Executive Committee
Hani Faris, Ph.D. --- President
Hani Faris is Adjunct Professor in the Department of Political Science and a Research Associate in the Institute of Asian Research at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada. He served in various academic positions at Kuwait University, American University (Washington, D.C.), Harvard University, McGill University and Simon Fraser University. Dr. Faris has authored Sectarian Conflict in the Modern History of Lebanon (1980); Beyond the Lebanese Civil War (1982); U.S. Policy in the Middle East (1984); co–authored The Arab Position on the Israeli Invasion of Lebanon (1983); and edited Arab Nationalism and the Future of the Arab World (1987). He has written more than twenty book chapters and over forty academic articles on such topics as Arab nationalism, the Middle East in world politics, Zionism, Lebanese politics, history of the Palestinian issue, and Third World development. Dr. Faris has served as Assistant Director General of the Palestine Research Center (1967–1968); Academic Vice Dean for Graduate Studies at Kuwait University (1978–1981); President of the Association of Arab–American University Graduates (1984–1985); advisor to the Canadian Institute for International Peace and Security (1989–1991); member of the Board of Editors of Arab Studies Quarterly (1987–1990), member of the Board of Editors of Contemporary Arab Affairs (2008-Present), and member of the Board of Directors of Trans Arab Research Institute, (TARI) (2000 to Present).
Seif Da’Na, Ph.D. --- Treasurer
Seif Da’Na is assistant professor of Sociology and International Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Parkside. In addition to sociological research in the fields of social theory and sociology of the Environment, he is the author of many articles, book chapters, and encyclopedia entries on the Palestine question and the Arab World including “Correcting Corrections: De-reifying the New Israeli Historiography” in the Arab Studies Quarterly (V.28 (2). 2006), "The Rise of Palestine and the Demise of Oslo: the Historical Significance of the Palestinian Intifada", in Middle East Affairs (Vol. 7. No. 1-2, 2001). The most recent book chapters include “History and Race Consciousness in the Arab World: Colonial Capitalism and the Construction of Race” in “Race and Identity in the Nile Valley”, Red Sea Press. 2004, and “Silencing Palestine: School Curriculum, the Construction of Master Narrative, and the Internalization of Defeat” in Teaching Islam, Lynne Rienner, 2006. In addition to his scholarly publications, he has published a number of commentaries on the Middle East in the Opinion Page of the Egyptian AL-Ahram Weekly as well as contributing to Palestinian Journals.
John Makhoul, Ph.D. --- Secretary
John Makhoul is a Chief Scientist at BBN Technologies, where he has been working on various aspects of speech and language processing, including automatic speech recognition, optical character recognition, human-machine interaction using voice, and machine translation. He is also Adjunct Professor at Northeastern University where he supervises graduate students doing their graduate thesis work at BBN. He is a Life Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), a Fellow of the Acoustical Society of America, and the recipient of a number of awards from the IEEE, including the IEEE James L. Flanagan Speech and Audio Processing award and medal, the highest presented in that field. Dr. Makhoul has served as President of the Association of Arab American University Graduates and has served on the Board of the Alumni Association of the American University of Beirut (AUB). Currently he serves on several advisory boards, including the External Advisory Committee of the AUB Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. Dr. Makhoul was born in Deirmimas, Lebanon, and has degrees from the American University of Beirut (B.E., 1964), the Ohio State University (M.Sc., 1965), and M.I.T. (PhD, 1970), all in electrical engineering.
Members at Large
Munir Akash, Ph.D.
Munir Akash is Visiting Professor of Humanities and Modern Languages and Director of the Arabic Program at Suffolk University, Boston. He is the Founding Editor of Jusoor (bridges): The Arab-American Journal of Cultural Exchange. His 22 publications include On Poetry, Sex and Revolution (with Nizar Qabbani,)1971; Questions of Poetry (1979); Post Gibran: Anthology of New Arab American Writing; (co-edited with Khaled Mattaw); The Open Veins of Jerusalem with Fouad Moughrabi (3ed. 2002); The Right to Sacrifice the Other (2002); The Idea of America (2003); The Talmud According to Uncle Sam (2004); The Curse of Canaan: America and the Cultural Genocides (2009), and 4 English collections by Mahmoud Darwish. In1982, Mario Zagari, vice president of the European Parliament at the time, delivered to him the Targa Europa award (Decoration of Europe) for his writing and active role in the dialogue of civilizations.
Naseer Aruri, Ph.D.
Naseer Aruri is Chancellor Professor (Emeritus) of Political Science, University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. Co-founder and former president of TARI. He has published nine books, including THE DISHONEST BROKER, THE OBSTRUCTION OF PEACE: THE US, ISRAEL AND THE PALESTINIANS, JORDAN: A STUDY IN POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT and PALESTINE AND THE PALESTINIANS: A SOCIAL AND POLITICAL HISTORY (WITH SAMIH FARSOUN). He co-edited (with Muhammad Shuraydi) REVISING CULTURE, REINVENTING PEACE: THE INFLUENCE OF EDWARD W. SAID. He edited OCCUPATION: ISRAEL OVER PALESTINE. He published numerous articles and book chapters and is a founding member of the Arab Organization for Human Rights (Cairo and Geneva) and former member of the boards of Amnesty International USA and Human Rights Watch/Middle East. He has appeared on the Lehrer News Hour, CNN Crossfire, ABC News, and he is a commentator on Pacifica Radio, the BBC, Radio Monte Carlo, and the Voice of America. He was a contributor to Middle East International (London) since 1980, al-Hayat, al-Mustaqbal and other Arab dailies and weeklies. He is a former President of the Arab American University Graduates.
George Bisharat, Ph.D.
George Bisharat is a Professor of Law at Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco. He teaches in the areas of criminal procedure and practice, law and anthropology, Islamic law, and law in the Middle East. He has published a book Palestinian Lawyers and Israeli Rule (1989) and many journal articles on law and politics in the Middle East, with particular focus on Palestine. His commentaries have appeared in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, the Los Angeles Times, and many other newspapers in the United States and abroad.
Beshara Doumani, Ph.D.
Beshara Doumani is Professor of History at the University of California, Berkeley. He is author of Rediscovering Palestine: Merchants and Peasants in Jabal Nablus, 1700-1900; and editor of Family History in the Middle East: Household, Property and Gender, and Academic Freedom After September 11. His book, Family, Property, and Islamic Law is forthcoming from Cambridge University Press. His is now working on the social history of the Palestinians from the eighteenth century to the present. In the past decade, Beshara Doumani was selected as a Fellow by the Woodrow Wilson Institute in Washington DC, (1996-1997); the Institute for Advanced Studies in Berlin (2001-2002), the Institute for Advanced Studies at Princeton (2007-2008), and by the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Studies, Harvard University (2007-2008). Beshara Doumani has served on the editorial committees of the Middle East Report, the International Journal of Middle East Studies, and the Journal of Palestine Studies. He is currently sits on the boards of directors of the Middle East Studies Association and the Palestinian American Research Center.
Noura Erakat, J.D.
Noura Erakat is a Palestinian human rights attorney and activist. She is currently an adjunct professor of international human rights law in the Middle East at Georgetown University and is the US-based Legal Advocacy Coordinator for Badil Center for Palestinian Refugee and Residency Rights. Most recently she served as Legal Counsel for a Congressional Subcommittee in the House of Representatives, chaired by Congressman Dennis J. Kucinich. She has helped to initiate and organize several national formations including Arab Women Arising for Justice (AMWAJ) and the U.S. Palestinian Community Network (USPCN). Noura has appeared on Fox’s “The O’ Reilly Factor,” NBC’s “Politically Incorrect,” MSNBC, and Al-Jazeera Arabic and English. Her publications include: "Litigating the Arab-Israeli Conflict: The Politicization of U.S. Federal Courts" in the Berkeley Law Journal of Middle Eastern and Islamic Law, "Arabiya Made Invisible: Between the Marginalization of Agency and the Silencing of Dissent" in a Syracuse Press anthology, and "BDS in the USA: 2001-2010," in the Middle East Report.
Mujid Kazimi, Ph.D.
Mujid S. Kazimi is Professor of Nuclear and Mechanical Engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is the current and founding director of the Center for Advanced Nuclear Energy Systems (CANES) at MIT. He has authored more than two hundred papers in journals and conferences and the two-volume textbook Nuclear Systems on thermal hydraulic analysis of nuclear reactors. Professor Kazimi holds the Tokyo Electric Power Company Professorship in Nuclear Engineering at MIT. He has participated in advisory panels for the US Department of Energy, the Electric Power Institute and the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission and at several national laboratories and universities in the US as well as in Kuwait, Japan, Jordan, Spain, and Switzerland. He is a member of the Board of Managers of Battelle Energy Alliance, which manages the Idaho National Laboratory. He is a member of the Board of Trustees of Al-Quds University in Jerusalem. He is a Fellow of the American Nuclear Society and The American Association for the Advancement of Science. Dr. Kazimi was born in Jerusalem, Palestine. He obtained the B.Eng. from University of Alexandria, Egypt in 1969, and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from MIT in 1971 and 1973 respectively, all in Nuclear Engineering.
Fadia Rafeedie Khoury, J.D.
Fadia Rafeedie Khoury is an attorney practicing in Southern California. Originally from El-Bireh and Birzeit, Palestine, she received a B.A. (History) from the University of California, Berkeley, where she graduated first in her class. She earned a J.D. from Yale Law School, and then served as a clerk for the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. She was part of a pro bono team of attorneys honored by the American Civil Liberties Union in 2008 for their work to end the U.S. government's policy and practice of forcibly drugging illegal immigrants without a court order to facilitate their deportation. Fadia has taught history at Yale University and political science at the University of Southern California. She has written and spoken widely about Palestinian and other Arab issues in conferences and rallies, including at the National Mall, the Pennsylvania Governor's Conference for Women, Harvard, Yale, Cairo, and Birzeit.
Saree Makdisi, Ph.D.
Saree Makdisi is Professor of English and Comparative Literature at UCLA. He has published extensively on the culture of modernity in Europe and its afterlife in the contemporary Arab world. He is the author of two books, Romantic Imperialism (Cambridge University Press, 1998), and William Blake and the Impossible History of the 1790s (University of Chicago Press, 2003), and has contributed articles to leading academic journals as well as edited volumes. In addition to his scholarly publications, he has published a number of commentaries on the Middle East in the editorial pages of newspapers including The Chicago Tribune, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Cleveland Plain Dealer, The Houston Chronicle, An-Nahar (Beirut), The Nation, The London Review of Books, and particularly The Los Angeles Times, to which he is a frequent contributor.