The end of September marks fourteen years without Edward Said, literary theorist and an intellectual of a wide range. Many of the things Said wrote about – from the way West perceives and represents The East to the question of Palestine – remain a hot topic today. To commemorate Said and recall the magnitude of his works, we are in conversation with Judith Butler, Laleh Khalili, Avi Shlaim and Illan Pappé.

Jehan Bseiso, Palestinian poet and aid worker (Médecins sans Frontières): "The media is reporting about refugee fatigue and compassion fatigue. I find the notion that compassion can be finite truly terrifying. I’m haunted by the refugee crisis, and it’s a global one. I’m haunted at my work, by the images of bodies clinging to orange life vests, and I’m haunted at night when I think of how random it is, that it’s not me, not my family. My poetry is now a site of intersection that displays the explosive choices I’ve been making as an aid worker and a writer."

Eyal Sivan, French-Israeli filmmaker, the guest of 14. HRFF: Israel was established as a state for the Jews, which makes Israel a racist state. There is a difference between state racism and a racist state – in Israel we have both. What is the big Israeli question? The Israeli question is to renounce some of our privileges. The only question is the willingness to share power. All the time we hear this "we'll give rights", "equal rights" talk. What does that mean? Who is the one giving rights? Can the Palestinians give Israelis rights? Women to men?

Eyal Sivan, French-Israeli filmmaker, the guest of 14. HRFF: Israel was established as a state for the Jews, which makes Israel a racist state. There is a difference between state racism and a racist state – in Israel we have both. What is the big Israeli question? The Israeli question is to renounce some of our privileges. The only question is the willingness to share power. All the time we hear this "we'll give rights", "equal rights" talk. What does that mean? Who is the one giving rights? Can the Palestinians give Israelis rights? Women to men?

Eyal Sivan, French-Israeli filmmaker, the guest of 14. HRFF: Israel was established as a state for the Jews, which makes Israel a racist state. There is a difference between state racism and a racist state – in Israel we have both. What is the big Israeli question? The Israeli question is to renounce some of our privileges. The only question is the willingness to share power. All the time we hear this "we'll give rights", "equal rights" talk. What does that mean? Who is the one giving rights? Can the Palestinians give Israelis rights? Women to men?

Eyal Sivan, French-Israeli filmmaker, the guest of 14. HRFF: Israel was established as a state for the Jews, which makes Israel a racist state. There is a difference between state racism and a racist state – in Israel we have both. What is the big Israeli question? The Israeli question is to renounce some of our privileges. The only question is the willingness to share power. All the time we hear this "we'll give rights", "equal rights" talk. What does that mean? Who is the one giving rights? Can the Palestinians give Israelis rights? Women to men?

Eyal Sivan, French-Israeli filmmaker, the guest of 14. HRFF: Israel was established as a state for the Jews, which makes Israel a racist state. There is a difference between state racism and a racist state – in Israel we have both. What is the big Israeli question? The Israeli question is to renounce some of our privileges. The only question is the willingness to share power. All the time we hear this "we'll give rights", "equal rights" talk. What does that mean? Who is the one giving rights? Can the Palestinians give Israelis rights? Women to men?