Portland State University’s Middle East Studies Center and Palestine
Lebanon Emergency Action (PLEA) announce their Middle East educational
series. To kick off the series, Mercy Corps Director at Large, Dr.
Landrum Bolling and Jeremy Barnicle, Mercy Corps Communications
Director, will speak about the humanitarian crises in Gaza and Lebanon
at Portland State University Wednesday, October 4, Smith Memorial
Student Union, Vanport Room #338, 1825 SW Broadway, 7:30pm. The event is
free.

A 30-minute film by Dr. Bolling, “Searching for Peace in the Middle
East,” will be shown. Jimmy Carter called the film, “a superb
presentation of the intricate relations between Israelis and
Palestinians presented dramatically by people from both sides. Their
combined proposals, clearly presented, comprise the only pathway to
peace with justice in the Holy Land.”

Dr. Landrum Bolling has served as a senior advisor to Mercy Corps for
much of the organization’s history. He was for more than three years
Mercy Corps’ senior representative in the Balkans, stationed in
Sarajevo. Dr. Bolling now works out of the agency’s Washington, DC
office as a senior advisor on matters of policy and program development.
He also serves as President of Pax World Service, an affiliate of Mercy
Corps that promotes citizen diplomacy.

Over the past 35 years, Dr. Bolling was drawn repeatedly in the study of
the Arab-Israeli conflict and became personally acquainted with a number
of the leading political personages on both sides. Beginning in the
administration of President Jimmy Carter, when direct official
communication between Washington and the PLO was forbidden, he was one
of the informal, “nonofficial” links entrusted with delivering messages
between the White House and the State Department and top Palestinian
leaders.

Jeremy Barnicle recently returned from the region and will present a
first hand update of the humanitarian situation and Mercy Corps’
response to it. Mr. Barnicle has spent more than a decade working in
politics, media, and international affairs.

In the United States, Mr. Barnicle managed a successful U.S. House
campaign, worked as a legislative aide on Capitol Hill, consulted
private and public sector clients on media and political issues, and
wrote for the Associated Press. Outside the U.S., Barnicle was seconded
by the State Department as a spokesperson to the Organization for
Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Mission to Bosnia, worked as a
consultant to the UN Assistance Mission to Afghanistan in Kabul, advised
the Sierra Leone Truth and Reconciliation Commission on media strategy,
and served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Hungary.

His commentary on international affairs has appeared in the New York
Times, International Herald-Tribune, the Christian Science Monitor and
many other publications. Barnicle earned a BA in public policy at
Vanderbilt University and a master of public affairs at the Woodrow
Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton
University.

Mercy Corps works amid disasters, conflicts, chronic poverty and
instability to unleash the potential of people who can win against
impossible odds. Since 1979, Mercy Corps has provided $1 billion in
assistance to people in 82 nations. Supported by headquarters offices in
North America, Europe, and Asia, the agency’s unified global programs
employ 3,200 staff worldwide and reach nearly 10 million people in more
than 40 countries. Over the last five years, more than 90 percent of the
agency’s resources have been allocated directly to programs that help
people in need. For more information, visit www.mercycorps.org
.

This event is co-sponsored by the Middle East Studies Department at
Portland State University, World Affairs Council or Oregon, and
Palestine Lebanon Emergency Action (PLEA), an alliance of local human
rights groups, faith organizations and individuals with family ties to
the regions of Lebanon and Gaza which formed in response to the invasion
of Lebanon.