Leila Farsakh
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.
Linah al-Banna
Linah al-Banna is a Child Psychologist at the Kennedy Krieger Institute.
Loubna Qutami
Al-Shabaka Policy Member Loubna Qutami is a Presidents Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of California, Berkeley. She has a PhD from the Department of Ethnic Studies at the University of California, Riverside. Qutami is also the former Executive Director of the Arab Cultural and Community Center (ACCC) in San Francisco as well as a founder, member, and the former International General Coordinator for the Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM).
M. Muhannad Ayyash
M. Muhannad Ayyash was born and raised in Silwan, Al-Quds, before immigrating to Canada, where he is now Professor of Sociology at Mount Royal University. He is the author of A Hermeneutics of Violence (UTP, 2019). He has published several articles in journals such as Interventions, the European Journal of International Relations, Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East, and the European Journal of Social Theory. He has written opinion pieces for Al-Jazeera, The Baffler, Middle East Eye, Mondoweiss, The Breach, and Middle East Monitor. He is currently writing a book on settler colonial sovereignty in Palestine/Israel.
Maha Nassar
Al-Shabaka Member Maha Nassar is an assistant professor in the School of Middle Eastern and North African Studies at the University of Arizona. She holds a Ph.D. in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations from the University of Chicago. Her book, Brothers Apart: Palestinian Citizens of Israel and the Arab World (Stanford University Press, 2017) examines how Palestinian intellectuals in Israel have connected to global decolonization movements through literary and journalistic writings. Nassar is also a Public Voices Fellow with the OpEd Project. Her pieces have appeared in The Washington Post, The Conversation, Middle East Report and elsewhere.
Laila el-Haddad
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.
Kareem Rabie
Al-Shabaka policy analyst, Kareem Rabie, is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of Illinois, Chicago. His research focuses on privatization, urban development, and the state-building project in the West Bank, which culminated in his first book, Palestine is Throwing a Party and the Whole World is Invited (Duke University Press, 2021). Rabie’s new work examines the political economy and human geographies of Palestine/China trade. Previously, he was Assistant Professor of Anthropology at American University in Washington, DC, Harper-Schmidt Fellow at the University of Chicago, and Marie Curie Fellow/Senior Researcher at the University of Oxford Centre on Migration, Policy, and Society (COMPAS).
Jehad Abusalim
Jehad Abusalim is currently a PhD student in the History and Hebrew and Judaic Studies joint program at New York University. His main area of research is Palestinian and Arab perceptions of the Zionist project and the Jewish question before 1948. He also studies the political and social history of the Gaza Strip and the impacts of the Palestinian Nakba, and how it radically impacted the political, social, demographic, and economic realities of Gaza.
Jeremy Wildeman
Al-Shabaka Policy Member Jeremy Wildeman is a Research Associate at the University of Bath’s “Department of Social and Policy Sciences” where he is carrying out research on donor policy towards the Palestinians. Previously he completed a PhD on Canadian and foreign development aid towards the Palestinians, and has collaborated on a number of past research projects on Palestinian development, economy and NGOs. He also has substantial past experience with the Palestinian NGO sector, including co-founding the Nablus-based youth development charity ”Project Hope.”
