We’ve entered 2024 at a time of unprecedented loss for the Palestinian people. As part of its genocide campaign since last October, the Israeli regime has murdered tens of thousands, displaced millions, and devastated every corner of Palestinian life in Gaza. The horror being waged across Gaza has left its mark on Palestinians worldwide, including those who make up Al-Shabaka’s policy network and staff.
While holding this pain over the past months, we have likewise striven to serve as a critical source of Palestinian analysis. None of this would have been possible without the relentless commitment of our members. In the first four weeks of Israel’s bombardment alone, Al-Shabaka analysts participated in over 65 media appearances with outlets across 15 countries, collectively working to push back against dominant anti-Palestinian frameworks. We also produced a series of publications that aimed to ground developments within their rightful historical and political context: over 75 years of continuous Zionist settler colonization.
Importantly, our approach to the current moment has largely been informed by our rearticulated institutional positions, released in February 2023. Together, our new vision, mission, and values statements affirmed three core tenets: our desire to stand as a think tank for the popular movement, the necessity of radical imagination in the struggle for liberation, and our centering of Palestinians–as experts, our primary audience, and to whom we hold ourselves most accountable.
This institutional shift also led to a change in our organizational structure: adopting a shared leadership model. In August 2023, Senior Analyst Yara Hawari and Managing Director Megan Driscoll jointly began serving as co-directors of Al-Shabaka.
This transition speaks to our continuing commitment as an organization to push back against white supremacist and colonial modes of thinking and labor–particularly the notion that power is zero-sum and singularly driven. Instead, we’ve welcomed the opportunity to grow in a manner that honors traditions of collaborative leadership.
This evolution also reflects our ongoing effort toward moving into greater alignment with our collective values, at the helm of which is decolonization: In times of uncertainty, such as these, we are steered by our fundamental dedication to the dismantling of colonial power and primacy, and toward the reclamation and recentering of indigenous knowledge, land, and culture.
As we continue to grapple with what it means to be a Palestinian think tank anchored within the movement for liberation at this devastating moment, our commitment towards decolonization–along with our other shared values–serves as a compass for the entirety of our work.
We hope that you join us in this commitment, and we look forward to bringing you analysis that is both grounding and transformative throughout the year to come.
We thank you for your readership and continued support.
Al-Shabaka: The Palestinian Policy Network is an independent, non-partisan, and non-profit organization whose mission is to convene a multidisciplinary, global network of Palestinian analysts to produce critical policy analysis and collectively imagine a new policymaking paradigm for Palestine and Palestinians worldwide.
