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Policy Advisors

Policy Advisors are selected from the pool of Policy Members to serve for three-year terms. They commit to making a major intellectual contribution to Al-Shabaka’s work during their term. Among other things, this includes:

  • Writing policy briefs and position papers
  • Peer reviewing policy briefs and position papers
  • Serving on the Al-Shabaka editorial and other committees
  • Disseminating Al-Shabaka’s policy analysis and opinions through media contacts and other outreach throughout the world
Photo of Samer Abdelnour
Samer Abdelnour

Al-Shabaka Policy Advisor Samer Abdelnour is an academic and activist. He co-founded Al-Shabaka in 2009 and served as a founding board member until 2016.

Rabab Abdulhadi

Al-Shabaka Policy Advisor Rabab Abdulhadi is Associate Professor of Ethnic Studies, Associate Professor of Race and Resistance Studies, and Senior Scholar, Arab and Muslim Ethnicities and Diasporas Initiative at San Francisco State University. She is a long-time feminist activist and scholar who has contributed to the struggle for Palestinian self-determination and the well-being of Palestinian women. From 1982 to 1988, she was the Director of Political and International Relations at the Middle East Research Center in New York.

Photo of Oroub El-Abed
Oroub el-Abed

Al-Shabaka Policy Advisor Oroub El-Abed is a postdoctoral research fellow with the Centre for British Research in the Levant (British Academy grant). She holds a PhD in Development Studies from the University of London, School of Oriental and African Studies, and has consulted and written in the area of political economy of development and forced migration, particularly Palestinian refugees in the Middle East. She is the author of Unprotected: Palestinians in Egypt since 1948 (Washington, DC, and Ottawa, CA: Institute for Palestine Studies and the International Development Research Centre, 2009).

Ali Abunimah

Al-Shabaka Policy Advisor Ali Abunimah is the author of One Country: A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli Palestinian Impasse (2006), and co-founder and director of the widely acclaimed publication The Electronic Intifada. Based in the United States, he has written hundreds of articles and been an active part of the movement for justice in Palestine for 20 years. He is the recipient of a 2013 Lannan Cultural Freedom Fellowship. His most recent book is The Battle for Justice in Palestine.

Nur Arafeh

Al-Shabaka Analyst Nur Arafeh served as Al-Shabaka's Palestine Policy Fellow from 2015 - 2017. Nur is currently doing her PhD in Economic Development at the University of Oxford. She previously worked as an Associate Researcher at the Palestine Economic Policy Research Institute (MAS), and as a Visiting Lecturer of Economics at Al-Quds Bard College. She has a dual BA degree in Political Science and Economics from the Paris Institute of Political Studies-Sciences Po and Columbia University, and holds an MPhil degree in Development Studies from the University of Cambridge.

Photo Naseer Aruri
Naseer Aruri (1934 – 2015)

Al-Shabaka Policy Advisor Naseer Aruri was Chancellor Professor (Emeritus) of Political Science at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth. He was a founder, former chair, and  member-at-large of the Board of Directors of the Trans-Arab Research Institute (Boston), and a member of the Advisory Board of Directors of the International Institute for Criminal Investigations (The Hague). Dr. Aruri was the author of several books, including Dishonest Broker: the U.S. Role in Israel and Palestine (South End Press).

Fateh Azzam

Al-Shabaka Policy Advisor Fateh Azzam is the Director of the newly established Asfari Institute for Civil Society and Citizenship at the American University in Beirut, and Senior Policy Fellow at AUB’s Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy. Previously, he directed al-Haq (1987-1995), was Human Rights Officer at the Ford Foundation (1996-2003), Director of Forced Migration and Refugee Studies at the American University in Cairo (2003-2006) and Middle East regional Representative of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights until July 2012. He is co-founder and former Board Chair of the Arab Human Rights Fund.

Tareq Baconi

Al-Shabaka Analyst Tareq Baconi served as Al-Shabaka's US Policy Fellow from 2016 - 2017. He is currently the Israel/Palestine and Economics of Conflict Analyst at the International Crisis Group. His book, Hamas Contained: The Rise and Pacification of Palestinian Resistance, was published by Stanford University Press. Tareq holds a PhD in International Relations from Kings College London, which he completed alongside a career as an energy consultant. He also holds degrees from the University of Cambridge (International Relations) and Imperial College London (Chemical Engineering). Tareq is an adjunct visiting fellow at the US Middle East Project. His writings have appeared in the New York Review Daily, The Washington Post, Foreign Affairs, and The Guardian.

Sam Bahour

Al-Shabaka Policy Advisor Sam Bahour does business consulting as Applied Information Management (AIM), specializing in business development with a niche focus on the information technology sector and start-ups. He is also the Chairman of Americans for a Vibrant Palestinian Economy. He helped establish PALTEL and the PLAZA Shopping Center. Until recently, he served on the board of trustees of Birzeit University and was the University’s treasurer.  He is also a Director at the Arab Islamic Bank and a board member at Just Vision. Bahour is co-editor of HOMELAND: Oral History of Palestine and Palestinians (Olive Branch Press). He writes frequently on Palestinian affairs and his work is posted at www.epalestine.com.

Sami al-Banna

Al-Shabaka Policy Advisor Sami al-Banna is Director and Chief Technology Officer, NPS Office of Innovation, North American Public Sector at CSC. He was previously director of knowledge systems at McKinsey and Company.

Linah al-Banna

Al-Shabaka Policy Advisor Linah al-Banna is a Child Psychologist at the Kennedy Krieger Institute.

Rana Barakat

Al-Shabaka Policy Advisor Rana Barakat is an assistant professor of history and contemporary Arab studies at Birzeit University in Palestine. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Chicago writing about popular politics and resistance in early twentieth century Palestine. Her research interests include the social history of Jerusalem, colonialism, and revolutionary social movements.

Omar Barghouti

Al-Shabaka Policy Advisor Omar Barghouti is an independent researcher, commentator and activist committed to upholding international law and universal human rights. He is a founding member of the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) and of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel. Barghouti is a frequent public speaker and prolific writer. He is the author of Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions: The Global Struggle for Palestinian Rights (Haymarket, 2011). Among other works, he contributed to the philosophical volume, Controversies and Subjectivity (John Benjamins) and to The New Intifada: Resisting Israel's Apartheid (Verso Books, 2001).

Hatem Bazian

Al-Shabaka Policy Advisor Hatem Bazian is a senior lecturer in the Departments of Near Eastern and Ethnic Studies at the University of California, Berkeley.  He has taught at Berkeley’s Boalt Hall School of Law and is also a visiting Professor in Religious Studies at Saint Mary's College of California and adviser to Berkeley’s Religion, Politics and Globalization Center as well as Academic Affairs Chair at Zaytuna College of California. He also founded Berkeley’s Center for the Study and Documentation of Islamophobia, a research unit dedicated to the systematic study of Othering Islam and Muslims.  He is also Chairman of the Board of American Muslims for Palestine.

Samia al-Botmeh

Al-Shabaka Policy Advisor Samia al-Botmeh is an assistant professor in economics and researcher at the Centre for Development Studies at Birzeit University in Palestine. She has completed her PhD at the School of African and Oriental Studies- University of London, in labour economics, the title of her thesis: “Palestinian Women's Labour Supply: Towards an Explanation of Low and Fluctuating Female Labour Force Participation”. Previously, al-Botmeh worked as Senior Researcher and Coordinator of Research at the Palestine Economic Policy Research Institute (MAS) in Ramallah and has published extensively on contemporary Palestinian economics, labor markets, gender differentials, and political economy of development under colonialism.

Kamal Boullata (1942-2019)

Al-Shabaka Policy Advisor Kamal Boullata was a visual artist and writer. He was the author of Recovery of Place: A Study of Contemporary Palestinian Art (in Arabic, 2000) and Palestinian Art: Discontinuities and Resistance, 1845-2005. He co-edited If Only the Sea Could Sleep (with Mirene Ghossein, 2003) and We Begin Here: Poems for Palestine and Lebanon (with Kathy Engel, 2007).

Diana Buttu

Al-Shabaka Policy Advisor 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.

Seif Da’Na

Al-Shabaka Policy Advisor Seif Da'Na is associate professor of Sociology and International Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Parkside. He is also a member of the Board of Directors and executive committee of the Trans-Arab Research Institute.

Tariq Dana

Al-Shabaka Policy Advisor Tariq Dana is an assistant professor at the Center for Conflict and Humanitarian Studies at the Doha Institute of Graduate Studies. He served as the director of the Center for Development Studies at Birzeit University (2015-2017), and was a senior research fellow at Ibrahim Abu-Lughod Institute of International Studies. He earned his PhD at Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies, Italy. Tariq's research interests include political economy, civil society, social movements/ NGOs, state-building and state-society relations with a particular focus on Palestine and the broader Arab Middle East.

Beshara Doumani

Al-Shabaka Policy Advisor Beshara Doumani is Professor of Middle East History at the University of California, Berkeley. He writes on the social history of the family, gender and law in Ottoman times, academic freedom, and Palestinian affairs.He is author of Rediscovering Palestine: Merchants and Peasants in Jabal Nablus, 1700-1900. He has been a fellow at Washington D.C.’s Woodrow Wilson Institute, Berlin’s Institute for Advanced Studies, and Harvard University’s Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Studies. Doumani serves on the editorial committee of the Journal of Palestine Studies as well as the Board of the Palestinian American Research Center. He is helping to establish the Palestinian Museum.

Haidar Eid

Al-Shabaka Policy Advisor Haidar Eid is Associate Professor of Postcolonial and Postmodern Literature at Gaza's al-Aqsa University. He has written widely on the Arab-Israeli conflict, including articles published at Znet, Electronic Intifada, Palestine Chronicle, and Open Democracy. He has published papers on cultural Studies  and literature in a number of journals, including Nebula, Journal of American Studies in Turkey, Cultural Logic, and the Journal of Comparative Literature. Haidar is the author of Worlding Postmodernism: Interpretive Possibilities of Critical Theory  and Countering The Palestinian Nakba: One State For All.

Noura Erakat

Al-Shabaka Policy Advisor Noura Erakat is an assistant professor at George Mason University where she teaches in the legal studies, international studies, and human rights/social justice studies concentrations. An attorney and human rights advocate, she previously served as Legal Counsel for a Congressional Subcommittee in the House of Representatives and as an advisor on Middle East affairs for Congressman Dennis Kucinich. Noura comments regularly on US foreign policy and international law matters. She has appeared on Al Jazeera International, NBC's "Politically Incorrect," and Fox's "The O'Reilly Factor." Her writings have appeared in The Huffington Post, Berkeley Law School's Journal for Middle East and Islamic Law, Counterpunch, Al-Majdal, and the Middle East Research and Information Project (MERIP).

Randa Farah

Al-Shabaka Policy Advisor Randa Farah is an Associate Professor at the University of Western Ontario, Anthropology Department. Dr. Farah has written on Palestinian popular memory and reconstructions of identity based on her fieldwork in a refugee camp in Jordan. She was a Research Associate at the Centre d'Etudes et de Recherches sur le Moyen-Orient Contemporain (CERMOC), in Jordan, where she conducted research on Palestinian refugees and the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA). She held different positions as Visiting Fellow and an Associate Researcher at the Refugee Studies Center (RSC) at the University of Oxford.

Hani Faris

Al-Shabaka Policy Advisor Hani Faris is Adjunct Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada. He previously served at various universities, including Kuwait, Harvard, McGill, and Simon Fraser. He has written many academic articles and his books include Beyond the Lebanese Civil War. He has written more than twenty book chapters and over forty academic articles on such topics as Arab nationalism, the Middle East in world politics, Zionism, Lebanese politics, history of the Palestinian issue, and Third World development. Faris serves on the editorial board of Contemporary Arab Affairs and is president of the Board of Trans Arab Research Institute, (TARI).

Leila Farsakh

Al-Shabaka Policy Advisor Leila Farsakh is associate professor in political science at the University of Massachusetts Boston. She is the author of Palestinian Labor Migration to Israel: Labor, Land and Occupation, (Routledge, Fall 2005) and editor of Commemorating the Naksa, Evoking the Nakba, (a special volume of Electronic Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, in Spring 2008). She has written widely on the political economy of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and on the one-state solution. Dr. Farsakh has since 2008 has been a senior research fellow at the Center for Development Studies at Birzeit University, in the West Bank. In 2001 she won the Peace and Justice Award from the Cambridge Peace Commission, in Massachusetts, U.S.

As’ad Ghanem

Al-Shabaka Policy Advisor 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.

Toufic Haddad

Al-Shabaka Policy Advisor 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.

Laila el-Haddad

Al-Shabaka Policy Advisor Laila el-Haddad is a Maryland-based freelance journalist, author, political analyst, and parent-of-two from Gaza. From 2003-2007, she was Gaza correspondent for the Al-Jazeera English website and a regular contributor to the BBC World Service. She is the author of Gaza Mom: Palestine, Politics, Parenting, and Everything in Between, named for the award-winning blog she has authored since 2004, and was a contributor to The Goldstone Report: The Legacy of the Landmark Investigation of the Gaza Conflict (Nation Books January 2011) and author of the forthcoming Gaza Kitchen. She has been published in The Washington Post, the International Herald Tribune, The Baltimore Sun, The New Statesman, Le Monde diplomatique, and has been a guest on WUNC, WBUR and CNN. She is also a columnist for the Guardian's Comment is Free. She is a graduate of Duke University and Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.

Nadia Hijab

Nadia Hijab is co-founder and board president of Al-Shabaka: The Palestinian Policy Network. She served as its Executive Director between 2011 and March 2018. A writer, public speaker and media commentator, Hijab’s first book, Womanpower: The Arab debate on women at work was published by Cambridge University Press and she co-authored Citizens Apart: A Portrait of Palestinians in Israel (I. B. Tauris). She was Editor-in-Chief of the London-based Middle East magazine before serving at the United Nations in New York. She is a co-founder and former co-chair of the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights and now serves on its advisory board.

Jamil Hilal

Al-Shabaka Policy Advisor Jamil Hilal is an independent Palestinian sociologist and writer, and has published many books and numerous articles on Palestinian society, the Arab-Israeli Conflict, and Middle East issues.  Hilal has held, and holds, associate senior research fellowship at a number of Palestinian research institutions.  His recent publications include works on poverty, Palestinian political parties, and the political system after Oslo.  He edited Where Now for Palestine: The Demise of the Two-State Solution (Z Books, 2007), and with Ilan Pappe edited Across the Wall (I.B. Tauris, 2010).

Khalil Hindi

Al-Shabaka Policy Advisor Khalil Hindi is President of Bir Zeit University. He was formerly Professor and Associate Dean at Olayan School of Business, American University of Beirut. He held professorships in both engineering and management science in Britain and AUB. He writes occasionally on Palestinian issues.

Muhammad Jaradat

Al-Shabaka Policy Advisor Muhammad Jaradat is a founding member of BADIL Resource Center, the global Palestine Right-of-Return Coalition and of the BDS Movement. As coordinator of the BADIL Refugee Rights Campaign, he works with Palestinian refugee and internally displaced community organizations in the 1967 Occupied Palestinian Territory, Israel and the Palestinian exile, as well as with the international solidarity movement, in order to enhance knowledge and campaigning skills and facilitate effective community-based campaigns for respect of the fundamental rights of Palestinian refugees and IDPs.

Ingrid Jaradat Gassner

Al-Shabaka Policy Advisor Ingrid Jaradat Gassner is a co-founder and former director of Badil Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights (Badil). She has worked extensively in the fields of international law and advocacy, including innovative research on Palestinian refugees, the right to return, Israeli colonialism and apartheid and related third-state responsibilities. She has also coordinated research for a Palestinian civic initiative seeking to register exiled Palestinians as voters and campaign for direct PNC elections and carried out advocacy with the Civic Coalition for Palestinian Rights in Jerusalem. She currently works as an independent consultant.

Jamal Juma’

Al-Shabaka Policy Advisor Jamal Juma' is a founding member of the Palestinian Agricultural Relief Committees, the Palestinian Association for Cultural Exchange and the Palestinian Environmental NGO Network. Since 2002, he has been the coordinator of the Palestinian Grassroots Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign. He has been invited to address numerous civil society and United Nations conferences. His articles and interviews are widely disseminated and translated into several languages.

Victor Kashkoush

Victor Kashkoush (d. 2012) served on the first Board of Al-Shabaka, which he joined in 2010 soon after the organization was founded. He brought a wealth of institution-building skills and continued to provide advice and support even when his health was failing due to his long battle with cancer. Victor was director general of the Welfare Association from 1994 to 2000, when he opened his own consulting business, and served as a member of the Board of Trustees from 2005 until his death. He will be remembered for his unfailing commitment to justice, his sharp intelligence, and his generosity. His passing is a great loss to all those who loved him and to the Palestinian people.

Anis Kassim

Al-Shabaka Policy Advisor Dr. Anis Kassim is an international lawyer based in Amman. He is the chief editor of the Palestine Yearbook of International Law. He helped make the Palestinian case before the International Court of Justice, resulting in its July 9, 2004 Advisory Opinion affirming the illegality of Israel's separation wall and its associated regime.

Victor Kattan

Al-Shabaka policy advisor Victor Kattan is a Senior Research Fellow at the Middle East Institute at the National University of Singapore. He previously served as Al-Shabaka's Program Director and was a postdoctoral fellow at the Law Faculty of the National University of Singapore. He is the author of From Coexistence to Conquest: International Law and the Origins of the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 1891-1949 (London: Pluto Books, 2009) and The Palestine Question in International Law (London: British Institute of International and Comparative Law, 2008). He was a legal adviser to the Palestinian Negotiations Support Project from 2012-2013 and a Teaching Fellow at the University of London's School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) from 2008-2011 where he obtained his PhD in 2012.  He worked for the British Institute of International and Comparative Law from 2006-2008, Arab Media Watch from 2004-2006, and the BADIL Resource Centre for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights from 2003-2004.

Aziza Khalidi

Al-Shabaka Policy Advisor Aziza Khalidi serves on the board of the Najdeh Association and is a founding member of the Forum of Palestinian women in Lebanon, a network of non-governmental organizations promoting the implementation of the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women. She is also affiliated to the faculty of economics and business administration at the Islamic University of Lebanon. She works as a freelance research consultant in areas pertaining to health and development for refugees in general, gender issues, and elderly. Contributed to design, implementation and report write up of several field surveys.

Rashid Khalidi

Al-Shabaka Policy Advisor Rashid Khalidi is the Edward Said Professor of Arab Studies in the Department of History at Columbia University. He is past President of the Middle East Studies Association, was an advisor to the Palestinian delegation to the 1991-1993 Arab-Israeli peace negotiations, and is the editor of the Journal of Palestine Studies. Khalidi is the author of Brokers of Deceit: How the U.S. has Undermined Peace in the Middle East (2013); Sowing Crisis: American Dominance and the Cold War in the Middle East (2009); The Iron Cage: The Story of the Palestinian Struggle for Statehood (2006); Resurrecting Empire: Western Footprints and America’s Perilous Path in the Middle East (2004); Palestinian Identity: The Construction of Modern National Consciousness (1997); Under Siege: PLO Decision-making during the 1982 War (1986); and British Policy towards Syria and Palestine, 1906-1914 (1980). He has written over ninety articles on aspects of Middle Eastern history.

Osamah Khalil

Al-Shabaka Policy Advisor Osamah Khalil is a co-founder of Al-Shabaka. He is an Associate Professor of History at Syracuse University’s Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs. Khalil is the author of America’s Dream Palace: Middle East Expertise and the Rise of the National Security State (Harvard University Press, 2016).

Photo of Ameer Makhoul
Ameer Makhoul

Al-Shabaka Policy Advisor Ameer Makhoul has served for many years as General Director of ittijah – Union of Arab Community Based Associations, the largest coalition of civil society organizations among the Palestinian citizens of Israel. He has also chaired the National committee for the Protection of Political Freedoms, and served as coordinator of the Coordinating Committee of Palestinian Civil Society in the Homeland and Diaspora. He writes frequently on human rights issues and his political analysis is widely circulated.

Camille Mansour

Al-Shabaka Policy Advisor Camille Mansour is member of the Institute of Palestine Studies' Board of Trustees and chairman of its research committee. He was professor of international relations at Paris University from 1984 to 2004. He also taught at Birzeit University where he founded and headed the Institute of Law (1994-2000)  and established al-Muqtafi, the Palestine Judicial and Legislative Databank, and was the dean of its Faculty of Law and Public Administration (2007-2009).

Hani al-Masri

Al-Shabaka Policy Advisor Hani Al-Masri is Director General of Masarat, the Palestinian Center for Policy Research and Strategic Studies. He founded and was director general of the Palestinian Media, Research and Studies Centre, Badael, between 2005 and 2011. He has published hundreds of articles, research and policy papers in Palestinian and Arab magazines and newspapers including Al-Ayyam and Al-Safir. He previously served as General Manager of the Printing & Publication Department at the Ministry of Information and as a member of the Committee on Government in the Commission of Dialogue held in Cairo in 2009. He is a member of the board of trustees at the Yasser Arafat Foundation.

Salwa Mikdadi

Al-Shabaka Policy Advisor 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.

Mary Nazzal-Batayneh

Al-Shabaka Policy Advisor Mary Nazzal-Batayneh is a UK barrister with vast experience campaigning for human rights. She has worked with several civil society organizations including the Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign. In her capacity as the Chair of the Palestine Legal Aid Fund, she is part of a legal movement to hold Israel accountable for crimes committed against the Palestinian people. She holds degrees from Columbia University, SOAS University of London, the College of Law, and Inns of Court School of Law. Mary is also the President of Landmark Hotels.

Munir Nuseibah

Al-Shabaka Policy Advisor Munir Nuseibah is a human rights lawyer and academic based in Al-Quds University in Jerusalem, Palestine. He is an assistant professor at Al-Quds University's faculty of law; the director (and co-founder) of Al-Quds Human Rights Clinic, the first accredited clinical legal education program in the Arab World; and the director of the Community Action Center in Jerusalem. He holds an LL.M in International Legal Studies from the Washington College of Law of the American University in Washington DC and a PhD degree from the University of Westminster in London, UK, where his thesis dealt with Forced Displacement in the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict, International Law, and Transitional Justice.

Dena Qaddumi

Al-Shabaka Policy Advisor Dena Qaddumi is an architect and urbanist currently based in Doha. Her research interests are primarily concerned with how social movements engage with urban space and how this process creates new avenues for citizenship formation.

Mezna Qato

Al-Shabaka Policy Advisor Mezna Qato is completing her DPhil in History from St. Antony’s College, Oxford, on the history of educational regimes for Palestinians.

Najwa al-Qattan

Al-Shabaka Policy Advisor Najwa al-Qattan is associate professor of history at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles.  She is a graduate of the American University of Beirut, Georgetown and Harvard Universities.  She has published on the Ottoman Muslim court, Jews and Christians in the Ottoman Empire, and the Great War.

Mouin Rabbani

Al-Shabaka Policy Advisor Mouni Rabbani is an independent writer and analyst specializing in Palestinian affairs and the Arab-Israeli conflict. He is a senior fellow at the Institute for Palestine Studies and is a Contributing Editor to the Middle East Report. His articles have also appeared in The National and he has provided comments for The New York Times.

Fadia Rafeedie Khoury

Al-Shabaka Policy Advisor Fadia Rafeedie Khoury is a Palestinian living in Los Angeles, originally from El-Bireh and Birzeit. She is a graduate of UC Berkeley and Yale Law School, where she was engaged in activism promoting Palestinian and Arab causes.

Oraib Rantawi

Al-Shabaka Policy Advisor Oraib Rantawi is the founder and director general of the Amman-based Al Quds Center for Political Studies and an established writer and columnist. He has authored and edited several strategic studies and organized and participated in seminars and conferences in Jordan and internationally. He is also a frequent commentator and analyst on television and has produced his own show “Qadaya wa Ahdath” (Issues and Events.)

Nadim Rouhana

Al-Shabaka Policy Advisor Nadim N. Rouhana is Professor of International Negotiation and Conflict Studies at The Fletcher School, Graduate School of International Affairs, Tufts University. His current research includes work on the dynamics of protracted social conflict, collective identity and democratic citizenship in multiethnic states, the questions of reconciliation and multicultural citizenship, transitional justice, and international negotiations. His research and writing focused on the Arab-Israeli conflict and on Israeli and Palestinian societies. He is also the Founding Director of “Mada al-Carmel -- The Arab Center for Applied Social Research” in Haifa. The center focuses on issues of identity, citizenship and democracy, and the future relationship between Palestinians and Israelis.

Samah Sabawi

Samah Sabawi is a political commentator, author and playwright. She is a Policy Advisor to Al-Shabaka: The Palestinian Policy Network, and 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.

Grace Said

Al-Shabaka Policy Advisor Grace Said is a long-time advocate of Palestinian human rights. She is a member of the Steering Committee of Friends of Sabeel, North America and treasurer of the Washington Interfaith Alliance for Middle East Peace. She has in the past served on the boards of Trans-Arab Research Institute and the Arab-American University Graduates. In 2009 she was a co-founder of Al-Shabaka and also organized a major Sabeel conference in Washington, DC.

May Seikaly

Al-Shabaka Policy Advisor May Seikaly is Associate Professor of History at Wayne State University in the Department of Classical Languages, Literatures and Cultures (Near Eastern Studies). Her work has focused on the social history of Arab society, specifically Palestinian and Arabian Gulf societies.  May Seikaly has been involved in the collection and archiving of Palestinian memory through the use of Oral documentation for recording, archiving and historicizing oral collections, including her book Haifa: Transformation of an Arab society 1918-1939.  She is currently working on a study of Gulf Social History through the eyes of its women, and in essence again utilizing oral history as a major tool.

Photo of Omar Shaban
Omar Shaban

Al-Shabaka Policy Advisor Omar Shaban is the Founder and Director of the Gaza-based PalThink for Strategic Studies an independent think tank with no political affiliation. He is an analyst of the political-economy of the Middle East and is a regular writer and commentator for the Arab and international media. Omar is a founder of Palestinian groups for Amnesty International, the deputy head of the board of Asala, an association promoting microfinance for women, and a member of the Institute of Good Governance.

Khalil Shaheen

Al-Shabaka Policy Advisor Khalil Shaheen is a Palestinian Journalist, media expert, researcher, and well-known political and media analyst. He is currently the director of research and policies and board member at Masarat - The Palestine Center for Policy Research and Strategic studies in Ramallah. Since 1981, he has served as a journalist, editor and researcher at several institutions, newspapers and magazines in Lebanon, Syria, Cyprus, Jordan and Palestine, since 1981. His articles and policy studies are widely published.

Halla Shoaibi

Al-Shabaka Policy Advisor Halla Shoaibi is an S.J.D candidate at American University Washington College of Law in Washington, DC. Prior to that, she served as an Associate for two years at Kamal & Associates, Attorneys and Counselors at Law in Ramallah. Halla holds a masters degree in law from University of Michigan and an LL.B from Birzeit University. Her areas of interest are international criminal law and women’s rights.

Jaber Suleiman

Al-Shabaka Policy Advisor Jaber Suleiman is an independent researcher/consultant in Refugee Studies. Since 2011, he has been working as a consultant and coordinator for the Lebanese Palestinian Dialogue Forum at the Common Space Initiative, UNDP Support Project on Consensus Building, and Civil Peace in Lebanon. Between 2007 and 2010, he worked as a consultant for the Palestinian program of UNICEF in Palestinian refugee camps of Lebanon. He was a Visiting Study Fellow at the Refugee Studies Program, University of Oxford. He is also a co-founder of Aidoun Group & the Centre for Refugee Rights/Aidoun, and has written several studies dealing with Palestinian refugees and the right of return.

Salim Tamari

Al-Shabaka Policy Advisor 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.

Alaa Tartir

Alaa Tartir is Program Advisor to Al-Shabaka. Tartir also serves as a research associate at the Centre on Conflict, Development, and Peacebuilding, and a visiting fellow at the Department of Anthropology and Sociology, The Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies (IHEID), Geneva, Switzerland. Amongst other positions, Tartir was a post-doctoral fellow at The Geneva Centre for Security Policy (GCSP) from 2016-17, a visiting scholar and lecturer (2015) at Utrecht University’s Department of History and Art History, The Netherlands, and was, between 2010 and 2015, a researcher in international development studies at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), where he earned his PhD. Follow Tartir on Twitter: https://twitter.com/alaatartir and read his publications at www.alaatartir.com  

Dalal Yassine

Dalal Yassine is a lawyer and advocate for gender and human rights for Palestinian refugees in Lebanon. Dalal has previously worked with several Palestinian NGOs in Lebanon and formerly served as coordinator for The Right to Work Campaign for Palestinian Refugees in Lebanon. She is the co-author of The Legal Status of Palestinian Refugees in Lebanon (2007) and completed a multi-site study titled The Empowerment of Women in Refugee Camps in Lebanon.

Will Youmans

Al-Shabaka Policy Advisor Will Youmans is a writer and activist. He is a doctoral candidate at the University of Michigan and holds a degree from the University of California, Berkeley School of Law. He has written on Arab-American issues and US policy in the Middle East.

Mona N. Younis

Al-Shabaka Policy Advisor Mona N. Younis is an independent strategic planning and organizational development consultant who specializes in human rights. She has extensive experience in research, teaching, philanthropy and non-profit organizations. Mona co-founded the Fund for Global Human Rights (Washington, DC) and the Arab Human Rights Fund (Beirut, Lebanon). She has published on social movements, community development, philanthropy and human rights, and is the author of Liberation and Democratization: The South African and Palestinian National Movements (University of Minnesota Press, 2000).

Issam Younis

Al-Shabaka Policy Advisor Issam Younis is the Director of Al-Mezan Center for Human Rights in Gaza. He is the Commissioner General of The Palestinian Independent Commission for Hunan Rights (ICHR). He is the president of the Arab Network of National Human Rights Institutions (ANNHRI). He is also a member of the Palestinian Higher Education Council.

Antoine Zahlan (1928-2020)

Al-Shabaka Policy Advisor Antoine Zahlan was a former professor and chairman of the Physics Department at the American University of Beirut and former director of the Royal Scientific Society, Amman, Jordan. He initiated the Arab Project and Development Institute in Lebanon and was a founding member of other Arab institutions such as the Arab Physical Society and the Center for Arab Unity Studies. He published extensively on a broad range of topics from agricultural and educational policies to manpower planning and institution-building.

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