By World BEYOND War, May 9, 2026
This webinar examines the problem of drone warfare and possible solutions. A panel of speakers is followed by Q&A.
Sponsored by
- Global Solidarity for Peace in Palestine
- International Fellowship of Reconciliation
- International Peace Bureau
- Pax Christi International
- Veterans For Peace
- Weaponized Drone Ban Treaty Campaign
- World BEYOND War
Speakers include:
- Sean Conner, International Peace Bureau (IPB)
Sean Conner was appointed Executive Director of IPB in October 2022. He holds a Bachelors in Intercultural and Critical Communication Studies from the State University of New York at Geneseo and a Masters in Intercultural Conflict Management from the Alice Salomon Hochschule. Prior to joining the IPB team in Berlin he worked for the Centre for Cross-Cultural Study (CC-CS) in the USA and in community development with the non-profit Enlace Project in Nicaragua. Sean brings his range of experiences to his peace work and activism, where he highlights the importance of intersectional coalition building, intercultural and international exchange, and a strengthening of civil society.
- Professor Abdelhamid Siyam, Rutgers University Dept. of Middle East Studies,
Palestinian UN Expert
Professor Abdelhamid Siyam is a UN expert and Professor at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Rutgers University. He is a former UN spokesman who served on 6 UN Peacekeeping Missions, and is currently the UN columnist for AlQuds Alarabi pan-Arab newspaper. He is author of four books on the UN’s failure to implement international law in Syria, Libya, the Western Sahara and Yemen.
- Dr. Mawa Abdelbagi Osman Mohamed, research fellow at Goethe University Frankfurt, Pax Christi
International Consultant on Sudan
Mawa Mohamed is a Research Fellow at Goethe University Frankfurt (Institute of Political Science), where she focuses on women’s agency, youth peacebuilding, and social solidarity in Sudan’s ongoing conflict. Her work is grounded in ethnographic research in Darfur, particularly in the Abu-Shouk IDP camp, and draws on African/Black feminist approaches, intersectionality, and critical peace studies.
She has published on women’s leadership and social solidarity and is currently developing a multi-study research project on peacebuilding in conflict settings. She serves as a Coordinating Editor for the Journal of Social Encounters, collaborates with civil society and international networks, and teaches university seminars on gender and conflict.
- Mitchell Plitnick, ReThinking Foreign Policy, Middle East Expert
Mitchell Plitnick, a political analyst and writer, is the president of ReThinking Foreign Policy. He is the author, with Marc Lamont Hill, of Except for Palestine: The Limits of Progressive Politics, published in February 2021 by The New Press. Mitchell’s previous positions include vice president at the Foundation for Middle East Peace, Director of the US Office of B’Tselem: The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, and Co-Director of Jewish Voice for Peace. His writing has appeared in Ha’aretz, the New Republic, Responsible Statecraft, Middle East Eye, The New Arab, Middle East Report, Mondoweiss, the San Francisco Chronicle, +972 Magazine, The Battleground, and other outlets. He has spoken all over the country on Middle East politics, and has regularly offered commentary in a wide range of radio and television outlets including PBS News Hour, Al Jazeera, the O’Reilly Factor, i24 (Israel), Pacifica Radio, CNBC Asia and others.
- Chris Cole, Drone Wars, UK
Chris Cole, 58, is the founder of Drone UK and the author of a number of reports on the use of armed drones. He has submitted evidence to various Parliamentary Committees on the use of drones, including the Defence Select Committee, the Joint Human Rights Committee and the Committee on Arms Export Controls and is regularly invited to speak to conferences, public meetings and the media on drones, targeted killing and remote warfare. He is a trustee of the Trust for Research and Education on Arms Trade (TREAT) and former Vice-Chair of the international Catholic organisation, Pax Christi.
- Kathy Kelly, World BEYOND War, Weaponized Drone Ban Treaty Campaign
Kathy Kelly is board president of World BEYOND War. From 2022 to 2024 she co-coordinated the Merchants of Death War Crimes Tribunal. Since the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, she has co-coordinated an international network to assist young Afghans forced to flee their country. She made over two dozen trips to Afghanistan from 2010 – 2019, living with young Afghan Peace Volunteers in a working-class neighborhood in Kabul.
- Nick Mottern, Veterans For Peace, Weaponized Drone Ban Treaty Campaign
Nick Mottern is Co-coordinator with Kathy Kelly of BanKillerDrones.org and the WeaponizedDrone Ban Treaty Campaign. He was one of principle organizers of the Merchants of Death War Crimes Tribunal, which is calling for the prosecution of Lockheed Martin, Boeing, RTX/Raytheon and killer drone-maker General Atomics accountable for aiding and abetting U.S. war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide and violations of International Human Rights Law that have occurred since 9/11. He has also been a member of the national board of directors of Veterans For Peace (VFP), and in 2025 he received VFP’s Howard Zinn Lifetime Achievement Award. He is a member of Demilitarize Western Massachusetts.
- Susan H. Smith, International Fellowship of Reconciliation (IFOR) Moderator
Susan Smith is director of operations and community engagement of the Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR-USA), and a member of the International Committee of the International Fellowship of Reconciliation (IFOR), for which she serves as a UN representative. In 2024, she helped launch and is on the steering committee of the Global Solidarity for Peace in Palestine network. She is a member of Ban Killer Drones and a liaison for the Weaponized Drone Ban Treaty Campaign.
The post VIDEO: Stop Using Drone Warfare to Perpetrate Genocides in Palestine and Sudan appeared first on World BEYOND War.
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