Dr. Yara M. Asi is an Assistant Professor at the University of Central Florida in the School of Global Health Management and Informatics. Her research agenda focuses on global health, human rights, and development in fragile populations. She is a Non-resident Fellow at the Arab Center Washington DC, a 2020-2021 Fulbright US Scholar to the West Bank, the Fall 2021 US Fellow at Al Shabaka Palestinian Policy Network, and the co-chair of the Palestine Health Justice Working Group in the American Public Health Association. Along with working at one of the first accountable care organizations in the United States, she has also worked with Amnesty International USA and the Palestinian American Research Center on policy and outreach issues. She has presented at multiple national and international conferences on topics related to global health, food security, health informatics, and women in healthcare, and has published extensively on health and well-being in fragile and conflict-affected populations in journal articles and book chapters. Her work has also been featured in The Washington Post, The Guardian, The Nation, +972 Magazine, The Conversation, Al Jazeera, The World, and other outlets. Her forthcoming book with Johns Hopkins University Press will examine war as a public health crisis.
From this author
As the Israeli regime continues its genocidal campaign against Palestinians in Gaza, many have begun to weigh in on the future of Hamas and of Palestinian leadership more broadly once the bombardment ends. One of the dominant proposals circulating amongst analysts, Palestinian and otherwise, is the revival of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), with Hamas as a member party.
A sovereign Palestinian state is today perhaps further from reality than ever before. Indeed, with the demise of the so-called two-state solution and the entrenchment of Israeli settler colonialism and apartheid across Palestine, the possibility of a Palestinian nation-state is arguably defunct. What does a Palestinian political future beyond partition look like? What would this entail for Palestinians within colonized Palestine and across the diaspora? Given their forced fragmentation, how might Palestinians forge collective visions for their political future?
The process to reform the PLO as a genuinely representative body would be painstaking and difficult. However, assuming such a transition, many of the community-led efforts to address issues in health may be revitalized after years of co-optation by the rigid structures of the PA.
A collapse of the PA, and by default, the MoH, would leave a vacuum not just in direct health provision, but also in the presence of a central body to which external aid for health-related matters is directed.
A new popular Palestinian uprising would overwhelm an already suffering Palestinian health sector in the West Bank and Gaza. Furthermore, a new intifada would shift the Israeli and international community’s approach to Palestinians, restricting health providers’ capacities and access to desperately needed medical resources.
The sudden death of President Mahmoud Abbas would likely cause a crisis in Palestinian governance that would have significant impacts on the health sector. Likewise, any new elections that result in a change in leadership would cause political and social instability. However, this is less likely due to the PA’s continued refusal to hold presidential and legislative elections.
The four major components of the Palestinian health sector—the Palestinian Ministry of Health, UNRWA, NGOs, and the private sector — will continue to operate their often disparate services for Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. However, even if the status quo persists, significant disruptive impacts to Palestinian health may occur, especially through the NGO sector.
Yara Asi joins host Yara Hawari to discuss the Palestinian health and education sectors within the context of the Palestinian struggle for liberation.
The Palestinian health and education sectors have been neglected by Palestinian authorities and the donor community. How can Palestinians collectively develop these sectors with a vision for liberation? Al-Shabaka’s US policy fellow, Yara Asi, examines this question and offers recommendations based on interviews she conducted with Palestinians in the West Bank, Gaza, behind the Green Line, and in the diaspora.
Israel has directly contributed to the deterioration of Palestinians’ health during the COVID-19 pandemic throughout the Occupied Palestinian Territory. Al-Shabaka policy analyst, Yara Asi, explores the different ways in which Israel has impacted Palestinians’ ability to respond to and mitigate the disastrous effects of the pandemic, and recommends approaches to addressing the Palestinian health crisis.
