Members

Policy Members are Al-Shabaka’s foundation of expertise, talent and commitment. They may contribute to Al-Shabaka’s work by writing policy briefs, position papers, commentaries, blog entries, and Op-Eds and disseminating Al-Shabaka’s policy advice and opinions.

Wajjeh Abu Zarifa

Al-Shabaka Policy Member Wajjeh Abu Zarifa is a journalist, researcher and professor of political science in Gaza, and a fellow at the University of Chicago. He holds a PhD from the Cairo-based Institute of Arab Research and Studies in political science, and a master's degree in Israeli studies from the University of Jerusalem. Abu Zarifa has participated in numerous international conferences and seminars, and published scientific papers and research as well as political articles and opinion pieces. He has worked in the press for 30 years with local and international media outlets including most recently NBC News. Abu Zarifa served in a number of community posts, including director of the PLO's national office for the defense of land and resistance of settlement, and a member of the Secretariat of the Palestinian Journalists' Syndicate.

Caroline Abu-Sada

Al-Shabaka Policy Member Caroline Abu-Sada is Director of the Research Unit of Medecins Sans Frontieres Switzerland, and an Honorary Lecturer at the Humanitarian and Conflict Response Institute (HCRI), University of Manchester. She has worked on food security, agriculture and health issues, and coordinated programs in the Middle East for Oxfam GB, the United Nations and MSF Switzerland. Dr Abu-Sada works include "ONG palestiniennes et construction étatique, l’expérience de Palestinian Agricultural Relief Committees (PARC) dans les Territoires occupés palestiniens, 1983- 2005", IFPO, Beirut, 2005; and “Dilemmas, Challenges, and Ethics of Humanitarian Action”, Mc Gill-Queen's University Press, 2012. She has taught political science at New York University, Paris and at Sciences Po, Lille.

Mohammed Al-Rozzi

Al-Shabaka Policy Member Mohammed Al-Rozzi is a doctoral student at the University of Fribourg, Switzerland. Before commencing his doctoral studies, Al-Rozzi completed his undergraduate studies at Bethlehem University, where he earned a bachelor in Occupational Therapy. In 2011, he completed his Master’s degree in Childhood Studies at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, UK. Al-Rozzi has worked with many international non-governmental organisations and UN agencies, including Mercy Corps, Terre des Hommes, the Norwegian Refugee Council, World Vision and UNICEF. Through his work experience, Al-Rozzi has developed extensive multidisciplinary expertise in child protection and participation issues, education in post-conflict settings and psychosocial wellbeing at times of crisis. His research interests include child labour, juvenile justice and education policy.

Yara Asi

Dr. Yara M. Asi is a Post-Doctoral scholar at the University of Central Florida, where she has taught in the Department of Health Management and Informatics for more than 6 years. She is a 2020-2021 Fulbright US Scholar to the West Bank. Her research focuses on global health and development in fragile and conflict-affected populations. Along with working at one of the first accountable care organizations in the United States, she has also worked with Amnesty International USA, the Arab Center Washington DC, the Palestinian American Research Center, and Al-Shabaka: Palestinian Policy Network on policy and outreach issues. She has presented on topics related to global health, food security, health informatics, and women in healthcare, and has published extensively her research in journal articles, book chapters, and other outlets. Dr. Asi's forthcoming book with Johns Hopkins University Press about the threats war and conflict pose to public health and human security.

Valentina Azarova

Al-Shabaka Policy Member Valentina Azarova is a visiting academic at the Manchester International Law Centre (MILC), University of Manchester, and a strategic and legal adviser to the Global Legal Action Network (GLAN). Valentina received her PhD from the Irish Centre for Human Rights, National University of Ireland, Galway. She was a co-founding member of the Al-Quds Bard College, Al-Quds University, where she directed and taught on the human rights program for five years (2009-2014). She also taught at Birzeit University’s Graduate Studies School (2014-2015). Since 2008, she has worked at HaMoked – Center for the Defence of the Individual; Al-Haq; and the MATTIN Group, and consulted a range of international and inter-governmental organisations on international law as it relates to the Israeli-Palestinian context. Her research concerns the role of third parties and the contribution of domestic and transnational regulatory processes to the enforcement of international law. Her publications can be accessed here.

Irene Calis

Al-Shabaka policy member Irene Calis is an anthropologist in the Critical Race, Gender, & Culture Studies Collaborative at American University, DC, where she teaches in both Arab World Studies and Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. She is a scholar, activist, and organizer whose research and activism focuses on emancipatory politics from the perspective of everyday life. This has involved living and working with farming and youth communities throughout the West Bank, as well as with popular struggles in Oceania, South Africa, and indigenous North America. Her current work on political futures situates the Palestinian struggle in a wider conversation with the global South, and in particular with indigenous-settler experience and intellectual thought. Calis holds a PhD in anthropology from the London School of Economics & Political Science.

Ahmad Khalidi

Al-Shabaka Policy Member Ahmad Samih Khalidi is currently an Academic Visitor at St Antony’s College, Oxford and an Associate Fellow at the Geneva Center for Security Policy, Geneva. He is the co-editor of the Journal of Palestine Studies (Arabic edition) published by the Institute for Palestine Studies (Beirut), and served as advisor to the Palestinian delegation at the Madrid/Washington and Cairo-Taba talks from 1991-1993. He was co-chair of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences project on Israeli-Palestinian security from 1993-1995 and Associate Fellow of the Middle East program at Chatham House, London from 1995-96. He has been active in Palestinian politics for over thirty-five years ans has written widely on Middle Eastern political and strategic affairs in both English and Arabic.

Asem Khalil

Al-Shabaka Policy Member Asem Khalil is a professor of Public Law and the H.H. Shaikh Hamad Bin Khalifa Al-Thani Professor of Constitutional and International Law, Birzeit University. He is the former Vice President for Community Affairs (2016-2020), Dean of the Faculty of Law and Public Administration (2012-2015), and of the Ibrahim Abu-Lughod Institute of International Studies (2010-2012). Dr. Khalil holds a Ph.D. in Public Law, Fribourg University, Switzerland, a Masters in Public Administration from the National School of Administration, France, and a doctorate in Utriusque Juris, Lateran University, Italy. He was a visiting researcher at the NYU School of Law (2009-2010 and 2015-2016) and at the Max Planck Institute, Germany (Summer of 2015). A full list of his publications is available at: https://asemkhalil.com/

Nadine Naber

Al-Shabaka policy member Nadine Naber is Associate Professor in the Gender and Women's Studies Program and the Global Asian Studies Program, and the founding faculty director of the Arab American Cultural Center at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Nadine is author of Arab America: Gender, Cultural Politics, and Activism (NYU Press, 2012). She is co-editor of the books Race and Arab Americans (Syracuse University Press, 2008); Arab and Arab American Feminisms, winner of the Arab American Book Award 2012 (Syracuse University Press, 2010); and The Color of Violence (South End Press, 2006). She has worked with groups like the Rasmea Odeh Defense Team, USACBI, AROC, and INCITE! Women of Color against Violence. She is currently an editorial board member of the Journal of Palestine Studies; the Critical Ethnic Studies Journal, and series within the University of Nebraska and the University of Washington Press. For more information, see: https://nadinenaber.com/.

Refqa Nabil Shaqour

Al-Shabaka Member Refqa Nabil Shaqour is a Belgium-based political scientist and writer. Born in Nablus, she holds a BA in political science, a master's degree in planning and political development from An-Najah National University in Palestine, and a master's degree in media and public relations from Cairo University. In addition to publishing political and cultural research papers in Arabic periodicals, her book "The Influence of Hezbollah in the Evolution of Resistance Ideology and Methods in the Arab Region" was published in 2010. She is a regular contributor to Al-Arab newspaper and Al-Jadid cultural magazine, and is a member of PEN International, the Flemish Branch in Belgium, as well as a researcher at the Egyptian Institute for Political and Strategic Studies in Turkey. Shaqour is currently pursuing her doctorate degree.

Maisa Shquier

Al-Shabaka Policy Member Maisa Shquier is an activist and D.Phil candidate at the Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex/UK. Her ethnographic research investigates the intersection between gender, sexuality, nation, body politics and embodiment. Specifically, it examines the gendered and sexualized representations of Palestine, through a discourse analysis of the “New Historians” and the visual images of Palestine. She has 10 years of development experience with local and International NGOs in monitoring and evaluating projects in gender, disability, health, food security, water and sanitation and civil society. She has worked on policy formation on gender, disability, sexuality, masculinity, and women’s political participation in the Middle East.

Tamara Tamimi

Al-Shabaka Policy Member Tamara Tamimi is a Palestinian born in Jerusalem. Tamara holds a B.Sc in Biology with a minor in English Literature from Birzeit University, and an MA in Human Rights Law from SOAS, University of London, where she focused on women’s empowerment and the Palestine question. Tamara currently works as a project coordinator at the Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy - MIFTAH, where she handles projects and activities relevant to fiscal policy and social justice, and the dissemination of the Palestinian narrative. She has previously worked with a number of civil society organisations, including the Teacher Creativity Centre, Palestinian Working Woman Society for Development, Women’s Centre for Legal Aid and Counselling, Palestinian Vision Organisation, and Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association.