Reimagining Palestine

Salim Tamari (Moderator)

Salim Tamari is IPS senior fellow and the former director of the Institute of Jerusalem Studies. He is former editor of the Jerusalem Quarterly and Hawliyyat al Quds. He is the Professor Emeritus of sociology at Birzeit University. He has authored several works on urban culture, political sociology, biography and social history, and the social history of the Eastern Mediterranean. Recent publications include: Camera Palestina: Photography and the Silenced History of Palestine (2023); The Great War  and the Remaking of Palestine (2020); Year of the Locust: Palestine and Syria during WWI (UC Press, 2010); The Mountain Against the Sea (University of California Press, 2008); Biography and Social History of Bilad al Sham (edited with I. Nassar,2007, Beirut IPS); Pilgrims, Lepers, and Stuffed Cabbage: Essays on Jerusalem’s Cultural History (edited, with I. Nassar, IJS, 2005) and Essays on the Cultural History of Ottoman and Mandate Jerusalem (editor, IJS, 2005).

Ziad Abu-Rish

Ziad Abu-Rish is Associate Professor of Middle East Studies and Human Rights at Bard College, where he also directs the MA Program in Human Rights and the Arts. His research centers around state formation, economic development, and popular mobilization, particularly in Lebanon and Jordan. He is the author of several articles and book chapters, and co-editor of The Dawn of the Arab Uprisings: End of an Old Order? (2012). He serves as co-editor of Arab Studies Journal and Jadaliyya e-zine, and co-director of the Lebanese Dissertation Summer Institute and Middle East Studies Pedagogy Initiative.

Bassam Haddad

Bassam Haddad is Director of the Middle East and Islamic Studies Program and Associate Professor at the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University. He is the author of Business Networks in Syria: The Political Economy of Authoritarian Resilience (Stanford University Press, 2011) and co-editor of A Critical Political Economy of the Middle East (Stanford University Press, 2021). He is Co-Founder/Editor of Jadaliyya Ezine and Executive Director of the Arab Studies Institute. He serves as the Founding Editor of the Arab Studies Journal and the Knowledge Production Project. He is co-producer/director of the award-winning documentary film, About Baghdad, and director of the acclaimed series Arabs and Terrorism. Bassam is Executive Producer of Status Podcast Channel and Director of the Middle East Studies Pedagogy Initiative (MESPI). He received MESA’s Jere L. Bacharach Service Award in 2017 for his service to the profession. Currently, Bassam is working on his second Syria book titled Understanding The Syrian Tragedy: Regime, Opposition, Outsiders (forthcoming, Stanford University Press).

Peter Harling

Peter Harling founded Synaps to distill almost 20 years experience working in and on the Arab world. During this itinerary, which led him from Iraq to Lebanon, then Syria, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and back to Lebanon, he combined academia with long-form journalism, consultancies, and a ten-year tenure with the International Crisis Group.

Yara Hawari

Yara Hawari is the co-director of Al-Shabaka- the Palestinian Policy Network. She previously served as the Palestine policy fellow and senior analyst. She taught various undergraduate courses at the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies at Exeter. In addition to her academic work, her political analysis features in many international media outlets including The Guardian, Foreign Policy, and Al Jazeera English. Dr. Hawari published her first novel, The Stone House, in 2021 and is the host of the podcast series Rethinking Palestine. 

Marc Lynch

Marc Lynch is a Professor of political science at The George Washington University and Director of the Elliott School’s Middle East Studies Program.  He is also the founding director of the Project on Middle East Political Science and co-director of the Program on African Social Research.  His recent books include Making Sense of the Arab State, The Political Science of the Middle East, The One State Reality, and The New Arab Wars.