Fadi Quran
Al-Shabaka Policy Member Fadi Quran is a Senior Campaigner at Avaaz and a Popular Struggle community organizer. He previously served as UN Advocacy Officer with Al-Haq’s legal research and advocacy unit. Apart from his work in advocacy and international law, Fadi is also an entrepreneur in the alternative energy field, where he has founded two companies bringing wind and solar energy to Palestine and other countries in the region. Fadi holds degrees in Physics and International Relations from Stanford University.
Dina Matar
Al-Shabaka Policy Member Dina Matar is senior lecturer in political communication at the Centre for Film and Media Studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies. She works on the relationship between culture, communication and politics, with a special focus on Palestine, Lebanon and Syria. She is the author of “What it Means to be Palestinian: Stories of Palestinian Peoplehood” (Tauris, 2010); co-editor of “Narrating Conflict in the Middle East: Discourse, Image and Communication Practices in Palestine and Lebanon” (Taruis, 2013) and co-author of “The Hizbullah Phenomenon: Politics and Communication” (Hurst, 2014). Matar is also co-founding editor of the “The Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication.”
Diana Buttu
Diana Buttu is a lawyer who previously served as a legal advisor to the Palestinian negotiating team and was part of the team that assisted in the successful litigation of the Wall before the International Court of Justice. She frequently comments on Palestine for international news media outlets such as CNN and BBC; is a political analyst for Al Jazeera International and is a regular contributor to The Middle East magazine. She maintains a law practice in Palestine, focusing on international human rights law.
Dana El Kurd
Al-Shabaka Member Dana El Kurd received her PhD in Government from The University of Texas at Austin. She specializes in Comparative Politics and International Relations. Her dissertation explores how international patrons affect authoritarian consolidation in the Palestinian territories. Dana writes regularly for publications such as Al-Araby al-Jadeed, The Washington Post’s Monkey Cage blog, and Foreign Affairs. She currently works as a researcher at the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies and its sister institution, the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies.
Belal Shobaki
Belal Shobaki is the Head of the Department of Political Science at Hebron University, Palestine. He is a Policy Member at the Palestinian Policy Network. He is the founder and coordinator of the Double Master’s degree program in Public and cultural Diplomacy at Hebron University with University of Siena, Italy. He has published on Political Islam, identity, democratization and Palestinian issue. He is also leading Hebron University team of a 3 years project: Strengthening of National Research Capacity on Policy, Conflict Resolution, and Reconciliation, funded by the Erasmus+ program of the European Union. He has previously taught at An-Najah National University, Palestine and at IIUM, Malaysia.
Basil Farraj
Basil Farraj is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Philosophy and Cultural studies, Birzeit University. He is currently working on a research project that explores the global circulation of carceral practices, funded by the Arab Council for the Social Sciences (ACSS) and hosted by the Institute for Advanced Study in the Global South at Northwestern University in Qatar (IAS_NUQ). Basil’s research addresses the intersections of memory, resistance, and art by prisoners and others at the receiving end of violence. Basil has conducted research in several countries including Chile, Colombia, and Palestine.
Basem Ezbidi
Al-Shabaka Policy Member Basem Ezbidi currently teaches at the Honors Program and the Department of International Affairs at Qatar University. He previously worked at Birzeit University as part of the department of Political Science and the Master program of Democracy and Human Rights. Ezbidi holds a Ph.D. in political theory from the University of Cincinnati in the United States. He has written on Hamas, state-building, and the West and the Moslem World. Among his publications, The Muslim World and the West – A Muslim Perspective; Coauthor of “Palestinian National Authority and the Future of State Formation”, and ‘Hamas and Palestinian Statehood’; Co-editor of “Popular Protest In The New Middle East: Islamism and Post-Islamist Politics”.
Ayah Abubasheer
Ayah Abubasheer holds a Master’s degree in Global Politics from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). She has published articles at Electronic Intifada, Palestine Chronicle, Mondoweiss and Middle East Eye.
As’ad Ghanem
As’ad Ghanem is a senior lecturer at the School of Political Sciences, University of Haifa. Ghanem’s theoretical work has explored the legal, institutional and political conditions in ethnic states. He has covered issues such as Palestinian political orientations, the establishment and political structure of the Palestinian Authority, and majority-minority politics in a comparative perspective. His books include Palestinian Politics after Arafat: A Failed National Movement (Indiana Series in Middle East Studies). Ghanem has initiated several empowerment programs for Palestinians in Israel.
