Sami Miaari
Al-Shabaka Member Sami Miaari is a lecturer at the Department of Labor Studies at Tel-Aviv University, and a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellow at the Blavatnik School of Government, Oxford University. He earned his Ph.D. and M.A degrees in Economics from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, with research focuses on labour economics, economic causes and consequences of conflict, including on the economic costs of political instability and the relationship between economic shocks and conflict, discrimination against ethnic minorities, economic inequality, and applied econometrics. Sami has served as an economic consultant for the World Bank, IMF and other international organizations, and founded the Arab Economic Forum in Israel in 2010.
Samia al-Botmeh
Samia Al-Botmeh is an assistant professor in economics at the Faculty of Business and Economics/ Birzeit University. She was the director for the Centre for Development Studies at Birzeit University till 2014. She worked with the Palestine Economic Policy Research Institute (MAS) in Ramallah as a researcher. She completed her PhD at the School of African and Oriental Studies- University of London, in labour economics. Areas of interest and publications are gender economics, labour economics, and political economy of development. She has engaged in research on alternatives to neo-liberal development in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and gender differentials in labour market outcomes.
Sam Bahour
Sam Bahour resides in Al-Bireh/Ramallah, Palestine. He does business consulting as Applied Information Management (AIM), specializing in business development with a niche focus on the information technology sector and start-ups. Bahour was instrumental in the establishment of two publicly traded firms: the Palestine Telecommunications Company (PALTEL) and the Arab Palestinian Shopping Centers (APSC). He is Co-founder & Emeritus Member of Americans for a Vibrant Palestinian Economy (A4VPE). He currently is an independent Director at the Arab Islamic Bank PLC and a board member at Just Vision. He writes frequently on Palestinian affairs and has been widely published in leading outlets. He is co-editor of HOMELAND: Oral History of Palestine and Palestinians (Olive Branch Press, 1993), tweets at @SamBahour, and blogs at epalestine.ps.
Sabrien Amrov
Al-Shabaka Policy Member Sabrien Amrov is pursuing her Ph.D. in Human Geography at the University of Toronto. In 2013, she earned her master’s degree in International Relations, with Honours, from the University of Ottawa. Her MA thesis on the Security Sector Reform in the West Bank was funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. In 2011, she earned her Honours Bachelors in Conflict Studies and Human Rights with a Minor in Arabic Language and Culture from the same university. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, Middle East Monitor, Rabble and TRT World.
Safa Joudeh
Al-Shabaka Policy Member Safa Joudeh is an Egypt-based political and security analyst working for an international strategic advisory consulting firm. She advises government and private sector clients on security, political and geopolitical developments affecting investments and operations in Egypt and the MENA region. She is also a multimedia journalist with experience covering Egypt and Palestine focusing on conflict, security and governance. She holds a Masters in Public Policy from Stony Brook University in New York.
Saleh Hijazi
Al-Shabaka Policy Member Saleh Hijazi is a human rights activist and researcher presently living in London where he works at Amnesty International. He is advisor to Al-Quds University Human Rights Clinic where he worked as academic coordinator and lecturer. Saleh holds a master’s degree in human rights from the University of Essex and a bachelor degree in philosophy and political science from Lawrence University. His interests are social movements and caricature.
Salem Barahmeh
Al-Shabaka policy member Salem Barahmeh is the Executive Director of the Palestine Institute for Public Diplomacy. He is currently a Non-Resident Fellow at the US Middle East Project and previously worked as an international affairs advisor to Dr. Hanan Ashrawi at the PLO and the Palestine Investment Fund. He has also worked at Portland Communications in London, as a Policy and Public Affairs Advisor to Gulf governments, and for the Palestinian Embassy to the United States. Salem received a BA in Government from Lawrence University and an MA in Law and Politics from King’s College London.
Salim Tamari
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.
Raya Naamneh
Al-Shabaka Policy Member Raya Naamneh is a Palestinian student and activist from Arraba village in the Galilee. She is working on her B.A. in English Language and Literature at Haifa University and is deeply interested in colonial and post-colonial literature as well as intersectional politics as regards the experiences of women and the LGBTQ community around the world, with special focus on Palestinian society. She is an active member of al-Qaws for Sexual and Gender Diversity in Palestinian Society. She recently started working at Baladna – Association for Arab Youth in Haifa as a resources and project development coordinator.
