Issam Younis
Issam Younis is the Director of Al-Mezan Center for Human Rights in Gaza. He is the Commissioner General of The Palestinian Independent Commission for Hunan Rights (ICHR). He is the president of the Arab Network of National Human Rights Institutions (ANNHRI). He is also a member of the Palestinian Higher Education Council.
Ibrahim Fraihat
Al-Shabaka Member Ibrahim Fraihat is a professor of international conflict resolution at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies, and Affiliate Scholar at Georgetown University. He previously served as Senior Foreign Policy Fellow at the Brookings Institution, and taught international conflict resolution at George Washington University and George Mason University. His latest book is Unfinished Revolutions: Yemen, Libya, and Tunisia after the Arab Spring (Yale University Press, 2016). He is the recipient of George Mason University’s Distinguished Alumni Award (2014) for his achievements in the field of conflict resolution. Fraihat can be followed on Twitter @i_farihat.
Hatem Bazian
Hatem Bazian is a senior lecturer in the Departments of Near Eastern and Ethnic Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. He has taught at Berkeley’s Boalt Hall School of Law and is also a visiting Professor in Religious Studies at Saint Mary’s College of California and adviser to Berkeley’s Religion, Politics and Globalization Center as well as Academic Affairs Chair at Zaytuna College of California. He also founded Berkeley’s Center for the Study and Documentation of Islamophobia, a research unit dedicated to the systematic study of Othering Islam and Muslims. He is also Chairman of the Board of American Muslims for Palestine.
Hashem Abushama
Hashem Abushama graduated from Earlham College with a BA in Peace and Global Studies. In 2015, Abushama became a Youth Representative of Palestine Refugees at the United Nations. He was appointed as a Youth Ambassador to the UNRWA@65 Conference in the United Nations Headquarters in New York. At Earlham, Abushama served as the President of the Earlham Student Body. Recently, he has been selected as one of first two Rhodes Scholars from Palestine. While at the University of Oxford, Abushama hopes to pursue his graduate studies in International Development with a particular focus on Refugee and Forced Migration Studies.
Halla Shoaibi
Halla Shoaibi is an S.J.D candidate at American University Washington College of Law in Washington, DC. Prior to that, she served as an Associate for two years at Kamal & Associates, Attorneys and Counselors at Law in Ramallah. Halla holds a masters degree in law from University of Michigan and an LL.B from Birzeit University. Her areas of interest are international criminal law and women’s rights.
Fateh Azzam
Fateh Azzam is the Director of the newly established Asfari Institute for Civil Society and Citizenship at the American University in Beirut, and Senior Policy Fellow at AUB’s Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy. Previously, he directed al-Haq (1987-1995), was Human Rights Officer at the Ford Foundation (1996-2003), Director of Forced Migration and Refugee Studies at the American University in Cairo (2003-2006) and Middle East regional Representative of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights until July 2012. He is co-founder and former Board Chair of the Arab Human Rights Fund.
Hala Turjman
Al-Shabaka Policy Member Hala Turjman holds a BA in Political Science from Birzeit University and Sciences Po Rennes, and an MA degree in EU International Relations and Diplomacy Studies from the College of Europe, specialized in Security and Justice. Her dissertation was a critique of EU development aid policy, gender mainstreaming and the implementation of UNSCR 1325 in Palestine. Hala was a Schuman Fellow at the European Parliament in the Middle East Unit. She is currently a researcher at the European Institute of Peace, focusing on situations of conflict in the MENA region, mainly in Syria and Libya. In past years Hala has also taken part in a number of grassroots campaigns and community initiatives in Palestine.
Grace Said
Grace Said is a long-time advocate of Palestinian human rights. She is a member of the Steering Committee of Friends of Sabeel, North America and treasurer of the Washington Interfaith Alliance for Middle East Peace. She has in the past served on the boards of Trans-Arab Research Institute and the Arab-American University Graduates. In 2009 she was a co-founder of Al-Shabaka and also organized a major Sabeel conference in Washington, DC.
Fajr Harb
Al-Shabaka Policy Member Fajr Harb is a Palestinian political activist. He is currently the Assistant Director of The Carter Center Field Office in Ramallah. In addition to his experience in advocacy and fundraising, he has an academic background and training in the United States in both engineering and economic development.
