2018 marks 70 years since the Nakba and Israel’s dispossession of the Palestinian people and violation of their rights. Yet, an end to their oppression and displacement remains out of reach. Indeed the discourse about what constitutes Palestine and the Palestinian people has been steadily circumscribed during this period, and the focus on the ephemeral two-state solution has excluded the majority of Palestinians from the quest for a just peace. Nadia Hijab, Executive Director of Al-Shabaka, with Zena Agha and Yara Hawari, Policy Fellows of Al Shabaka, will discuss how reframing the narrative on Palestine could help further the Palestinian struggle for freedom.

Author Bio

Nadia Hijab is co-founder and Executive Director of Al-Shabaka – The Palestinian Policy Network, and a writer, public speaker and media commentator. Her first book, Womanpower: The Arab debate on women at work was published by Cambridge University Press and she co-authored Citizens Apart: A Portrait of Palestinians in Israel (I. B. Tauris). She is a co-founder and former co-chair of the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights and now serves on its advisory board.

Zena Agha is the US Policy Fellow for Al-Shabaka – The Palestinian Policy Network. Her areas of expertise include Israeli settlement policy, related mapping efforts and the status of Jerusalem. She has previously worked at the Iraqi Embassy in Paris and the Palestinian delegation at UNESCO. Zena’s media credits include The Independent, The Nation, PRI’s the World, the BBC World Service and BBC Arabic. She was awarded a Kennedy Scholarship to study at Harvard University, where she completed her Master’s degree in Middle Eastern Studies.

Yara Hawari is the Palestine Policy Fellow of Al-Shabaka – The Palestinian Policy Network. She completed her PhD in Middle East Politics at the University of Exeter where she focused on oral history projects and memory politics within an indigenous studies framework. Her other areas of expertise include the Palestinian Citizens of Israel and Jerusalem. Her articles have been published in The Independent, Al Jazeera English, and Middle East Eye. Her previous professional experience includes working at Kenyon Institute in East Jerusalem and the Refugee Studies Centre at the University of Oxford.