Al-Shabaka policy analyst, Leila Farsakh, is Associate Professor and Chair of the political science department at the University of Massachusetts Boston. She is the author of Palestinian Labor Migration to Israel: Labour, Land and Occupation (Routledge, 2012), and of Rethinking Statehood in Palestine: Self-determination beyond Partition (California University Press, 2022). She has worked with a number of organizations, including the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in Paris and MAS in Ramallah, and she has been a senior research fellow at Birzeit University since 2008. In 2001, she won the Peace and Justice Award from the Cambridge Peace Commission.
Leila Farsakh
Policy Member
Expertise: Palestinian Politics & Governance, Global Policy on Palestine, International Law & Human Rights
From this author
In this Focus On, Al-Shabaka’s policy analysts imagine Palestinian political futures within the context of historical and ongoing realities. Among other topics, they revisit the history of popular committees and consensus-building efforts during the First Intifada to show how local Palestinian governance might be strengthened, and how we might rethink the meaning of self-determination from the grassroots. They consider how various aspects of Palestinian society, including health, education, and policing, could be transformed to help sustain a new political vision for liberation, and revive popular engagement in colonized Palestine and beyond. And they examine the different means through which Palestinians can utilize international legal avenues to strategize an effective anti-apartheid movement.
Palestinian leadership is in crisis. As speculation mounts about Mahmoud Abbas’s rule coming to an end, Hussein al-Sheikh continues to assume many of his responsibilities.
In her new edited volume, Rethinking Statehood in Palestine: Self-Determination and Decolonization Beyond Partition, Al-Shabaka policy analyst and Associate Professor of Political Economy at the University of Massachusetts Boston, Leila Farsakh, brings together a diverse group of intellectuals to critically engage with the meaning of Palestinian statehood.
Leila Farsakh· May 4, 2022
As the Palestinian general elections fast approach, many are wondering whether new leadership would create opportunities for self-determined Palestinian economic development.
A quarter of a century since the signing of the Oslo Accords, an independent and sovereign Palestinian state has become little more than a myth as Israel continues to expand its settler colonial project and military occupation. Oslo’s structure and framework are to blame for this reality, as the Accords were not a peace agreement but a security arrangement between colonizer and colonized.
Israel is marshaling pro-Israel forces in Europe as well as in the US against the European Union’s recently issued guidelines on labeling some of its settlement products, for fear that this will lead to stronger measures. Al-Shabaka’s Nur Arafeh, Samia al-Botmeh and Leila Farsakh debunk Israel’s arguments both as regards the impact on the Palestinian economy as well as on Palestinian workers.
Palestinian demonstrators at home and initiatives by Palestinians worldwide have imposed a different discourse on the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and Palestinian Authority (PA), as revealed by the evolution of PLO Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’ speeches to the United Nations General Assembly between 2011 and 2012.
Leila Farsakh· Nov 13, 2012
Media mention
Israel’s Jewish Nation-State Law has been paved with more annexation of Palestinian land and apartheid policies, reinforcing the impossibility of a two-state solution and need for Palestinians to abandon the partition paradigm, writes Leila Farsakh.
Leila Farsakh· Sep 5, 2022
The Palestinian leadership moved on several fronts this month to implement its threats to redefine and limit relations with Israel.
Companies doing business in Israeli settlements contribute to and profit from land confiscations and the violation of Palestinian workers' rights - and support the settlements which are illegal under international law, according to a Human Rights Watch report.
Human Rights Watch on Tuesday called on Israeli and international businesses to withdraw from Jewish-only settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory, saying they "contribute to and benefit from" Israeli violations.
Palestinians have been banned from working in illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank following recent attacks, Israel’s army said.
According to the Palestinian Water Authority, 85 percent of water in the occupied territories is allocated to Israeli settlers. The NGO Al Shabaka reported in December that 599,901 Israeli settlers use six times more water than nearly three million Palestinians living in the West Bank.
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