Palestine Center Experts

Palestine Center experts contribute regularly to the Center's information materials and participate in its briefings and forums. They are available to the media and to the academic community for comment and interviews. Areas of expertise and contact information follow below, listed in alphabetical order. For more information, contact the Palestine Center at (202) 338-1290.

Dr. Naseer H. Aruri is Chancellor Professor (Emeritus) of Political Science at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth. He is Chair of the Board of Directors of the Trans-Arab Research Institute (Boston), a member of the Palestine Center Committee (Washington, D.C.), and a member of the Board of Directors of the International Institute for Criminal Investigations (The Hague). He is a member of the Independent Palestinian Commission for the Protection of Citizens Rights (Ramallah) since its inception in January l994, a Founding Member of the Arab Organization for Human Rights, Cairo and Geneva in 1982, and a member of the editorial board of Third World Quarterly (London). He was also a member of the Board of Directors of Human Rights Watch/Middle East, 1990-1992, and a three-term member of the Board of Directors of Amnesty International, USA (1984-1990). Born in Jerusalem, Palestine, he holds a Ph.D (Political Science) from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He served on the faculty of the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth from 1965 to 1998. His many publications include The Palestinian Resistance to Israeli Occupation (1970), Enemy of the Sun: Poems of Palestinian Resistance, with Edmund Ghareeb (1970), Occupation: Israel Over Palestine (1983), The Obstruction of Peace: The U.S., Israel and the Palestinians (1995), and Palestinian Refugees: The Right of Return (Pluto, 2001). His latest book is Dishonest Broker: The U.S. Role In Israel and Palestine (South End Press, 2003).  Tel: 561-243-9811.

Samar Assad is Executive Director at The Palestine Center where she has worked since 2002. Prior to joining the Palestine Center, she served as a communications advisor to the Palestinian Negotiations Support Unit in the West Bank from 2000 - 2001. She was based in Jerusalem for four years covering Palestine and Israel for the Associated Press prior to her work with the NSU. Tel: 202-338-1290.

Catherine Cook is a writer and independent consultant, who divides her time between the US and Palestine. She is co-author of Stolen Youth: The Politics of Israel's Detention of Palestinian Children (Pluto Press, 2004) and former senior analyst and media coordinator at the Washington, D.C.-based Middle East Research and Information Project, publishers of Middle East Report. From 1999 until October 2002, she worked in Ramallah with Defense for Children International/Palestine Section, serving initially as Public Relations Officer and later as International Advocacy Coordinator. Cook received her M.A. in Middle Eastern Studies from the University of Chicago and was a Fulbright Scholar in Amman, Jordan.

Dr. Souad Dajani is an American of Palestinian descent. She holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Toronto, and M.A. and B.A. degrees from the American University of Beirut, Lebanon. A former college professor, Souad has lived and worked in several countries of the Middle East, including Lebanon and Jordan. She is author of Eyes Without Country: Searching for a Palestinian Strategy of Liberation, published in 1994 by Temple University Press. She has written on the Middle East peace process, the Intifada, and other issues pertaining to the Occupied Palestinian Territories for numerous publications, including edited books, newspapers and other publications. She completed a study for the Palestine Center entitled, The Untold Story: The Cost of Israel’s Occupation to the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, as well as a forthcoming study on land issues in Israel/Palestine by the Center on Housing Rights and Evictions (COHRE) in Geneva, Switzerland. Souad is currently working as an independent development consultant and researcher in Boston, Massachusetts. She travels regularly to the occupied Palestinian Territories and is frequently invited to speak to the media at conferences and other events on various aspects of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Dr. Mohammed El-Samhouri, a U.S.-trained Palestinian economist, is currently serving as a senior economic adviser to the Minister of Foreign Affairs in the Palestinian Authority. Over the past 10 years, he has held various top level senior advisory positions in the Palestinian Authority. Among other things, he has served as a senior economic advisor to the Minister of Planning and International Cooperation (1995-2001) where he founded and headed a macroeconomic planning unit, and was closely involved in the preparation of all Palestinian development plans. He has also served as a secretary general of the Higher National Committee for Institutional Reform and Development (1999-2000) and was chosen a member of the first Board of Governors in the Palestinian Economic Council for Development and Reconstruction (PECDAR) at its establishment in October 1993. In close cooperation with Harvard Business School between 1997-1998, El-Samhouri led a team of Palestinian experts in a major regional project to study the competitive advantage of the Palestinian economy. An educator and researcher, El-Samhouri has held various academic postions in Palestinian Universities and in the United States where he taught economics at the college level. He has published widely on issues related to the Palestinien economy and the developing countries. El-Samhouri holds a Ph.D. (Economics) from Kansas State University (USA), a M.A. (Economics) from the University of Saskatchewan (Canada), and a B.Sc. (Economics) from Cairo University (Egypt). Tel. 011 972 59 413 184 (cell) / 011 972 8 282 9260 (office).

Nadia Hijab is an author, human rights advocate, and expert on the Middle East.  Cambridge University Press published her first book, Womanpower: The Arab debate on women at work.  She co-authored Citizens Apart: A Portrait of Palestinians in Israel (I. B. Tauris).  Since 1999, she has worked as an independent consultant for international organizations on human rights, human development, gender, and the media.  In 2004, she served as Executive Director of the Jerusalem Fund for Education and Community Development and its education arm, the Palestine Center. She speaks frequently at universities, think tanks, and development organizations, most recently at MIT, Columbia University, and Georgetown University. She was Editor-in-Chief of the London-based Middle East Magazine before moving to New York in 1989 to take up an assignment with the United Nations, where she served until 1999.  She is a co-founder of the U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, and a member and past president of the Association of Arab American University Graduates. 

Dr. Yousef T. Jabareen is adjunct lecturer at Tel Aviv University, Haifa University, and the Academic College of Law (Ramat Gan, Israel). He lectures on the rights of minority groups and the legal status of Arabs in Israel.  He has lectured at American University (Washington, D.C.) and the University of Maryland.  Jabareen holds a S.J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center. He speaks Arabic, English and Hebrew. Tel: 011 972 50 553 0537.



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