speak on “The Palestinian Future: The Impact of Law and Diplomacy”; Indian political observer Aijaz Ahmed will examine the Palestinian nationhood project in the current world context from an Indian perspective; and former Jordanian Prime Minister Taher al-Masri will speak on “Arab Dimensions of the Palestinian Issue”.

Participating in the conference’s academic sessions, in addition to specialists on the Palestinian issue, are researchers from among youth, activist, and solidarity movements worldwide. There will be parliamentarians from Yemen, Morocco and Sudan, and Palestinian icons and public figures from diverse civil society groups and political factions.

The conference proceedings continue over three days until Monday, December 9, rendering this conference the most extensive academic and political gathering addressing the Palestinian issue convened in recent years.  It promises to be a unique space for discussion and exploration of an issue that has been distanced from academic, current affairs and media analysis by recent Arab and regional events.