Speakers and Moderators
Prof. Rabab Abdulhadi
Monday, June 21 - Session VII: 17:30-19:45
Rabab Abdulhadi is a professor of sociology at San Fransisco State University, where she focuses on Arab and Muslim Ethnicities and Diasporas and Race and Resistance Studies. Dr. Abdulhadi received her BA in 1994 from Hunter College, and received her MA, MPhil, and PhD degrees from Yale University in 1995, 1998, and 2000, respectively. Her publications include “Whose 1960s? Gender, Resistance and Liberation in Palestine,” “Imagining Freedom, Justice, and Peace in the Age of Empire,” and “Debating Palestine: Representation, Resistance and Liberation.”
Dr. Osama Abuirshaid
Tuesday, June 22 - Session IX: 17:30-19:45
Osama Abuirshaid is the Executive Director and a board member of American Muslims for Palestine (AMP). He is a board member of the U.S. Council of Muslim Organizations (USCMO), an umbrella organization of eight major national American Muslim organizations. He is a non-resident scholar at the Doha-based Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies (ACRPS). He lectures frequently on Middle East and American politics. He is a regular commentator on Palestinian and Middle Eastern affairs as well as on the American domestic and foreign policy on various Arabic satellite T.V. channels such as Aljazeera. He authored or coauthored several books in Arabic and he published dozens of studies and articles in Arabic and English, on issues relevant to the Middle East and its political climate. He is an American Muslim community leader and speaker. Abuirshaid completed his PhD in Political Science at Loughborough University in the United Kingdom.
Ms. Susan Abulhawa
Wednesday, June 23 - Session XII: 20:00-22:00
Susan Abulhawa is a Palestinian writer and the author of the international bestselling novel, Mornings in Jenin, which was published in nineteen countries. She was born to refugees of the Six Day War of 1967, when her family's land was seized and Israel captured what remained of Palestine, including Jerusalem. She moved to the USA as a teenager, graduated in biomedical science and established a career in medical science. In July 2001, Susan Abulhawa founded Playgrounds for Palestine, a children's organization dedicated to upholding The Right to Play for Palestinian children.
Dr. Salman Abu Sitta
Friday, June 18 - Session I: 20:00-22:15
Salman Abu Sitta was born in 1937 in Ma‘in Abu Sitta, in the Beersheba district of mandate Palestine. An engineer by profession, he is best known for his cartographic work on Palestine and his work on the Palestinian Right of Return. He is the author of six books and over 300 articles and papers on Palestine, including The Atlas of Palestine, 1917–1966 (2010). He is the founder and president of the Palestine Land Society
Ms. Zeenat Adam
Wednesday, June 23 - Session XI: 17:30-19:45
Zeenat Adam is an international relations strategist, entrepreneur and political opinion writer. She served as a senior diplomat in the South African foreign service, focusing on the Middle East and the Horn of Africa. She led election observer missions to Palestine, Madagascar and South Sudan. Since her departure from the foreign service, she has contributed to various academic and media publications. Her opinions on the developments in the Middle East and Africa are frequently sought by think tanks, media houses and the private sector. She has facilitated numerous advocacy and human rights campaigns and coordinated humanitarian relief in several war-torn countries. She served as media spokesperson for Women’s Boat to Gaza, a Freedom Flotilla initiative. In 2019 she founded Conscience Collective, an organization aimed at creating awareness and solidarity on international issues through collective, shared social realities, art, literature and critical analysis. She currently serves as the Deputy Executive Director of the Afro Middle East Centre, the only research based entity in South Africa to focus on the MENA region, analyzing the dynamic interface between that region and the rest of Africa.
Dr. Muhammad Akram Adlouni
Friday, June 18 - Opening Session: 18:30-19:45
Muhammad Akram Adlouni obtained his PhD in Education from Southern Illinois University in 1991, a Masters’ degree from Colorado State University in 1984, and a BS from the University of Baghdad in 1977. He has been an educator, trainer, consultant, and administrator. He has many books and publications on training, leadership development, strategic planning, education, and management. Since 2017 he has been serving as the Secretary General of the Global Coalition for Quds and Palestine, Beirut, Lebanon. He is also a member of many professional, Palestinian, and Islamic associations.
Prof. Abdullah Al-Arian
Wednesday, June 23 - Session XII: 20:00-22:00
Abdullah Al-Arian is an Associate Professor of History at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service in Qatar. He received his doctorate in History from Georgetown University in 2011, where he wrote his dissertation on the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt during the decade of the 1970s. Dr. Al-Arian received his Master’s degree in Sociology of Religion from the London School of Economics, and his BA in Political Science from Duke University. He is co-editor of the Critical Currents in Islam page on the Jadaliyya e-zine. He received several awards that allowed him to conduct field research in many countries. His book, entitled Answering the Call: Popular Islamic Activism in Sadat’s Egypt, was published by Oxford University Press in 2014. He is currently writing a book that explores the relationship between nationalism and Islamism or the tendency of Islamic political movements to adopt the nation-state paradigm in pursuit of their activist mission in six Arab countries. Dr. Al-Arian teaches introductory courses on the history of the Middle East, as well as advanced topics courses covering the history of modern Egypt, Islamic social movements, Islamic law and society, and the history of US policy towards the Middle East. He is also a frequent contributor to the Al-Jazeera English network as well as other websites and publications and has been a frequent commentator on many media outlets around the world.
Ms. Laila Al-Arian
Monday, June 21 - Session VIII: 20:00-22:15
Laila Al-Arian is a Washington DC-based journalist and the executive producer of Fault Lines, an award-winning current affairs program on Al Jazeera English. She has produced documentaries on subjects ranging from the Trump administration's Muslim ban to the impact of the heroin epidemic on children and an investigation into factory conditions producing garments for Walmart and Gap in Bangladesh. For her work, she has been honored with two News and Documentary Emmys, a Peabody Award, a Robert F Kennedy Award in journalism, Overseas Press Club award, National Headliner Award, and has been nominated for 14 News and Documentary Emmys. Prior to joining Fault Lines, Laila worked for Al Jazeera English for four years, covering everything from Guantanamo Bay’s youngest detainee to the re-settlement of Iraqi refugees in the U.S. She received a BA in English literature from Georgetown University and an M.S. from Columbia's Graduate School of Journalism. Her work has appeared in The Nation, Salon, The Independent, and other publications, and she is co-author of the book Collateral Damage: America's War Against Iraqi Civilians.
Prof. Sami A. Al-Arian
Friday, June 18 - Opening Session: 18:30-19:45, Session I: 20:00-22:15
Sunday, June 20 - Session V: 20:00-22:00
Wednesday, June 23 - Session XIII: 22:00-22:30
Sami A. Al-Arian is the Director of the Center for Islam and Global Affairs (CIGA) and Public Affairs Professor at Istanbul Zaim University. He received his PhD in Computer Engineering in 1986, and was a tenured academic in the US for two decades receiving best teaching awards at the University of South Florida (1993 and 1994) and several grants, as well as having over forty publications to his credit. During his four decades in the US (1975-2015), Dr. Al-Arian founded numerous institutions and publications in the fields of education, research, religion and interfaith, as well as civil and human rights. He was a prolific speaker across many US campuses, especially on Palestine, Islam and the West, and Civil Rights. In 2001, he was named by Newsweek the “premiere civil rights activist” in the US for his efforts to repeal the use of Secret Evidence in immigration courts. In 2012, he was profiled by historians in the Encyclopedia of American Dissidents as one of only three Muslims in the US out of 152 dissidents and prisoners of conscience that were included in the series in the past century (along with Malcolm X and Muhammad Ali). His US story was featured in 2007 in the award-winning documentary “US vs. Al-Arian,” and in 2016 in the book “Being Palestinian.” Dr. Al-Arian has written several studies and numerous articles focusing on US foreign policy, Palestine, and the Arab Spring phenomena. His book of poetry on Spirituality, Palestine, and Human Rights Conspiring Against Joseph was published in 2004.
Ms. Lamis Jamal Alayan
Sunday, June 20 - Session IV: 17:30-19:45
Lamis Jamal Alayan is an attorney and human advocate whose work involves matters ranging from freedom of speech, assembly, and worship, to defense against state repression and predatory policing, surveillance and prosecutions, and worked to de-code and dismantle the unlawful secret “demographics unit.” She helped secure the release of the first round of arrested Egyptian revolutionaries and crafts interventions to protect international political prisoners. Lamis is an advisor to various charities, students, and academics in the US and UK, devises strategies to preemptively defeat trans-Atlantic repression and militarization campaigns, and crafts policies to advance electoral advocacy and equal protections in civil administration. She is a frequent lecturer on matters related to US foreign policy, Palestinians under law, refugees, and international policing and militarization, in academia, at UN agencies, and law forums. Lamis is a member of the National Lawyers Guild, Chief Counsel to the Global Justice and Human Rights Network, and a number of Palestinian rights organization. She is working internationally to advance investigative and prosecution strategies for international law violations, and devising preemptive policies in this regard.
Mr. Mouin Al-Taher
Tuesday, June 22 - Session X: 20:00-22:15
Mouin Al-Taher is the Project coordinator for the research and documentation of the Palestinian issue at the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies. He was a member of the Palestinian National Council, the Revolutionary Council of Fatah movement, and the Supreme Military Council of the Palestinian Revolution. Also, he was the chief of the student brigade and Palestinian-Lebanese joint forces between 1975-1982 in the areas of Bint Jbeil / Nabatieh - Al-Shakkif - in southern Lebanon. He participated in many international conferences and published different research papers in peer-reviewed scientific journals. His books include "Tobacco and Olives: Tales and Pictures from a Time of Resistance", "Student Battalion: Reflections on the Experience with Elias Khoury and Michel Nofal", "Studies in Arab Thought and Islamic Philosophy", "Diaries of Adnan Abu Odeh 1970-1988", "Diaries of Akram Zuaiter: The Crisis Years 1967- 1970".
Prof. Berdal Aral
Wednesday, June 23 - Session XI: 17:30-19:45
Berdal Aral is Professor of politics at Istanbul Medeniyet University. He received his PhD on “Turkey and International Society from a Critical Legal Perspective” in 1994 from the University of Glasgow. Prof. Berdal Aral has concentrated on international law and human rights in both his classes as well as his research. He is author of three books: Self-Defence in International Law, Collective Rights as Third-Generation Human Rights, and From Global Security to Global Hegemony: UN Security System and the Muslim World. Additionally, he has numerous articles published in Turkish and English on international law, human rights as well as on Turkey’s foreign policy.
Ms. Huwaida Arraf
Monday, June 21 - Session VII: 17:30-19:45
Huwaida Arraf is a Palestinian-American attorney and human rights activist. She received her Bachelor’s degrees from the University of Michigan, and her Juris Doctor from the American University Washington College of Law, where she focused her studies on international human rights and humanitarian law. Over the past two decades Huwaida has been involved in a number of legal and grassroots initiatives for Palestinian rights. In 2001, she co-founded the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), a Palestinian-led non-violent resistance movement. From 2007-2008, Huwaida helped build the first accredited clinical legal education program in the Arab world, based at Al-Quds University. Huwaida is the former Chairperson of the Free Gaza Movement, and from August to December 2008, led 5 successful sea voyages to the Gaza Strip to confront and challenge Israel's illegal blockade on the 2 million Palestinians living there. She was one of the primary organizers of the Gaza Freedom Flotilla and was traveling with it when it was lethally attacked by Israeli forces on 31 May 2010. In 2011, she was one of the six Palestinian Freedom Riders, who, inspired by the U.S. Civil Rights Movement’s Freedom Rides of the 1960s. Huwaida is currently based in Michigan and is the co-chair of the National Lawyers Guild Palestine Subcommittee, and sits on a number of organizational boards, including New Generation for Palestine, Eyewitness Palestine and the Advisory Board of the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights. In 2020 she served as a Bernie Sanders delegate to the Democratic National Convention.
Mr. Saleh Bakri
Wednesday, June 23 - Session XII: 20:00-22:00
Saleh Bakri is a Palestinian film and theater actor. He is the son of actor and film director Mohammad Bakri. Bakri performed in many award winning films that covered many aspects of the Palestinian struggle including Death and the Maiden, The Band's Visit, Salt of this Sea, which premiered at Cannes in 2008, The Time That Remains, When I Saw, Royal Court Theatre, and many others. In 2021 Bakri was the star of the short film, The Present, which won the British Academy (BAFTA) award in the UK, and was nominated for the Oscars in the short film category.
Dr. Mohammad Makram Balawi
Tuesday, June 22 - Session X: 20:00-22:15
Mohammad Makram Balawi is a Palestinian writer and academic based in Istanbul. Balawi holds a PhD in Postcolonialism from the International Islamic University in Malaysia. He recently wrote a book titled, “Deconstructing Pro-Israeli Descourse: India as a Case Study.” Balawi is the President of Asia Middle East Forum, a public diplomacy platform for advocating the Palestinian cause in Asia as well as Director of al-Quds Foundation Malaysia, a Malaysian Foundation specialized in advocating for Jerusalem in East Asia. He writes extensively on Asian relations in major Arabic news portals such as Al-Jazeera, Arabi 21 and TRT world, and composes a weekly article in the Middle East Monitor. He also is a founder of Save al-Quds Coalition, a coalition that consists of more than 40 Malaysian organizations. Balawi is also a member of the general secretariat of the Kuala Lumpur Forum for Islamic Political Thought and Civilization, which is spearheaded by Dr. Mahathir Bin Mohamad, the current Prime Minister of Malaysia.
Mr. Frank Barat
Wednesday, June 23 - Session XII: 20:00-22:00
Frank Barat is a human rights activist, journalist, and author based in Brussels. He was the coordinator of the Russell Tribunal on Palestine and is now the president of the Palestine Legal Action Network. His books includeGaza in Crisis, On Palestine, Corporate Complicity in Israel's Occupation, and Freedom is a Constant Struggle. Frank has written for the New Internationalist, the Palestine Chronicle, ZMag, Counterpunch, WRMEA and other publications.
Dr. Ramzy Baroud
Saturday, June 19 - Session II: 17:30-19:45
Ramzy Baroud is a journalist and the Editor of The Palestine Chronicle. He is the author of five books on Palestine including, “My Father Was a Freedom Fighter”, “The Last Earth” and his latest “These Chains Will Be Broken: Palestinian Stories of Struggle and Defiance in Israeli Prisons” (Clarity Press, Atlanta). Baroud received his PhD from the University of Exeter in Palestine Studies 2015. He is a Non-resident Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Islam and Global Affairs (CIGA), Istanbul Zaim University, and at the Johannesburg-based Afro-Middle East Center (AMEC).
Ms. Nora Barrows-Friedman
Tuesday, June 22 - Session IX: 17:30-19:45
Nora Barrows-Friedman is an associate editor of The Electronic Intifada and the author of In Our Power: US Students Organize for Justice in Palestine. She has focused on Palestinian human rights issues as a reporter and broadcaster for nearly 20 years.
Prof. Helga Baumgarten
Tuesday, June 22 - Session X: 20:00-22:15
Helga Baumgarten taught Political Science at Birzeit University, both in the Interdisciplinary PhD Program for the Social Sciences and in the M.A. program of Muwatin Institute for the Study of Democracy and Human Rights (between 1993 and 2020). She has broadly published (in German, English, French and Arabic) on the Middle East conflict, on Palestinian Nationalism, on Political Islam and on the Problem of Transformations in the Arab region. Her last book in German is “Kampf um Palaestina: Was wollen Hamas und Fatah?” (Herder Verlag 2014. She wrote a critical article on “The Oslo System” (published in German in INAMO 79, 2014, available in English on academia.edu). Her last article ( “The struggle for democratic space under violent settler colonialism and authoritarian rule”, In: Jürgen Mackert, Hannah Wolf and Bryan S. Turner (Eds.), The Condition of Democracy. Vol. 3. Postcolonial and Settler Colonial Contexts. London: Routledge) will be published in July 2021. Born in 1947 in Stuttgart, she studied in Tuebingen, New York, London, Beirut and Goettingen, and did her PhD at the Free University of Berlin. She taught at AUB Beirut, at the University of Goettingen, at FU Berlin, and since 1993 at Birzeit University. In 2004, she was a fellow at the Austrian Institute for International Relations, Vienna. She participated in international conferences in the USA (MESA, Harvard, New School of Social Research), England (SOAS, University of Surrey), in the Middle East, and at different universities in Germany, Switzerland and Austria.
Dr. Phyllis Bennis
Monday, June 21 - Session VIII: 20:00-22:15
Phyllis Bennis directs the New Internationalism Project at IPS, focusing on Middle East, U.S. wars and UN issues. She is also a fellow of the Transnational Institute in Amsterdam. In 2001 she helped found the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights, and now serves on the national board of Jewish Voice for Peace. She works with many anti-war and Palestinian rights organizations, writing and speaking widely across the U.S. and around the world. She has served as an informal adviser to several top UN officials on Middle East issues and was twice short-listed to become the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territory. Phyllis has written and edited eleven books. Among her latest is the just-published 7th updated edition of her popular Understanding the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict. She has also written Before & After: US Foreign Policy and the War on Terror and Challenging Empire: How People, Governments and the UN Defy U.S. Power.
Dr. Azmi Bishara
Wednesday, June 23 - Session XIII: 22:00-22:30
Azmi Bishara is a Palestinian intellectual and political writer. He holds a PhD in philosophy, and is currently the General Director of the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies. A prominent researcher and writer, D. Bishara has published numerous books and academic papers on political thought, social theory, and philosophy, in addition to several literary works. He received the Ibn Rushd Prize for Freedom of Thought in 2002 and the Global Exchange Human Rights Award in 2003. Dr. Bishara is known for his research on civil society, nationalism theory, religion and secularism, his work in renewing Arab thought, and his analysis of society and the state in Israel. He conducted important research into the Israeli wars on Lebanon and Gaza, as well as in the theorization of the democratic transformation and citizenship rights. He uses philosophy and an analytical approach to the social sciences, dealing with concepts such as freedom, justice, religion, mythology, secularism, state, nationalism, nation, civil society and others. Dr. Bishara was elected to the Knesset in 1996 and succeeded in four consecutive parliamentary elections until he resigned in 2007 and left the country in exile. He received the Ibn Rushd Prize for Free Thought in 2002 and the Human Rights Award from Global Exchange in 2003. Hea currently lives in Qatar and directs the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies, which he founded in 2010, and chairs the Board of Trustees of the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies.
Rector & Professor Mehmet Bulut
Friday, June 18 - Opening Session: 18:30-19:45
Mehmet Bulut is the President of İstanbul Sabahattin Zaim University. Dr. Bulut is also a Professor of Economics and Economic History. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands in 2000 and M.A. from Posthumus Institute (1998) in the field of Economic History, and B.S. and M.A. degrees from Dokuz Eylül University in Economics. He taught at Başkent University and served as Chair of the Economics Department. He became Dean of College of Political Sciences and Vice-President at Ankara Yıldırım Beyazıt University in 2011, and served as a member of the Turkish Academy of Sciences (TUBA) in 2012. He also serves as member of the Board of Directors in several public and private companies. He is currently working on long-term economic changes and development, economic performance comparisons between countries, the economic reasons for the differences, the international political economy, the Ottoman-European-Atlantic Economic Relations, Economic History, History of Economic Thought, economic and financial Institutions. As a visiting scholar he has been to Dalarna (Sweden), Cambridge (England), Harvard, and Princeton (US) Universities. Dr. Bulut has many publications in refereed and international academic journals including the American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Journal of Economic and Social History of the Orient, Journal of European Economic History, Middle Eastern Studies, and Journal for the Study of Religions and Ideologies. He serves as the general editor of the Journal of Islamic Economics and Finance and Journal of Adam Academy of Social Sciences.
Ms. Estee Chandler
Monday, June 21 - Session VIII: 20:00-22:15
Estee Chandler is the founding organizer of Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) in Los Angeles, which was launched in 2010. She hosts and produces the long running Middle East in Focus Radio show on KPFK along with Nagwa Ibrahim. She was also the executive producer, co-creator and host of The Middle East Minute+, a joint project of KPFK & Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), with a 2 minute daily primer about what's going on in or about the Middle East that listeners will not hear from major corporate news outlets that day. She now serves on JVP’s Board of Directors and the Chair of the JVP Action Board of Directors
Ms. Rawan Damen
Monday, June 21 - Session VII: 17:30-19:45
Rawan Damen is a filmmaker, media consultant, and the CEO and founder of Stream Media Consultancy. She specializes in documentaries and online storytelling and has produced and directed more than 30 hours of TV documentaries that have been translated into multiple languages, including the internationally renowned award-winning documentary series Al-Nakba. Rawan worked as a senior commissioning producer at Al Jazeera Media Network for 10 years. She founded and led the innovative project Palestine Remix, the largest visual interactive website on Palestine. She holds a masters in Communications Studies from Leeds University, UK. In 2015 she received the Media Creativity Award from the Arab Thought Foundation in Beirut.
Mr. Eran Efrati
Monday, June 21 - Session VIII: 20:00-22:15
Eran Efrati is the executive director of Researching the American-Israeli Alliance (RAIA), and an investigative researcher into the Israeli military and arms industry. He has worked with the International Criminal Court and participated in both independent and UN investigations into Israeli military operations. His investigative reports have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Guardian, among others. He currently serves as chair of the board for Jewish Voice for Peace, and his research focuses on military and police partnerships between the United States and Israel.
Ms. Laila El-Haddad
Saturday, June 19 - Session II: 17:30-19:45
Laila El-Haddad is an award-winning Palestinian author, social activist, policy analyst and journalist. She frequently speaks on the situation in Gaza, the intersection of food and politics, her own personal journey as a Palestinian mother and journalist, as well as on contemporary Islam. She is the author of Gaza Mom: Palestine, Politics, Parenting, and Everything In Between and, co-author of the critically acclaimed The Gaza Kitchen: A Palestinian Culinary Journey, which was the recipient of ‘Best Arab Cuisine Book’ award from Gourmand magazine, and a finalist at the 2013 MEMO Palestine Book Awards. She is also the co-editor the anthology Gaza Unsilenced. She has also written for numerous newspapers and magazines, including the Baltimore Sun, Washington Post, International Herald Tribune, The New Statesman, The Daily Star, Le monde diplomatique, and has appeared on many international broadcasting networks, including NPR, CNN, Aljazeera, and CCTV. El-Haddad received her B.A in Political Science and Comparative Areas Studies, from Duke University in 2000, and her Master in Public Policy from the Harvard Kennedy School in 2002, where she was the recipient of the Clinton Scholarship and the Barbara Jordan Award for Women’s Leadership. She is also the recipient of the American Friend’s Service’s Committee’s Inspiration for Hope award and the Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee’s Literary Leadership Awards. From 2003-2007, El-Haddad was the Gaza correspondent for the Al Jazeera English website and a regular contributor to the BBC World Service. She also co-directed two Gaza-based documentaries, including the award-winning Tunnel Trade.
Mr. Necmeddin Bilal Erdoğan
Friday, June 18 - Opening Session: 18:30-19:45
Necmeddin Bilal Erdogan is the Chairman of Dissemination of Knowledge Foundation, İlim Yayma Vakfi (İYV), which founded Istanbul Sabahattin Zaim University (IZU) in 2010. He is also a trustee at Ibn Haldun University. He has a BA degree from Indiana University, Bloomington, with double majors in political science and economics, and a master's degree in public policy from Harvard University, Kennedy School of Government. He pursued a PhD degree from Johns Hopkins University (SAIS) in European Studies with a focus on economic growth models of Italy and Turkey since the end of the World War II. Erdoğan has worked as an assistant at the Woodrow Wilson Center and at Johns Hopkins University as well as a consultant at the World Bank. Mr. Erdoğan is the founder and president of World Ethnosport Confederation and New Turkey Education Foundation (YETEV). He holds various positions in several organizations including Turkey Youth Foundation (TÜGVA), Turkey Foundation for Youth and Service to Education (TÜRGEV), Turkey Youth NGOs Platform, Ensar Foundation, Archers Foundation, Kartal Education Foundation, Fuat Sezgin Research Foundation on History of Science, and Darülaceze. Erdoğan, who speaks some French, Italian and Arabic in addition to English, is married and has three children.
Prof. Richard Falk
Friday, June 18 - Session I: 20:00-22:15
Richard Falk is Albert G. Milbank Professor Emeritus of International Law at Princeton University, currently Chair of Global Law, Faculty of Law, Queen Mary University London, and Research Fellow, Orfalea Center of Global Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara. Falk served as UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Occupied Palestine (2008-2014). He has written several books on Palestine including Palestine: The Legitimacy of Hope (2014) and Palestine’s Horizons: Toward the Legitimacy of Hope (2017). (Re)Imagining Humane Global Governance(2014), proposes a value-oriented assessment of world order and future trends. Among his earlier writings are Legal Order in a Violent World (1968) and This Endangered Planet: Prospects and Proposals for Human Survival (1971.) His most recent publications are Power Shift(2017); Revisiting the Vietnam War(2017);On Nuclear Weapons: Denuclearization, Demilitarization and Disarmament(2019). Since 2009 Falk has been annually nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. He has published a book of poems, Waiting for Rainbows (2017). His political memoir, Public Intellectual: Life of a Citizen Pilgrim was published by Clarity Press in February 2021.
Prof. Norman Finkelstein
Sunday, June 20 - Session VI: 22:00-22:30
Norman Finkelstein is a political scientist and scholar of the Middle East who focuses on the question of Israel-Palestine. Dr. Finkelstein received his PhD from Princeton University in 1988 and is the author of ten books that have been translated into 50 foreign editions, including The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering and, most recently, Gaza: An Inquest into its Martyrdom. He has held faculty positions at Brooklyn College, Rutgers University, Hunter College, New York University, and DePaul University where he was an assistant professor from 2001 to 2007.
Prof. As’ad Ghanem
Saturday, June 19 - Session II: 17:30-19:45
As’ad Ghanem is a lecturer at the School of Political Science, University of Haifa. His theoretical work has explored the legal, institutional and political conditions in ethnic states and conflict studies. He published 14 books and numerous articles about ethnic politics in divided societies, including about ethnic divisions and Arab-Jewish relations in Israel. In the context of Palestinian domain, Ghanem's work has covered issues such as Democratization in the Arab World, Fundamentalism, Palestinian political orientations, the political structure of the Palestinian National Movement, and the future of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Mr. Amith Gupta
Saturday, June 19 - Session II: 17:30-19:45
Amith Gupta is a Staff Attorney at Coalition for Civil Freedoms (CCF). Prior to joining the Coalition, he was a Legal Fellow at Project South, where he focused on issues pertaining to the surveillance of Middle Eastern, South Asian, immigrant, and Muslim communities. Amith earned his Juris Doctor at the New York University School of Law, where he was an Institute for International Law & Justice Scholar. Prior to joining the Legal & Advocacy team at Project South, he worked as an appellate-level public defender in Manhattan, NY. Amith’s studies and activism focus on U.S. foreign policy, war, borders, and the Middle East. Prior to law school, Amith earned his B.A. at Bard College in Political Studies and Middle Eastern Studies. He is originally from the Bay Area of California, but has lived in New York, Spain, Egypt, and Lebanon.
Mr. Üveys Han
Saturday, June 19 - Session II: 20:00-22:15
Üveys Han is a Senior Research Associate at the Center for Islam and Global Affairs at Istanbul Sabahattin Zaim University and Phd Candidate at the Department of Religion at Syracuse University. He graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with a B.A in Philosophy. He went on to specialize in legal and political philosophy at Georgia State University in Atlanta, Georgia. There he received an M.A for a thesis titled “The Secular Foundations of Liberal Multiculturalism”. He served as a lecturer at Fatih Sultan Mehmet University’s Alliance in Civilization Istantitute in Istanbul between 2010-2012 where he helped found its Masters’ program. At Syracuse University, his dissertation explores the theological foundations of modern sovereignty and the ways Islamic political theory and practice can help to resolve some perennial problems in modern political theory.
Ms. Belkıs İbrahimhakkıoğlu
Friday, June 18, - Opening Session: 18:30-19:45
Belkıs İbrahimhakkıoğlu was born in 1950 in Erzurum, Turkey. She graduated from Istanbul University Faculty of Economics and worked at the Turkish Literature Foundation. She was the editor-in-chief of the Turkish Literature magazine and a board member of the foundation. Her articles were published in many magazines, particularly in the Turkish Literature magazine. She has also been a columnist for various newspapers in Turkey, and wrote "The Life of the Prophet" for children. Her book "Watching Moments with Love" was published and widely circulated. The book talks about the author of "Marifetname", Erzurumlu Ibrahim Hakkı, of whom she is his sixth generation grandchild. After her visit to Jerusalem in 2015, she chaired the "Kudüs Platformu", which was established by a group of young professional women in Turkey.
Prof. Nader Hashemi
Friday, June 18 - Opening Session: 18:30-19:45
Sunday, June 20 - Session VI: 22:00-22:30
Nader Hashemi is the Director of the Center for Middle East Studies and an Associate Professor of Middle East and Islamic Politics at the Josef Korbel School of International Studies at the University of Denver. He obtained his doctorate from the Department of Political Science at the University of Toronto and previously was an Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow at Northwestern University and a Visiting Assistant Professor at the UCLA Global Institute. His intellectual and research interests lie at the intersection of comparative politics and political theory, in particular debates on religion and democracy, secularism and its discontents, Middle East and Islamic politics, democratic and human rights struggle in non-Western societies, and Islam-West relations. He is the author of Islam, Secularism and Liberal Democracy: Toward a Democratic Theory for Muslim Societies (Oxford University Press, 2009) and co-editor of The People Reloaded: The Green Movement and the Struggle for Iran’s Future (Melville House, 2011), The Syria Dilemma (MIT Press, 2013) and Sectarianization: Mapping the New Politics of the Middle East (Oxford University Press, 2017). He is frequently interviewed by PBS, NPR, CNN, Al Jazeera, Pacifica Radio and the BBC and his writings have appeared in the New York Times, Newsweek, Wall Street Journal, The Globe and Mail (Toronto), CNN.com among other media outlets.
Mr. Sha’wan Jabarin
Sunday, June 20 - Session IV: 17:30-19:45
Sha’wan Jabarin is the General Director of Al-Haq and the Secretary General of the International Federation for Human Rights(FIDH). In 2011, Jabarin was appointed to the Human Rights Watch Middle East Advisory Board and in 2013, he was elected as a Commissioner for the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) and re-elected as a member of the ICJ Executive Committee in 2018.
He is a recipient of the Reebok Human Rights Award in 1990 for his defense of the freedom of expression and human rights. He received his BA in Sociology from Birzeit University and an LLM in International Human Rights Law from the National University of Ireland, Galway. He also served for several years as a part-time lecturer in Human Rights and Criminal Law at Birzeit University, Palestine. He also participated in numerous international conferences on International Criminal Law and International Human Rights Law around the world. Jabarin also took part in many graduate and advanced academic programs at the Columbia University, USA, and University of Strasbourg, France.
Ms. Annemarie Jacir
Wednesday, June 23 - Session XII: 20:00-22:00
Annemarie Jacir has written, directed and produced over sixteen films. Her films have premiered in Cannes, Berlin, Venice, Locarno, Rotterdam and Toronto. All three of her feature films were selected as Palestine’s official Oscar Entry. Her short film like twenty impossibles (2003) was the first Arab short film in history to be selected in Cannes and continued to break ground as a finalist for the Academy Awards. In 2007, Jacir shot the first feature film by a Palestinian female director, the acclaimed Salt of this Sea. Her second work to debut in Cannes, Salt of this Sea went on to win the FIPRESCI Critics Award, and fourteen other international awards including Best Film in Milan. Her second feature When I Saw You won Best Asian Film at the Berlinale and garnered a nomination at the Asian Pacific Screen Awards. Working in both fiction and documentary, other films include Until When, A Few Crumbs for the Birds, and a Post Oslo History. Recently Wajib (2017) won 36 international awards including Mar Del Plata, Dubai, and London BFI Festival. As a founder of Philistine Films, she collaborates regularly as an editor, screenwriter and producer with fellow filmmakers. She has served as a jury member to numerous festivals including in Cannes and Berlin, is a member of the AMPAS as well as the British Academy (BAFTA). She is co-founder of the newly established artist-run space Dar Yusuf Nasri Jacir for Art & Research in her hometown of Bethlehem.
Mr. Na'eem Jeenah
Friday, June 18 - Opening Session: 18:30-19:45
Sunday, June 20 - Session V: 20:00-22:00
Wednesday, June 23 - Session XI: 17:30-19:45
Na'eem Jeenah is a well-known academic and leader in the Muslim community and among anti-capitalist and anti-war movements in South Africa. He is currently the Executive Director of the Afro-Middle East Centre, a research institute dedicated to studying the Middle East and North Africa and relations between that region and the rest of Africa. Jeenah has also taught political studies courses at the University of the Witwatersrand and holds various Islamic qualifications through international courses completed at different universities in the Muslim world. He has organized and addressed numerous meetings, seminars, workshops, conferences, and training programs on various issues related to Islam, South Africa, the Middle East, youth development, journalism, information technology and various other issues – both in South Africa and internationally.
Dr. Ghada Karmi
Sunday, June 20 - Session V: 20:00-22:00
Ghada Karmi was born in Jerusalem and was forced to leave her home with her family as a result of Israel’s creation in 1948. The family moved to England in 1949, where she grew up and was educated. She practiced as a doctor for many years working as a specialist in the health of migrants and refugees. She held a number of research appointments on Middle Eastern politics and culture at the School of Oriental and African Studies, and in the Universities of Durham and Leeds. From 1999 to 2001 she was an Associate Fellow of the Royal Institute of International Affairs, where she led a major project on Israel-Palestinian reconciliation. In 2009, she became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. Dr. Karmi is a Research Fellow at the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies at University of Exeter. She is the author of many books including Jerusalem Today, The Palestinian Exodus, In Search of Fatima, and Married to Another Man.
Ms. Nerdeen Kiswani
Wednesday, June 23 - Session XI: 17:30-19:45
Nerdeen Kiswani is a Palestinian organizer from New York City. She is the founder and chair of Within Our Lifetime - United for Palestine, a community based Palestinian led organization whose goal is to revitalize the revolutionary spirit of the Palestinian community abroad in pursuit of a free homeland. She is also a rising 3L law student at the CUNY school of Law, where she is the president of Students for Justice in Palestine. Nerdeen has been centrally involved in several coalitions for Palestine, speaking for the Palestinian cause at international conferences, and has organized successful campaigns on and off campus ranging from boycotting Israeli dates, to demanding accountability from politicians regarding their stance on Palestine and organizing rallies in the thousands for Palestine in NYC. Most recently she has led efforts to protect Palestinian speech by waging a successful campaign defeating a CUNY-wide proposed resolution to adopt the IHRA definition of antisemitism which equates it with anti-Zionism.
Mr. Rami Khouri
Monday, June 21 - Session VII: 17:30-19:45
Rami Khouri is Director of Global Engagement at the American University of Beirut (AUB), an internationally syndicated political columnist and book author, a professor of journalism and Journalist-in-Residence at AUB, and a non-resident senior fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School. He was the first director, and is now a senior fellow, at the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at AUB. He was the executive editor of the Beirut-based Daily Star newspaper, the editor-in-chief of the Jordan Times, and was awarded the Pax Christi International Peace Prize for 2006. He teaches or lectures annually at the American University of Beirut and Northeastern University. In 2017 he was the inaugural scholar-in-residence in the Department of Global Interdisciplinary Studies at Villanova University. He has been a fellow and visiting scholar at many academic institutions including Harvard, Princeton, Syracuse, Northeastern, Villanova, and Stanford universities, and was a member of the Brookings Institution Task Force on US Relations with the Islamic World. He is a Fellow of the Palestinian Academic Society for the Study of International Affairs. He also serves on the Joint Advisory Board of the Northwestern University Journalism School in Doha, Qatar, and Georgetown University’s Center for Regional and International Studies in Doha. He has hosted programs on archaeology, history and current public affairs on Jordan Television and Radio Jordan, and often comments on Mideast issues in the international media. He has BA and MSc degrees respectively in political science and mass communications from Syracuse University, NY, USA.
Prof. Taher Labadi
Tuesday, June 22 - Session IX: 17:30-19:45
Taher Labadi is Research Associate at LEST (Aix-Marseille University) and at the French Institute of the Near-East (Ifpo). He received his PhD on “The political economy of colonialism in Palestine” from Paris-Dauphine University in 2015. His research interests lie at the intersection of economic policies and reform, conflict management, resistance to colonialism and knowledge production in the Middle-East. Taher Labadi has authored numerous research papers and articles on Middle Eastern economies, including Palestine. His current research focuses on the political economy of export processing zones and of labour migration in Jordan.
Prof. Joseph Massad
Saturday, June 19 - Session II: 20:00-22:15
Joseph Massad is Professor of Modern Arab Politics and Intellectual History at Columbia University. He is the author of dozens of books and academic and journalistic articles, including Colonial Effects, The Making of National Identity in Jordan (Columbia University Press, 2001), The Persistence of the Palestinian Question: Essays on Zionism and the Palestinians (Routlege 2006), Desiring Arabs (University of Chicago Press, 2007), and Islam in Liberalism (University of Chicago Press, 2015). His books and articles have been translated to a number of languages including Arabic, French, Spanish, Italian, Turkish, Japanese, German, Russian, Persian, Dutch, and Swedish.
Prof. Abdalrahman Migdad
Saturday, June 19 - Session II: 17:30-19:45
Abdalrahman Migdad is an Assistant Professor of Islamic social economics at Istanbul Sabahatin Zaim University and a Research Fellow at the Center for Islam and Global Affairs (CIGA). He lectures in both the Department of Islamic Economics and Finance as well as the Department of Political Science and International Relations at IZU. Dr. Migdad received his education in Palestine, the US, Japan, and completed a Post-doc in Turkey. He received his Ph.D. from the School of Global Studies at Doshisha University in Japan, where he focused on Human Economic Security and social Islamic economics. Simultaneously he had completed an advanced doctoral program in Global Resource Management. His Master's degree was from the School of Public Policy at Pepperdine University in the US, and his BA degree was from the Islamic University of Gaza. Dr. Migdad has many academic papers and has recently published the 3rd ed. of his Microeconomics book that he has co-authored. Dr. Migdad's current research interests include international political and social economy and justice, as well as Islamic social economics.
Prof. Ahlam Muhtaseb
Sunday, June 20 - Session IV: 17:30-19:45
Ahlam Muhtaseb is a professor of media studies and the director of the Center for the Study of Muslim & Arab Worlds at California State University, San Bernardino. She is the recipient of the 2020 CSUSB Outstanding Scholarship, Research and Creative Activities Award and was one of the 2019-20 Outstanding Research and Creative Activity Faculty Mentor Awardees. She has an M.A. in Journalism and a Ph.D. in Digital Communication from the University of Memphis, Tennessee. Her research interests include digital communication, social media, social justice and diasporic communities. Her most recent project is her award-wining documentary 1948: Creation & Catastrophe. The film, co-produced and co-directed with Andy Trimlett, focuses on the year 1948 and its catastrophic consequences on the Palestinian nation which has originated from her field work in the Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon, Syria, and Palestine. She won the 2019 Rebuilding Alliance “Story Teller” Award. The film also won the Jerusalem International Film Festival’s 2019 Special Jury Award in the Feature Documentary category. Currently, she works on a new documentary on the three young Muslims who were murdered in Chapel Hill in 2015, and the state of racism and Islamophobia in the United States.
Fr. Manuel Musallam
Friday, June 18 - Opening Session: 18:30-19:45
Fr. Manuel Musallam was born in Bir Zeit, Palestine in 1938. He joined the Latin Patriarchate Minor Seminary in 1951 and was ordained Priest at the Latin Patriarchate Co-Cathedral in Jerusalem. He was a Vicar (1963-68), and a Parish Priest in Anjara, Jordan (1968), at Bir Zeit, Palestine (1970), in Jenin (1971), in Zababdeh , Palestine (1975), as well as in Gaza (1995-2009). In 2006 he was conferred the “Monsignor” title by Pope Benedict XVI. Fr. Musallam is the Founder of the Christian-Islamic Forum in Gaza, the Palestinian Folklore Groups (awarded golden medallion of Arab Youth Forum Egypt), Choir and Scouts Groups in Zababdeh, Jenin and Gaza, and a Member of “Bayt al Hikma” in Gaza. He served as the head of the Independent Palestinian Committee follow-up of War Criminals in Israel, Director of Latin Schools in Gaza, Christian-Islamic Committee in Bir Zeit. He was the Editor of a set of booklets in Religious Education at elementary schools and kindergarten. Even though he has retired in 2009, he’s considered one moral clarity for the Palestinian struggle for liberation.
Ms. Farah Nabulsi
Wednesday, June 23 - Session XII: 20:00-22:00
Farah Nabulsi is an Oscar Nominated and BAFTA Award Winning Palestinian British filmmaker and human rights advocate. She has written, directed and produced short fiction films exploring topics that matter to her. Farah has spoken and screened her work internationally at film festivals, universities and at the United Nations. Her most recent film, The Present, underscores the importance of freedom of movement as a basic human right for Palestinians. The Present received over 30 Audience and Jury Awards at top tier international film festivals, a BAFTA Award for Best British Short Film and an Oscar nomination for Best Live Action Short. It was licensed internationally including to Canal+ and Netflix Worldwide. Farah uses the power of storytelling, her social media and online platform www.oceansofinjustice.com to share the Palestinian experience with Western audiences. Her novel approach has been endorsed by Noam Chomsky, Hanan Ashrawi, John Pilger, Ken Loach and others. Farah is currently working on her first feature length film.
Prof. Maha Nassar
Saturday, June 19 - Session II: 17:30-19:45
Maha Nassar is an associate professor in the School of Middle Eastern and North African Studies at the University of Arizona where she specializes in the cultural and intellectual history of the modern Arab world. She holds a Ph.D. in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations from the University of Chicago. Her first book, which received a 2018 Palestine Book Award, is titled Brothers Apart: Palestinian Citizens of Israel and the Arab World (Stanford University Press, 2017). In it, she examines how ‘48 Palestinian intellectuals connected to global decolonization movements through literary and journalistic writings. Her scholarly articles have appeared in the Journal of Palestine Studies, Arab Studies Journal, and the Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication. Dr. Nassar’s next book project examines how Palestinians have constructed and maintained a sense of peoplehood across time and space. By approaching Palestinians as a multiethnic, multireligious, and multilinguistic people who have migrated to, emigrated from, and lived in historic Palestine for centuries, she argues that Palestinians are both a national and transnational people. As such, they draw on pre-modern land-based identities as well as global solidarities across diasporic spaces. Dr. Nassar is also a 2018 Public Voices Fellow with the OpEd Project and a Policy Member of Al-Shabaka – The Palestinian Policy Network. Her analysis and opinion pieces have appeared in numerous U.S.-based publications including, The Washington Post, +972 Magazine, and The Hill.
Prof. Abdallah Marouf Omar
Sunday, June 20 - Session IV: 17:30-19:45
Abdallah Marouf Omar is an Assistant Professor of Islamic History at Istanbul 29 Mayis University in Istanbul – Turkey. Holds PhD in Islamic Jerusalem Studies from the University of Aberdeen in the United Kingdom. Interested mainly in Cultural and Historical Studies with interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary ethos. Omar concentrates in his research on three main aspects of research fields. First, Historical development of the relationship between Muslim, Christian and Jewish communities since the 7th century.
Second, studying the life and biography of the Prophet Muhammad in the Arabic literature and his influence on the Arab-Islamic culture. And Third, researching Modern History of Middle East and World Civilizations’ Relations, and the Arab-Israeli conflict.
Prof. Ilan Pappé
Friday, June 18 - Opening Session: 18:30-19:45
Saturday, June 19 - Session II: 20:00-22:15
Ilan Pappé is Professor of History at the University of Exeter and the Director of the European Centre for Palestine Studies. Professor Pappe obtained his BA degree from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem in 1979 and his D.Phil from the University of Oxford in 1984. He founded and directed the Academic Institute for Peace in Givat Haviva, Israel between 1992 to 2000 and was the Chair of the Emil Tuma Institute for Palestine Studies in Haifa between 2000 and 2006. Professor Pappé was a senior lecturer in the department of Middle Eastern History and the Department of Political Science in Haifa University, Israel between 1984 and 2006. He was appointed as chair in the department of History in the Cornwall Campus, 2007-2009 and became a fellow of the IAIS in 2010. His research focuses on the modern Middle East and in particular the history of Israel and Palestine. He has also written on multiculturalism, Critical Discourse Analysis and on Power and Knowledge in general. Professor Pappé is the author of many books including the best seller The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine and The Forgotten Palestinians. In 2017, Pappé received a Life Achievement Award at the Palestine Book Award.
Mr. Miko Peled
Wednesday, June 23 - Session XI: 17:30-19:45
Miko Peled is a writer and human rights activist born and raised in Jerusalem. He is a supporter of the Palestinian call for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions, (BDS). Driven by a personal family tragedy to explore Palestine, its people and their narrative he has written a book about his journey called “The General’s Son, Journey of an Israeli in Palestine,” which covers the work in which Peled’s family has been involved since his grandparents immigrated to Palestine in the early 20th century, as part of the Zionist project, describing their work and their life in detail. Peled’s second book is “Injustice, The Story of The Holy Land Foundation Five,” which describes the persecution and the closure of what was America’s largest Muslim charity organization, The Holy Land Foundation, and the subsequent trials and convictions of five Palestinian Muslim-Americans. He is a contributor to several online publications that deal with the Middle East and authors a blog dedicated to tearing down the separation wall, the right of return and advocating the creation of one democratic state with equal rights.. Educated in Jerusalem, Japan and the United States, Peled is an accomplished professional martial artist. He holds a sixth-degree black belt in karate. For 23 years Peled ran a martial arts school that was dedicated to teaching leadership skills and non-violent conflict resolution through martial arts. He is now dedicating his time to writing, speaking and activism focused on transforming the racist Zionist regime in Palestine into a democracy with equal rights.
Prof. John Quigley
Tuesday, June 22 - Session IX: 17:30-19:45
John Quigley is Professor Emeritus at the Moritz College of Law of The Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio, USA. He is author of numerous books and other writings on the history of Palestine from the standpoint of the norms of international law. In 2020, he presented a brief as amicus curiae to the International Criminal Court to make the point that Palestine is a state.
Prof. Loubna Qutami
Saturday, June 19 - Session II: 20:00-22:15
Loubna Qutami is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Asian American Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles. Qutami is a former President’s Postdoctoral Fellow from the Department of Ethnic Studies at the University of California, Berkeley (2018-2020) and received her PhD from the Department of Ethnic Studies at the University of California, Riverside (2018). Qutami’s research examines transnational Palestinian youth movements after the 1993 Oslo Accords through the 2011 Arab Uprisings. Her work is based on scholar-activist ethnographic research methods. Qutami’s broader scholarly interests include Palestine, critical refugee studies, the racialization of Arab/Muslim communities in the U.S., settler-colonialism, youth movements, transnationalism and indigenous and Third World Feminism.
Mr. Mouin Rabbani
Tuesday, June 22 - Session X: 20:00-22:15
Mouin Rabbani is an independent analyst, commentator and researcher specialising in Palestinian affairs, the Arab-Israeli conflict, and the contemporary Middle East. He has previously served as Principal Political Affairs Officer with the Office of the UN Special Envoy for Syria, Head of Middle East with Crisis Management Initiative/Martti Ahtisaari Centre, and Senior Middle East Analyst and Special Advisor on Israel-Palestine with the International Crisis Group. Rabbani is Co-Editor of Jadaliyya, Contributing Editor of Middle East Report, and Policy Advisor to Al-Shabaka - The Palestinian Policy Network. A graduate of Tufts University and Georgetown University’s Center for Contemporary Arab Studies, Rabbani has published, presented and commented widely on Middle East issues, including for most major print, television and digital media.
Amb. Ebrahim Rasool
Sunday, June 20 - Session V: 20:00-22:00
Ebrahim Rasool is a South African activist, politician and diplomat, and global thought leader. He served as the South African Ambassador to the United States from 2010 to 2014. Prior to this, his positions have included Member of Parliament in the National Assembly, Special Advisor to the State President and Premier (governor) of the Western Cape Province. He has built up extensive experience in Government, having led various Departments like Health, Welfare, Finance & Economic Development. He is currently the CEO of the World for All Foundation. Ambassador Rasool has a prominent history of involvement in the anti-apartheid struggle starting at High School and including leadership in the United Democratic Front (UDF) and the African National Congress (ANC). He has had to make sacrifices like spending time in apartheid’s prison and being placed under house arrest. Through his writings, lectures and speaking engagements he has been instrumental in mobilizing Muslims and the broader faith communities toward a deeper understanding of Islam and faith under conditions of oppression (under apartheid) and currently under conditions of globalization. For such contributions to South Africa’s reconstruction and development and his global work, Ambassador Rasool has been the recipient of several leadership awards and two honorary Doctorates. He is the founder of The World for All Foundation whose vision is to rethink the intellectual tools available to Muslims and faith communities. He was a Distinguished Scholar in Residence at Georgetown University’s Al Waleed bin Talal Center and now remains a Senior Fellow at Georgetown University.
Mr. Josh Ruebner
Sunday, June 20 - Session IV: 17:30-19:45
Josh Ruebner is Adjunct Lecturer in Justice and Peace Studies at Georgetown University and is beginning his PhD in Palestine Studies at the University of Exeter. He is the author of Shattered Hopes: Obama's Failure to Broker Israeli-Palestinian Peace and Israel: Democracy or Apartheid State? He is a former Analyst in Middle East Affairs at Congressional Research Service and holds a graduate degree in International Affairs from Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies.
Mr. Ubeyd Ruff
Monday, June 21 - Session VII: 17:30-19:45
Ubeyd Ruff, Esq., CFE, CIFE, is a Research Fellow and editor at the Center for Islam and Global Affairs (CIGA) and assistant to the rector at Istanbul Zaim University. He is an Attorney by profession, a Certified Fraud Examiner, and Certified Islamic Finance Executive. Obeid is a policy advisor for the Islamic Reporting Initiative. As an Islamic Finance practitioner, he adapted an Islamic Finance platform to be compliant with USA accounting standards, and was recipient of the 2017 Cambridge IFLP Islamic Finance Leadership Award. He was the first program director to successfully develop a CDL program for a 4-year University in the US. He structured and implemented the commercial driver training program for Amazon Prime. He was a Chief Analyst for a Fortune 500 Financial Services company during the Global Financial Crisis. He co-founded an academic journal focused on Islamic management and business. In addition to holding a doctorate degree in law (Creighton University, USA), he has completed leadership training in Islamic Banking and Finance at Clare College, University of Cambridge (UK), religious studies and Aramaic Law (Al Quds, Palestine), has certifications in English as a Foreign Language (UK and China), Policymaking (British Council), and British Empire studies (Exeter University, UK). While in law school, he was research assistant to world-renowned economist Edward Morse, and mentored in Constitutional Law by US Supreme Court Justice Mr. JUSTICE Clarence Thomas. During his studies in Al Quds, he was mentored by Nobel Prize laureate Robert Aumann (2005, Economics, Game Theory).
Sheikh Ekrima Sabri
Friday, June 18 - Opening Session: 18:30-19:45
Sheikh Ekrima Sabri is the head of the Supreme Islamic Council and former Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and Palestine (1994-2006). He was born in 1939 in Qalqilya and remains an imam of the Blessed Al-Masjid Al-Aqsa. Sheikh Ekrima obtained his high school diploma from the Salahiyya School in Nablus, where his father was a judge. He obtained a bachelor's degree in religion and Arabic language from the University of Baghdad in 1963, and received a master's degree in Sharia from An-Najah National University in Nablus. He obtained a doctorate in general jurisprudence from the Faculty of Sharia and Law at Al-Azhar University in Egypt. Sheikh Sabri has held a number of positions, including director of preaching and guidance in the West Bank, director of the College of Islamic Sciences in Abu Dis, and a general mufti of Jerusalem and the Palestinian lands. He is the founder and president of the Council of Scholars and Preachers in Palestine in 1992, the head of the Supreme Fatwa Council in Palestine and the preacher of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, and he is a founding member of the Association of the International Islamic Conference of Mosques in Makkah, and a member of the International Islamic Fiqh Academy in Jeddah. He was elected president of the Supreme Islamic Commission in Al-Quds Al-Sharif in 1997. In August 2018, Sabri was awarded the International Islamic Human Rights Award in Iran. He has been arrested several time by the Israeli military for his activities against the occupation.
Prof. Salman Sayyid
Saturday, June 19 - Session II: 20:00-22:15
Salman Sayyid is a professor at the University of Leeds, where he holds a Chair in Social Theory and Decolonial Thought and is the Head of the School of Sociology and Social Policy. He is also a Senior Research Associate at Al-Sharq Forum. Previously, Sayyid was Professor and the inaugural director of the International Centre for Muslim and Non-Muslim Understanding, in Australia. As the center’s director, Sayyid made a film entitled “Everything You Wanted to Know about Muslims But Were Afraid to Ask” and worked with the Australia Day Council to develop a schema for an annual national Award for Muslim and Non-Muslim Understanding. He has held academic positions in London, Manchester and Adelaide. Professor Sayyid is a political theorist, whose work engages with critical theory and the politics and culture of the Global South. Sayyid’s work is recognized for its innovative and transformative impact. His studies of the political Islam, Islamophobia and racism, have been highly influential, and translated into half dozen languages. Some of his major publications include: “A Fundamental Fear”, “A Postcolonial People” (co-edited), “Thinking Through Islamophobia” (co-edited with Abdoolkarim Vakil) and “Recalling The Caliphate.” Currently, Sayyid is leading a major inter-disciplinary research program based on a dialogue between decolonial thought and political theory. As part of this research agenda, Sayyid founded a new international peer-reviewed academic journal ReOrient: The Journal of Critical Muslim Studies. He is frequent contributor to national and international media.
Mr. Omar Shakir
Friday, June 18 - Session I: 20:00-22:15
Omar Shakir is the Israel and Palestine Director at Human Rights Watch. He investigates human rights abuses in Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza. Prior to his current role, he was a Bertha Fellow at the Center for Constitutional Rights, where he focused on US counterterrorism policies, including legal representation of Guantanamo detainees. As the 2013-14 Arthur R. and Barbara D. Finberg Fellow at Human Rights Watch, he investigated human rights violations in Egypt, including the Rab’a massacre, one of the largest killings of protesters in a single day. A former Fulbright Scholar in Syria, Omar holds a JD from Stanford Law School, where he co-authored a report on the civilian consequences of US drone strikes in Pakistan as a part of the International Human Rights & Conflict Resolution Clinic, an MA in Arab Studies from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Affairs, and a BA in International Relations from Stanford.
Mr. Vincent Warren
Monday, June 21 - Session VIII: 20:00-22:15
Vincent Warren is a leading expert on racial injustice and discriminatory policing and is the executive director of the Center for Constitutional Rights. He oversees CCR's groundbreaking litigation and advocacy work, using international and domestic law to challenge human rights abuses, including racial, gender and LGBT injustice. Under his leadership, CCR successfully challenged the NYPD’s Stop-and-Frisk policy and profiling of Muslims, ended long-term solitary confinement in California’s Pelican Bay Prison, and the torture of prisoners in Abu Ghraib prison. CCR is currently challenging the abuse of migrants at the US southern border, the Muslim Ban and the criminalization of transgender people, as well as providing legal and policy support to Black, Brown and Native organizers across the country. Previously, Vince monitored South Africa's historic Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearings, was a Senior Staff Attorney at the ACLU and a criminal defense attorney for the Legal Aid Society in Brooklyn. He is a graduate of Haverford College and Rutgers School of Law.
Dr. Omar Zahzah
Tuesday, June 22 - Session IX: 17:30-19:45
Omar Zahzah is a writer, activist for Palestine and is currently the Education and Advocacy Coordinator for Eyewitness Palestine and a member of the Palestinian Youth Movement. He received his PhD in Comparative Literature at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) in 2020. His PhD dissertation was titled Undercover and Hyper-Visible: Security Poetics and Pacification Prosaics in African American and Arab American Literature. Omar’s dissertation analyzes how racialized subjects subjected to hyper-surveillance and policing use creative expression as a means of capturing and resisting these processes of discriminatory disciplinarity, as well as anticipating new possibilities of social and worldly conviviality. Omar’s political articles on Palestine have appeared in outlets spanning from Mondoweiss, the Huffington Post and The New York Times, and Omar’s academic publications on Palestine, settler-colonialism, and Zionist repression have appeared in or are forthcoming from publications including Transmotion and Arab Studies Quarterly.
Mr. Fadi Zatari
Tuesday, June 22 - Session X: 20:00-22:15
Fadi Zatari is a Senior Research Associate at the Center for Islam and Global Affairs (CIGA) and a lecturer in political science at Istanbul Sabahattin Zaim University. He received his bachelors’ degree in political science from Al-Quds University. Fadi also holds a masters’ degree in international studies from Birzeit University, and a masters’ degree in political theory from the University of Frankfurt. He is fluent in Arabic, German, English and Turkish, and is currently pursuing his PhD at Ibn Haldun University.