Good afternoon everyone. I am Nitin Sawhney, a graduate student here at MIT.

I'd like to thank all of you for coming here today. As you all know, the Middle East has been going through much turmoil lately, as the conflict in Israel has deeply escalated over the last few months. There have been ongoing protests, violent clashes and excessive military actions, all causing great loss of human life for both sides - Israelis and Palestinians. However in this instance, the casualties have been overwhelming Palestinian, many of them woman and children.

During this difficult period, many students and groups around Boston and Cambridge have been very active in hosting events to raise awareness about the crisis; lectures like this one, discussions, exhibitions and silent protests all over Boston and Cambridge. These groups include:

• The Boston Coalition for Palestinian Rights
• The Arab Students Organizations (both at MIT and many other schools)
• The Alliance for a Secular and Democratic South Asia
• The Trans-Arab Research Institute, and many others

It is truly remarkable how these individuals and groups have come to work together in solidarity for a shared cause; with people from such diverse backgrounds as Arabs, Jews, Americans and South Asians like myself.

On behalf of these groups, today we are pleased to have Professor Noam Chomsky who has offered to speak on this subject. When I asked Prof. Chomsky for an appropriate title for his lecture, he suggested "The Current Crises in the Middle-East. What can we do about it?"

In a preface to a recent edition of his book "The Fateful Triangle: US, Israel and the Palestinians", Prof. Chomsky once quipped about how whenever he is asked for a lecture title, sometimes several months or even years in advance, he can safely assume a title such as "The current Crisis in the Middle-East", because one can be sure there will always be a Crisis there.

For his talk today though, Prof. Chomsky asked me to make one important distinction - that there is not one, but multiple "crises" in the Middle East today, and much of it, he claims in his writings, can be related to the policy of the United States in the region. The Middle East being the most strategic region for the US today, these policies have a major impact not only on the fate of Israeli's and Palestinians, but also on the stability of the world as a whole, as Prof. Chomsky will remind us in his talk today.

Now this event is a completely student organized activity. To make the event accessible to a broader audience, we have requested MIT to provide AV production, cable broadcasting and webcasting services. To cover these expenses and ensure support for future such events, we are asking individuals to make a personal contribution. So if you like, make a small donation before you leave. All additional funds will be donated towards medical relief to Palestinian hospitals.

Before we introduce Professor Chomsky, I'd like to first ask Leila Farsakh to say a few words about the struggles of the Palestinian people.

Leila is presently a research affiliate at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Harvard University and a fellow at the Trans-Arab Research Institute in Boston. She is a graduate in Development Studies from the University of Cambridge, UK, and has been working for a few years on the Palestinian economy and issues of migration. Over the last few months, Leila has been working closely with the Boston Coalition for Palestinian Rights, helping raise awareness about the Palestinian struggles in the current crisis. In late September of this year, Leila was in the occupied territories in Israel for academic fieldwork, and there she witnessed the beginnings of the current conflict…

Now finally I'd like to ask Abha Sur to introduce Professor Noam Chomsky.

Abha is a lecturer at MIT and coordinates the South Asia Forum in the Science, Technology and Society Program at MIT. Abha is also an active member of the Alliance for Secular and Democratic South Asia, and an articulate voice for justice and human rights in the region. With her active participation, over the last seven years the Alliance has organized many lectures and protests around human rights violations and injustices in South Asia.