Toufic Haddad
Toufic Haddad is a Palestinian-American writer based in Jerusalem. He is the co-author and editor of Between the Lines: Readings in Israel, the Palesinians, and the U.S. ‘War on Terror‘. (Haymarket Books, 2007, co-written with Israeli author Tikva Honig-Parnass) and Towards a New Internationalism: Readings in Globalization, the Global Justice Movement and Palestinian Liberation (Muwatin: Ramallah 2006, [Arabic] co- written with Ala el Azzeh.) His writings on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have been featured in The National, Al Jazeera English (web), Journal of Palestine Studies, Monthly Review Zine, Znet, Counterpunch, International Socialist Review, and Socialist Worker.
Thayer Hastings
Al-Shabaka Policy Member Thayer Hastings is a graduate student at the CUNY Graduate Center in New York City where he is studying anthropology of the Arab world. He holds an M.A. degree from the Georgetown University Center for Contemporary Arab Studies. After completing a B.A. from the University of Washington in Seattle, he returned to Palestine, where he carried out research and advocacy in law and human rights. Thayer worked with Palestinian and international non-governmental organizations, including BADIL Resource Center and the American Friends Service Committee. His research and writing continue to be informed by a commitment to community-led initiatives and decolonizing methodologies.
Sherene Seikaly
Al-Shabaka Policy Member Sherene Seikaly is Associate Professor of History at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She is the editor of the Arab Studies Journal, co-founder and co-editor of Jadaliyya e-zine, and a member of the Journal of Palestine Studies Editorial Committee. Seikaly’s Men of Capital: Scarcity and Economy in Mandate Palestine (Stanford University Press, 2016) explores how Palestinian capitalists and British colonial officials used economy to shape territory, nationalism, the home, and the body. She has published in academic journals such as International Journal of Middle East Studies and Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies as well as in online venues including Jadaliyya, Mada Masr, and 7iber.
Suheir Abu Oksa Daoud
Suheir Abu Oksa Daoud holds a Ph.D. in political science from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and is an associate professor in the Department of Politics at Coastal Carolina University, Conway, South Carolina. She has been a visiting assistant professor at Harvey Mudd College, a Mellon Post-Doctoral Fellow at Pomona College, and a visiting scholar at the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies at Georgetown University. Prior to this she worked as an Israeli Knesset member adviser. Daoud has published four volumes of Arabic poetry and literature, and her academic book, Palestinian Women and Politics in Israel, was published in 2009 by the University of Florida Press.
Samia al-Botmeh
Samia Al-Botmeh is an assistant professor in economics at the Faculty of Business and Economics/ Birzeit University. She was the director for the Centre for Development Studies at Birzeit University till 2014. She worked with the Palestine Economic Policy Research Institute (MAS) in Ramallah as a researcher. She completed her PhD at the School of African and Oriental Studies- University of London, in labour economics. Areas of interest and publications are gender economics, labour economics, and political economy of development. She has engaged in research on alternatives to neo-liberal development in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and gender differentials in labour market outcomes.
Samah Sabawi
Samah Sabawi is a political commentator, author and playwright. She is a member of the board of directors for the National Council on Canada Arab Relations (NCCAR). Sabawi wrote and produced Cries from the Land (Canada 2003), Three Wishes (Canada 2008) andTales of a City by the Sea (Palestine & Australia 2014). Her past work includes being public advocate for Australians for Palestine, Executive Director for the National Council on Canada Arab Relations (NCCAR) and Subject Matter Expert (SME) for the Canadian Foreign Service Institute’s Centre for Intercultural Learning.
Salwa Mikdadi
Salwa Mikdadi is Associate Professor of Art History at NYU Abu Dhabi. She is the author and editor of several books and essays on Arab and Palestinian art and was the curator of the first Palestinian Pavilion for 2009 Venice Biennial. Mikdadi helped establish several art and culture programs in the US, the UAE and in Palestine and the first professional development programs for museum professionals in the UAE and was lecturer at Paris Sorbonne Abu Dhabi. She is a founding member of the Association for Modern and Contemporary Art of the Arab World, Iran and Turkey.
Salim Tamari
Salim Tamari is a senior fellow and director of the Institute of Jerusalem Studies which is affiliated with the Institute for Palestine Studies. He is editor of Jerusalem Quarterly and Hawliyyat al Quds. He is professor of sociology at Birzeit University and has authored several works on urban culture, political sociology, biography and social history, and the social history of the Eastern Mediterranean. He has served as visiting professor at the University of California at Berkeley and Eric Lane Fellow at Cambridge University among other posts.
Salem Barahmeh
Al-Shabaka policy member Salem Barahmeh is the Executive Director of the Palestine Institute for Public Diplomacy. He is currently a Non-Resident Fellow at the US Middle East Project and previously worked as an international affairs advisor to Dr. Hanan Ashrawi at the PLO and the Palestine Investment Fund. He has also worked at Portland Communications in London, as a Policy and Public Affairs Advisor to Gulf governments, and for the Palestinian Embassy to the United States. Salem received a BA in Government from Lawrence University and an MA in Law and Politics from King’s College London.