Nadim Bawalsa is Associate Editor with the Journal of Palestine Studies. From 2020-2023, Nadim served as Al-Shabaka’s commissioning editor. He is a historian of modern Palestine, and author of Transnational Palestine: Migration and the Right of Return before 1948 (Stanford University Press, 2022). His other work has appeared in the Jerusalem Quarterly, the Journal of Palestine Studies, NACLA Report on the Americas, and as well as in edited volumes. He earned a joint doctorate in History and Middle Eastern & Islamic Studies from New York University in 2017, and a Master’s in Arab Studies from Georgetown University’s Center for Contemporary Arab Studies in 2010. In 2019-2020, he was awarded a PARC-NEH fellowship in Palestine.
From this author
As the Israeli regime continues its genocidal campaign against Palestinians in Gaza, many have begun to weigh in on the future of Hamas and of Palestinian leadership more broadly once the bombardment ends. One of the dominant proposals is the revival of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), with Hamas as a member party.
But revival of the PLO requires more than bringing Hamas into the fold, as the Fatah-controlled PA has effectively whittled down the PLO to a barren institution. What then, beyond inclusion, is needed in order to resuscitate the viability of the PLO? In an effort to strengthen the generative thinking around these questions, Al-Shabaka revisits a collection of its past works that sought to confront this very topic.
In this Focus On, Al-Shabaka’s policy analysts imagine Palestinian political futures within the context of historical and ongoing realities. Among other topics, they revisit the history of popular committees and consensus-building efforts during the First Intifada to show how local Palestinian governance might be strengthened, and how we might rethink the meaning of self-determination from the grassroots. They consider how various aspects of Palestinian society, including health, education, and policing, could be transformed to help sustain a new political vision for liberation, and revive popular engagement in colonized Palestine and beyond. And they examine the different means through which Palestinians can utilize international legal avenues to strategize an effective anti-apartheid movement.
The Israeli regime subjects Palestinians across colonized Palestine to an intricate system of demographic control.
In recent years, Palestine solidarity activists have pressured corporations to end their complicity in the Israeli regime’s violations of Palestinians’ rights.
The governments of France, Spain, and Germany have ramped up efforts to repress Palestine solidarity activism.
Palestinian leadership is in crisis. As speculation mounts about Mahmoud Abbas’s rule coming to an end, Hussein al-Sheikh continues to assume many of his responsibilities.
Exiled Palestinians’ right to Palestinian nationality is protected under international law, irrespective of racist Israeli apartheid policies. How can Palestinians and their leadership in the diaspora activate this right through different legal and political channels? Al-Shabaka’s Commissioning Editor Nadim Bawalsa offers recommendations for how to secure exiled Palestinians their rights to and in Palestine, from wherever they may be.
Since the 2021 Unity Intifada, Palestinians have garnered increasing support across the US. As a result, pro-Israel lobbies have ramped up their efforts to criminalize Palestine advocacy and quash Palestine solidarity on Capitol Hill.
US President Joe Biden’s July 2022 visit to Israel and Saudi Arabia signified a new era of regional alliances that are inextricably linked to the expanding normalization deals heralded by the Abraham Accords.
From invasive surveillance systems to social media censorship, Israeli violations of Palestinians’ digital rights have increased, especially since the 2021 Unity Intifada and the rise in global solidarity with Palestinians.
