Assessing Palestine’s Future: Economy, Security, and Beyond

What does Palestine’s future look like, and how would different political scenarios affect various sectors of Palestinian society? From the continuation of the status quo, to the dismantling of the Palestinian Authority, and to the revival of the Palestine Liberation Organization, there are a myriad of possible implications and consequences for the Palestinian economy, for security, governance, rule of law, and beyond.

Policy analysts Tahani Mustafa and Tareq Sadeq joined us for a discussion with host Nadim Bawalsa about the most likely future political scenarios to impact different aspects of Palestinians’ lives.

Tahani Mustafa is a lecturer in International Relations in the Department of War Studies at King’s College London, and a visiting fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR). She holds a PhD from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London, and previously served as senior Palestine analyst at the International Crisis Group. Her research explores international mechanisms of security sector reform and governance in the occupied Palestinian territories.

Tareq Sadeq is Assistant Professor of Economics and Dean of the Faculty of Business and Economics at Birzeit University. He holds a Ph.D in economics from the University of Evry Val d’Essonne in France, where he was engaged in the Palestine solidarity movement and served as head of the General Union of Palestinian Students (GUPS). Tareq has published on monetary policy, macroeconomics, econometrics, labor economics, income inequalities, and entrepreneurship. He is also a researcher in Palestine’s Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM).

Nadim Bawalsa is Associate Editor with the Journal of Palestine Studies. From 2020-2023, Nadim served as Al-Shabaka’s commissioning editor. He is a historian of modern Palestine, and author of Transnational Palestine: Migration and the Right of Return before 1948 (Stanford University Press, 2022). His other work has appeared in the Jerusalem Quarterly, the Journal of Palestine Studies, NACLA Report on the Americas, and as well as in edited volumes. He earned a joint doctorate in History and Middle Eastern & Islamic Studies from New York University in 2017, and a Master’s in Arab Studies from Georgetown University’s Center for Contemporary Arab Studies in 2010. In 2019-2020, he was awarded a PARC-NEH fellowship in Palestine.  

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