Shai Feldman is president of Sapir Academic College in Sha'ar Hanegev (near Sderot), Israel. He is also a member of the Board of Directors of Harvard University’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs and is a fellow of the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) in London. From 2001-2003, Feldman served as a member of the UN Secretary General’s Advisory Board on Disarmament Matters. From 1997-2005, Feldman was Head of the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University. He is the author or co-author of numerous books among which the most recent is Arabs and Israelis: Conflict and Peacemaking in the Middle East, with Abdel Monem Said Aly and Khalil Shikaki (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013) — the first-ever university textbook on the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict to have been co-authored by an Israeli, a Palestinian, and an Egyptian presenting a broader Arab perspective.
Amaney A. Jamal is Dean of the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs, Edwards S. Sanford Professor of Politics, and Professor of Politics and International Affairs at Princeton University. She is the former Director of the Mamdouha S. Bobst Center for Peace and Justice. Jamal also directs the Workshop on Arab Political Development and the Bobst-American University of Beirut Collaborative Initiative. Her book, Barriers to Democracy (2007), which explores the role of civic associations in promoting democratic effects in the Arab world, won the 2008 American Political Science Best Book Award in the Comparative Democratization section. Her other books include, Of Empires and Citizens and her co-edited volume Arab Americans Before and After 9/11. Jamal’s articles have appeared in the American Journal of Political Science, Journal of Politics, Comparative Political Studies, Journal of Conflict Resolution, Comparative Politics, Perspectives on Politics, International Migration Review, and other venues. Her article “Does Islam Play a Role in anti-Immigrant Sentiment: An Experimental Approach.”, in Social Science Research 2015 won the 2016 Louis Wirth Best Article Award: American Sociological Association, International Migration Section.
David Makovsky is the Ziegler Distinguished Fellow at The Washington Institute and director of the Koret Project on Arab-Israel Relations. He is also an adjunct professor in Middle East studies at Johns Hopkins University's Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). In 2013-2014, he worked in the Office of the U.S. Secretary of State, serving as a senior advisor to the Special Envoy for Israeli-Palestinian Negotiations. Author of numerous Washington Institute monographs and essays on issues related to the Middle East Peace Process and the Arab-Israeli conflict, he is also coauthor, with Dennis Ross, of the 2019 book Be Strong and of Good Courage: How Israel's Most Important Leaders Shaped Its Destiny (PublicAffairs) and the 2009 Washington Post bestseller Myths, Illusions, and Peace: Finding a New Direction for America in the Middle East (Viking/Penguin). His 2017 interactive mapping project, "Settlements and Solutions," is designed to help users discover for themselves whether a two-state solution is still viable. His 2011 maps on alternative territorial solutions to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict were reprinted by the New York Times in the paper's first interactive treatment of an op-ed. His widely acclaimed September 2012 New Yorker essay, "The Silent Strike," focused on the U.S.-Israel dynamics leading up to the 2007 Israeli attack on Syrian nuclear facilities.
Khalil Shikaki is a Professor of Political Science and director of the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (Ramallah, Palestine). Since 2005 he has been a senior fellow at the Crown Center for Middle East Studies at Brandeis University. He finished his Ph.D. in Political Science from Columbia University in 1985, and taught at several Palestinian and American universities. Between 1996-99, Dr. Shikaki served as Dean of Scientific Research at al Najah University in Nablus. He spent summer 2002 as a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington DC. Since 1993, Dr. Shikaki has conducted more than 200 polls among Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and, since 2000, dozens of joint polls among Palestinians and Israelis. Between 1998-99, jointly with Dr. Yezid Sayigh, Dr. Shikaki led a group of more than 25 Palestinian and foreign experts on Palestinian institution building. The findings of the group were published in a Council on Foreign Relations’ report, Strengthening Palestinian Public Institutions (New York: Council on Foreign Relations, 1999). Shikaki and Sayigh were the principal authors of the report. Dr. Shikaki’s research has focused on the peace process, Palestinian state building, public opinion, transition to democracy, and the impact of domestic Palestinian politics on the peace process. He is the co-author of the annual report of the Arab Democracy Index and a member of the Steering Committee of the Arab Barometer, two initiatives led by the Arab Reform Initiative. His recent publications include “The future of Israel-Palestine: a one-state reality in the making,” NOREF Report, May 2012; "Coping with the Arab Spring; Palestinian Domestic and Regional Ramifications, " Middle East Brief, no. 58, Crown Center for Middle East Policy, Brandeis University, December 2011; Public Opinion in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: The Public Imperative During the Second Intifada, with Yaacov Shamir, Indiana University Press, 2010; and “Palestine 1993-2006: Failed Peacebuilding, Insecurity and Poor Governance,” in Stephen Baranyi (ed.) The Paradoxes of Peacebuilding Post-9/11 (Vancouver, Canada: UBC Press, 2008).
