2024 FMEP Non-Resident Palestinian Fellows
Rania Batrice is the daughter of Palestinian immigrants, an activist and strategist for progressive change, a public relations specialist, and a political consultant. Rania has worked as a Democratic operative for over twenty years, lending her expertise across political, non-profit, legislative strategy and crisis management both in the United States and around the world. For Bernie Sanders’ 2016 run for president, she served as Iowa Communications Director, the National Director of Surrogates and as Deputy Campaign Manager. In addition to Rania’s expertise in strategy, policy and communications, her portfolio includes over 15 years of experience in conflict resolution, mediation, and organizational development. Her firm, Batrice and Associates, has worked for social justice through a variety of avenues, collaborating with organizations including Human Rights Watch, the Arab American Institute, March for Our Lives, Color of Change, March For Science, Sunrise Movement, and NDN Collective and more. Rania has been a featured speaker for a wide range of events, including addressing climate change at the Social Good Summit, the UN Youth Climate Summit and the UN General Assembly. Rania has received numerous accolades and awards for her work in the progressive movement, including the “Exceptional Woman of Excellence” award presented by the World Economic Forum and the “Woman of Purpose” award presented by the Purpose Project.
Watch or listen to Ms. Batrice’s FMEP programs, including:
- Palestine in the 2024 U.S. Elections, 9/18/24, with FMEP President Lara Friedman;
- U.S. Policy Through the Looking Glass, 8/27/24, with Matt Duss (Center for International Policy);
- Turning Pain into Power: Feeding Families & Bringing Attention to Gaza, 8/7/24, with Hani Almadhoun (UNRWA USA and Gaza Soup Kitchen);
- Witnessing in the West Bank & Gaza Strip, 7/2/24, with Riham Jafari (ActionAid);
- Why Palestine Is Part of (& Central To) the Movement for Climate Justice, 5/1/24, with author Mary Annaïse Heglar;
- RESIGNED: The Former Biden Admin Officials Who Left Their Jobs Over Gaza, 4/12/24, with Tariq Habash (formerly U.S. Department of Education), Josh Paul (formerly U.S. Department of State) & Annelle Sheline (formerly US Department of State);
- The Urgency & Need for Independent Journalism, 3/22/24, with journalist Ryan Grim;
- Media Bias in Reporting on Sexual Assault on October 7th – Breaking Down the Damage, 3/6/24, with analyst Krystal Ball;
- How the War in Gaza is Transforming Democratic Politics, 3/1/24, with FMEP Fellow Peter Beinart;
- Introducing Rania Batrice, 2024 FMEP Palestinian non-resident Fellow, 2/27/24, with FMEP Director of Programs & Partnerships Sarah Anne Minkin;
- Israel, Palestine, & Take-Aways from the 2022 Democratic Party Primaries, 8/30/22, with 2022 FMEP Fellow Dr. Maha Nassar, FMEP President Lara Friedman, and analyst Dr. Yousef Munayyer;
- The Weaponization of Israel/Palestine in US Elections Campaigns, 5/12/22, with FMEP Fellow Peter Beinart and FMEP President Lara Friedman;
- Winds of Change in the Grassroots & Congress on Palestine, 6/16/21, with FMEP President Lara Friedman;
- Poll Release: The US Debate on Israel/Palestine is Changing, 5/27/21, with James Zogby (Arab American Institute), FMEP Fellow Peter Beinart, FMEP President Lara Friedman, and Khaled Elgindy (Middle East Institute)
Nour Joudah is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Asian American Studies at UCLA and a former President’s and Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in Geography at UC-Berkeley (2022-23). Dr. Joudah completed her PhD in Geography at UCLA (2022), and wrote her dissertation Mapping Decolonized Futures: Indigenous Visions for Hawaii and Palestine on the efforts by Palestinian and native Hawaiian communities to imagine and work toward liberated futures while centering indigenous duration as a non-linear temporality. Her work examines mapping practices and indigenous survival and futures in settler states, highlighting how indigenous countermapping is a both cartographic and decolonial praxis. She also has a MA in Arab Studies from Georgetown University, and wrote her MA thesis on the role and perception of exile politics within the Palestinian liberation struggle, in particular among politically active Palestinian youth living in the United States and occupied Palestine.
Watch or listen to Dr. Joudah’s FMEP programs, including:
- Phoenix of Gaza: a 360° view of Palestinian agency and life, 12/22/24, with Cal State University San Bernadino Professor & co-founder of Phoenix of Gaza XR Ahlam Muhtaseb;
- Understanding Palestinian Pain & Resistance: Reporting from the West Bank, 11/15/24, with journalist Mariam Barghouti;
- The Accountability Archive, 8/23/24, with Philip Proudfoot and Mahdi Zaidan from the Accountability Archive (@archivegenocide);
- Introducing Nour Joudah, 2024 FMEP non-resident Palestinian Fellow, 3/1/24, with FMEP Director of Programs & Partnerships Sarah Anne Minkin
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.