Seminar: Gaza: The Dream and the Nightmare

Speaker: Dr Julie Norman, University College London

Chair: Professor Kieran McEvoy, QUB

This seminar will focus on the themes of the latest book by Dr Julie M. Norman and Maia Carter Hallward, (Polity, 2025) which tells the story of Gaza from its early foundations, across decades of occupation, to the devastation of the ongoing war. Rather than focusing on elites or abstract politics, at the book’s heart are ordinary Gazans -- students, aid workers, journalists, and teachers -- whose first-hand testimonies vividly illuminate the realities behind the headlines.

Refusing to sensationalise or oversimplify, the book reckons with the legal, moral, and humanitarian debates surrounding Gaza, from war crimes investigations to the contested meaning of resistance and the politicization of aid. Combining a nuanced narrative with hard-hitting reflections from everyday Gazans, the book serves as a timely and necessary disruption of media clichés and political binaries, telling the story of Gaza with clarity, compassion, and from the perspective of its own people.

Dr Julie Norman is an Associate Professor in Politics and International Relations at University College London (UCL), the Director of UCL’s Israel-Palestine Initiative, and a Senior Associate Fellow on the Middle East at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI).

She is the author of Gaza: The Dream and the Nightmare (Polity 2025) and many other books and articles on Israel-Palestine, conflict, and resistance, and she is a frequent commentator on the BBC and other media outlets.

Prior to UCL, Julie was a Research Fellow at the Senator George J. Mitchell Institute for Global Peace, Security, and Justice at QUB.

Professor Kieran McEvoy is the Senator George J. Mitchell Chair in Peace, Security and Justice at the Mitchell Institute and a Professor of Law and Transitional Justice. He is currently a Leverhulme Major Research Fellow (September 2023-Sept 2026) working on the role of apologies and acknowledgement in addressing past violence and human rights abuses.

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Host or Publisher The Senator George J. Mitchell Institute for Global Peace, Security and Justice