The Future of Palestine and Palestinians: Key Insights from Public Opinion and the Making of Future Policy

Date: 

Tuesday, March 20, 2018, 12:30pm to 2:00pm

Location: 

CMES, Rm 102, 38 Kirkland St, Cambridge, MA 02138

The CMES Middle East Forum presents

Karam DanaKaram Dana
Assistant Professor, School of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences, University of Washington, Bothell & Director, American Muslim Research Institute

Abstract: What’s next for Palestine and Palestinians? How is President Trump shifting U.S. foreign policy in relation to Palestine and Israel? Now that the US is no longer considered a viable political actor, what formula, if any, would guarantee the rights of Palestinians especially with the ever-increasing difficulties of daily life in the occupied Palestinian Territories? Palestinian public opinion survey results will be explored to paint a picture about Palestinian political life under occupation more than 20 years after the signing of Oslo Accords. These results can give us potential policy answers to the deteriorating situation on the ground.

Karam Dana is an Assistant Professor in Global and Middle East Studies at the University of Washington in Bothell. Dr. Dana received his Ph.D. from the University of Washington in 2009, after which he held a one-year post-doctoral fellowship at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Harvard University, and was a Research Fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. Dr. Dana was a faculty member at Tufts University, where he taught extensively on Middle East History and Politics. His Middle East-related research explores the intersection between economics and politics: the ways in which economic indicators have affected political (in)stability in the Arab Middle East, and the role of technology in shaping various social structures in the developing world (with a focus on the Arab world). Dr. Dana is the co-principal investigator of the Muslim American Public Opinion Survey (MAPOS), a research project that won the American Political Science Association’s Best Paper Award for 2008. He has secured multiple research grants over the years including a multi-year grant from the Social Science Research Council to engage US policymakers, journalists, and scholars of Islam in a discussion to find a common ground to engage in a continuous conversation to better understand Islam and Muslims in the United States.

Contact: Liz Flanagan