2023-2024 FMEP Non-Resident Palestinian Fellows
Dr. Yara M. Asi is an Assistant Professor at the University of Central Florida in the School of Global Health Management and Informatics and a Visiting Scholar at the FXB Center for Health and Human Rights at Harvard University in her capacity as Co-Director of the Palestine Program for Health and Human Rights. She is also a Non-resident Fellow at the Arab Center Washington DC, a 2020-2021 Fulbright US Scholar to the West Bank, and the co-chair of the Palestine Health Justice Working Group in the American Public Health Association. She previously served as the Fall 2021 US Fellow at Al Shabaka Palestinian Policy Network. Her research agenda focuses on global health, human rights, and development in fragile populations. She has also worked with Amnesty International USA and the Palestinian American Research Center on policy and outreach issues. She has presented at multiple national and international conferences on topics related to global health, food security, health informatics, and women in healthcare, and has published extensively on health and well-being in fragile and conflict-affected populations in journal articles and book chapters. She has also written for The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Guardian, The Nation, +972 Magazine, The New Arab, and The Conversation, and has been featured on Al Jazeera, The World, and other outlets. Her forthcoming book with Johns Hopkins University Press will examine war as a public health crisis.
Watch or listen to Dr. Asi’s FMEP programs, including:
- “Famine is a Massacre in Slow Motion:” On Mass Hunger & Israel’s Culpability in Gaza, with Professor Alex de Waal (Tufts University), February 2024;
- Separation, Dehumanization, Theft of Time: A Day in the Life of Abed Salama, with author Nathan Thrall, February 2024;
- International Law & Israel/Palestine: A Primer, with FMEP Fellow Rabea Eghbariah (Harvard Law School) and Professor Ardi Imseis (Queens University Law School), November 2023;
- From Israel’s Blockade to the Siege on Al Shifa Hospital: Public Health in Gaza, with FMEP’s Sarah Anne Minkin, November 2023;
- Forcible Transfer is a War Crime: West Bank Pogroms are Working, with Kareem Jubran (B’Tselem) & Sarit Michaeli (B’Tselem), September 2023;
- Blockade, Bombings, and Continuing Trauma: Assessing Mental Health in Gaza, with Dr. Yasser Abu-Jamei (Gaza Community Mental Health Programme), Ghada Majadli (Physicians for Human Rights Israel), and Razzan Quran (George Washington University), August 2023;
- Palestinian Public Health & Israeli Apartheid: Challenges, Possibilities, and Priorities, with FMEP’s Sarah Anne Minkin, April 2023;
- Introducing Yara Asi, 2023 FMEP Fellow, with FMEP’s Sarah Anne Minkin, February 2023;
- “Medical Apartheid”: COVID Vaccinations Under Occupation, with Ghada Majadli (PHRI) and FMEP’s Kristin McCarthy, April 2021;
Rabea Eghbariah is a human rights attorney completing his doctoral studies at Harvard Law School. He worked as an appellate public defender before joining the Haifa-based Adalah Legal Center, where he argued major Palestinian civil and political rights cases. Rabea published on various subjects relating to Palestinians and Israeli law, including the censorship of online speech, the legal land regime, and the criminalization of Palestinian foragers. His writings appeared in the Yale Journal of Law and Technology, the Law and Political Economy Project, and the Journal of Palestine Studies, among others. Rabea previously served as an executive article editor of the Harvard Human Rights Journal and currently serves as an editorial member of Jadaliyya’s Palestine page.
Watch or listen to Mr. Eghbariah’s FMEP programs, including:
- “The story of Attiya Nabaheen reveals the system that devalues Palestinian life”: On Gaza, Israeli law, and the Lack of Recourse, with FMEP’s Sarah Anne Minkin, December 2023;
- International Law & Israel/Palestine: A Primer, with FMEP’s Yara Asi and Ardi Imseis (Queens University Law School), November 2023;
- Hebron (Al-Khalil) Through Palestinian Eyes, with Abdullah (last name withheld), August 2023;
- “We Can’t Afford to Leave”: A Conversation about Jaffa with Abed Abu Shehadeh, (political and community organizer from Jaffa who is also an elected city council member in Tel Aviv-Jaffa’s municipality), July 2023;
- “A Landscape of a Shrinking Space”: A Conversation with Maria Zreik about Nazareth and the Baladna Youth Center (a street photographer and political organizer from Nazareth who is coordinating the Baladna Youth Center, a Palestinian cooperative in Nazareth’s Old City), July 2023;
- “Now it is Happening to My Family”: The Dispossession of Palestinians from the Old City of Jerusalem, with human rights attorney Raafat Sub Laban, June 2023;
- The Nakba is Our Framework: Framing and Understanding Palestine, with writer and journalist Mohammed El Kurd, June 2023;
- Introducing Rabea Eghbariah, 2023 FMEP Fellow, with FMEP’s Sarah Anne Minkin, February 2023;
- The Terrorism Smear: Israel’s Move to Shut Down Palestinian Human Rights Work, with Jamil Dakwar (ACLU), Dima Khalidi (Palestine Legal) and FMEP’s Lara Friedman (FMEP), November 2021.
2022 Palestinian Non-Resident Fellows
Dr. 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. Her award-winning book, Brothers Apart: Palestinian Citizens of Israel and the Arab World (Stanford University Press, 2017), examines how Palestinian intellectuals connected to global decolonization movements during the mid-twentieth century. A 2018 Public Voices Fellow with the OpEd Project, Dr. Nassar’s analysis and opinion pieces have appeared in numerous publications, including The Washington Post, +972 Magazine, The Conversation, and The Hill. She lives in Tucson, Arizona, with her husband, son, and daughter, and she is working on her next book, a global history of Palestine’s people. Follow Dr. Nassar on Twitter here: @mtnassar
Watch or listen to Dr. Nassar’s FMEP programs, including:
- ‘Backlash and Perseverance: The UC Berkeley LSJP Bylaw and Its Aftermath with Berkeley Law Students for Justice in Palestine members Malak Afaneh and Risa Nagel, March 2023;
- Learning & Unlearning Palestine Pt 3: Normalizing and Peacemaking as Discourses of Violence, with Inès Abdel Razek (PIPD), and Dr. Yara Hawari (Al-Shabaka), February 2023;
- Learning and Unlearning Palestine Part 1: Who Can Speak on Palestine? with Nour Joudah (UC Berkeley), Dina Matar (SOAS, University of London), January 2023;
- How do we talk about Zionism and Anti-Zionism? with Sarah Anne Minkin (FMEP), November 2022;
- “Masks Off”: Responding to the Israeli Elections with Sarah Anne Minkin (FMEP), November 2022;
- Palestinian Political Prisoners and Israel’s Carceral Regime with Dr. Basil Farraj (policy analyst), September 2022;
- Israel, Palestine, & Take-Aways from the 2022 Democratic Party Primaries with Rania Batrice (political strategist), Dr. Yousef Munayyer (political analyst) and Lara Friedman (FMEP), August 2022;
- ‘1948: Creation and Catastrophe’ with Dr. Ahlam Muhtaseb (Cal State San Bernadino), May 2022;
- Policing the Narrative: Israel & Apartheid in the US Debate with Paul O’Brien (Amnesty International), Peter Beinart (CUNY), and Lara Friedman (FMEP), March 2022;
- Who are Palestine’s People? with Sarah Anne Minkin (FMEP), March 2022;
- On Palestinian history, culture, and advocacy: Introducing Dr. Maha Nassar, 2022 FMEP Fellow with Sarah Anne Minkin (FMEP), February 2022;
- Shifts in US discourse on Israel/Palestine & Black-Palestinian solidarity with Lara Friedman (FMEP), July 2021.
Jehad Abusalim is the Education and Policy Coordinator of the Palestine Activism Program at the American Friends Service Committee. He is completing his PhD in the History and Hebrew and Judaic Studies joint program at New York University. His research focuses on Arab and Palestinian intellectual discourse on Zionism, antisemitism, and the plight of the Jewish people in Europe between 1870 and 1948. Jehad also studies the social and political history of the Gaza Strip, focusing on the continuing impact of the Nakba on life in Gaza before and after 1948. Mr. Abusalim has been published in the Washington Post, al-Jazeera, the New Arab, and Vox. Follow Mr. Abusalim on Twitter here: @JehadAbusalim
Watch or listen to Mr. Abusalim’s FMEP programs, including:
- Palestinian Views on Antisemitism from the 19th Century to the Present Day with Peter Beinart (CUNY & FMEP), December 2022;
- “Born of Fire”: New Writing from and about Gaza with Dorgham Abusalim (author), Jennifer Bing (AFSC) and Sarah Anne Minkin (FMEP), December 2022;
- “Treated as subhuman, deprived of rights and dignity,” Gazans need “to heal, be heard, and be free” with Sarah Anne Minkin (FMEP), August 2022;
- ‘Peace in name only’: Opposing the Abraham Accords & Normalization Agreements with Dana El Kurd (University of Richmond) and Sarah Anne Minkin (FMEP), April 2022;
- The Gaza Blind Spot? (Congressional Teach-in) with Mkhaimar Abusada (Al Azhar University in Gaza City), Tania Hary (Gisha), Lara Friedman (FMEP) & Khaled Elgindy (MEI), February 2022;
- “Knowledge Entails Responsibility”: Introducing Jehad Abusalim, 2022 FMEP Fellow with Sarah Anne Minkin (FMEP), February 2022;
- The Gaza Strip (Congressional Teach-In) with Tania Hary (Gisha), Omar Shaban (PalThink), Lara Friedman (FMEP) and Khaled Elgindy (MEI), February 2021.
To read more about FMEP’s Palestinian Non-resident Fellowship, launched in 2022, please click here.