"We need to talk about Israel/Palestine"

Overview

The Woolf Institute will be delighted to welcome Baroness Sayeeda Warsi, former Conservative Cabinet Minister and presently a member of the House of Lords and Jonathan Freedland, Guardian columnist and regular contributor to the New York Review of Books. They will engage in a dialogue on "We need to talk about Israel/Palestine". The event will be chaired by Dr Ed Kessler.

The event will take place between 6-7:30pm in the K C Shasha Suite at the Woolf Institute, followed by a drinks reception.

A lawyer, a businesswoman, a campaigner and a politician, Sayeeda Warsi has had many roles, but she is best known for being Britain's first Muslim Cabinet Minister. In August 2014, she resigned from Government citing the Government's "morally indefensible" policy on Gaza. In 2007, she was elevated to the House of Lords aged 36, making her the youngest peer in Parliament. Later that year she travelled to Sudan and famously helped to secure the release of the British teacher Gillian Gibbons who was on trial for blasphemy.

From 2007 to 2010, she served in the Shadow Cabinet as Minister for Community Cohesion and Social Action. In 2010, she was appointed by Prime Minister David Cameron as Minister without Portfolio and Co-Chairman of the Conservative Party. In Government she led the largest ministerial delegation to the Vatican, famously declared that Islamophobia had "passed the dinner table test" and established the Remembering Srebrenica programme.

Sayeeda is Chair of the Baroness Warsi Foundation and a Trustee of the Savayra Foundation. She is Pro Vice Chancellor at the University of Bolton, an Advisor to Georgetown University Washington DC and Visiting Professor at St Marys – the oldest Catholic university in the UK.

Baroness Warsi has consistently been voted one of the 500 Most Influential Muslims in the world. In 2017, her first book, The Enemy Within: A Tale of Muslim Britain, billed as "a vital book at a critical time", was released.

Jonathan Freedland is a Guardian columnist. He is also a regular contributor to the New York Review of Books and presents BBC Radio 4's The Long View. In 2014 he was awarded the Orwell special prize for journalism. His books include seven thrillers written under the pseudonym Sam Bourne.

How to book

Book your ticket on Eventbrite. If you had a booking for the original date in October, please book again.

For further information, contact tm498@cam.ac.uk.

.