Leila Farsakh

I am a Palestinian political economist and full Professor of Political Science at the University of Massachusetts Boston. Like many Palestinians, I have lived in many countries, having moved from one city to another in the Middle East and Europe, before settling in Boston Massachusetts in 1999. Before joining academia, I worked with a number of international organizations, including the United Nation Development Program (UNDP) in Jerusalem, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in Paris, and the Palestine Economic Policy Research Institute (MAS) in Ramallah. My passion has always been to analyze the dynamics of power in its multiple facets and to advance the struggles for Justice. In 2001, I was awarded the Peace and justice Award from the Cambridge Peace Commission, Cambridge MA.

My research focuses on the Middle East and the Arab-Palestinian conflict. My books include Rethinking Statehood in Palestine: Self-Determination and Decolonization Beyond Partition (University of California Press, 2021), Palestinian Labor Migration to Israel: Labour, Land and Occupation, (London: Routledge, 2005, second edition, 2012, translated into Arabic in 2011), The Arab-Jewish Questions: Geographies of Engagement in Palestine and Beyond (Columbia University Press, 2020), co-edited with Bashir Bashir, and Commemorating the Naksa, Evoking the Nakba (single editor, MIT, 2008). I have also published widely on alternative to partition in Israel/Palestine in wide range of academic journals, as well as in other public venues including the London Review of Books, The Boston Review, Le Monde Diplomatique, Al-Shabaka, and Jadaliyya, among others. I have been interviewed by American and Arab news channels and participated in a number of podcasts focused on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.