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The Forum of Regional Thinking Associates 
Prof. Dror Ze’evi is a co-founder of The Forum for Regional Thinking (FORTH). He teaches and studies Ottoman social and cultural history at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Contact: drorzeevi@gmail.com
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Dr. Assaf David is a founding member and academic director of the Forum for Regional Thinking (FORTH). He teaches at the Department of Political Science at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Contact: assaf.david@mail.huji.ac.il
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Liat Biron is the CEO of the Forum for Regional Thinking.
She is an expert on gender, peace and security. Prior to joining the Forum, she worked for several years in refugee and displaced persons camps in South Sudan through some of the largest international organizations in the world, managing large teams and collaborating with government ministries and local authorities, UN organizations, civil society organizations and local communities.
Liat holds a BA in Communication, MA in Public Policy from Tel Aviv University and MSc in Women, Peace and Security from the London School of Economics and Political Science. She is a graduate of the WIZO Women Leadership Program in cooperation with the US Embassy and of the Clinton Center for Peace.
Contact: Liatbiron@gmail.com
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Prof. Nimrod Hurvitz is a co-founder of The Forum for Regional Thinking (FORTH). He teaches in the Department of Middle East Studies at Ben Gurion University. His research covers medieval and modern Islamic movements.
Contact: nimrod.hurvitz@gmail.com
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Janan Bsoul is a research associate at the Forum for Regional Thinking (FORTH), focusing on the cultural scene and economics in the Arab World post the Arab Spring.
Janan has previously worked as literature and labour market correspondent at Haaretz and TheMarker.
Contact: jananbsoul@gmail.com
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Lives in Jerusalem - Old City
PhD in Humanities Sciences, Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Dissertation: Pious Palestinian Women’s Religious and Political Roles in Al-Haram Al-Sharif.
MA in Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies, Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Dissertation: Hizb at-tahrir al islami fi falasteen, al tarikhwal-idiologiyya (Islamic Hizb at-Tahrir, History and Ideology)
BA History, Birzeit University, Ramallah
Major specialized:
1 - Israeli-Palestinian Conflict and Developments in the Palestinian and Israeli Societies 1948 – Present.
2 - Jewish – Palestinian Conflict on Jerusalem (Temple Mount/Al-Haram al-Sharif)
CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS
- Israeli Curriculum in Arab Schools in Jerusalem: Advantages and Disadvantages, presented at the Jerusalem Conference on Education, 2014.
- The Murabitat Foundation and Activities in Al-Haram al-Sharif, Presentation at the Jerusalem Institute for Israeli Studies, 2015.
- Questions on Future Strategies of Hizb al-Tahrir in Palestine, presented at the Academic Dialogue with Hizb at-Tahrir Conference, Ramallah, 2016.
Jewish Groups - Murabitat activities in Al-Haram al-Sharif , conference at Jerusalem Institute for Political Studies , November 26,2017.
Jewish and Palestinian women activities at Al-Haram al-Sharif/ Temple Mount , Conference at The Leonard Davis Institute for International Relations 26-may2018.
. Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif: Conflict, Culture, Law: an international conference at the Harvard Law School, November 28-29, 2017.
Two weeks as a lecturer in International Relations dep. in Middle East Technical University, in Turkey- Ankara , about Israeli-Palestinian Conflict since 1917 until Present (Erasmus program).
Work at PNA - Palestinian Researches Center - Head of Israel's Studies Department (2017 until present)
Languages: English, Hebrew, and Arabic
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Idan Barir is a research associate at the Forum for Regional Thinking (FORTH), focusing on Iraq and its religious and ethnic minorities. He is a PhD candidate in the school of historical studies at Tel Aviv University.
Contact: idanbarir@gmail.com
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Prof. Oren Barak is a research associate at the Forum for Regional Thinking (FORTH), focusing on security and insecurity in the Middle East. He teaches in the Department of Political Science and the Department of International Relations at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Contact: Oren.barak1@mail.huji.ac.il
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Barak Gatenyo holds an MA in International Relations studies from Sciences Po University. His M.A. thesis focused on the relations between Israel and the UN Peacekeeping Forces in the Middle East.
His research in The Forum for Regional Thinking focuses on Lebanon and the American involvement in the Middle East. He can be contacted at: barak.gatenyo@sciencespo.fr
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Amir Tauber is an independent researcher of the Palestinian media. He hold a B.A. in Middle East Studies and Business Administration, and M.A. in General Linguistics.
His research in the Forum for Regional Thinking focuses on characterization of the Palestinian media's behavior and the way regional political issues are portrayed by news outlets in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Contact: amir_tauber30@yahoo.com
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A researcher at the NGO Ir Amim (city of nations) which works in Jerusalem in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Through his work he is exposed to the details of Israeli policy on Jerusalem and the ways in which the capital of the Jewish state fights the reality of its bi-nationality.
Many of his insights are through his involvement with the "engaged dharma" activist group. There he gains close acquaintance with Palestinian partners and communities and what it means to live under Israeli military rule.
In his writing he will describe Palestinian life and Israeli military rule (what is usually called human rights) and will ask questions regarding power, lack of it and the fight for freedom.
Contact at avivsky@gmail.com.
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Dr. Moshe Terdiman is a research fellow at the Forum for Regional Thinking, the founder and director of the Think Tank for the Research of Islam and Muslims in Africa (RIMA), and a research fellow at the Ezri Center for Iran and Persian Gulf Studies.
Within the framework of the Forum, Moshe will write on environmental issues in the Arab and Muslim world, Islam and the environment and environmental security.
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Dr. Shmuel Lederman is a postdoctoral research fellow at the School of Politics and International Relations at University College Dublin, Ireland. He teaches at the department of History, Philosophy and Judaic Studies at the Open University of Israel, and at The Weiss-Livnat International MA Program in Holocaust Studies at the University of Haifa, Israelز
Contact: shmulikled@gmail.com.
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Ayelet Levi holds an MA in Middle Eastern and African studies from Tel Aviv University. She is an analyst for Middle Eastern affairs at the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs and a guest writer in the periodicals of The Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies (MDC) - "Ifriqiya" and "Middle East Crossroads".
Ayelet's final paper for MA focused on Civil Society in North Africa. Her Ph.D. dissertation will focus on culture and politics in Morocco.
Her research in The Forum for Regional Thinking focuses on The Maghreb Countries, primarily Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria, with special focus on social and cultural issues (e.g. Gender, Language, Youth or patterns of protest).
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Kobi Levi is a Chinese-Hebrew literature translator, who has lived eight of the past fifteen years in China.
His research in the Forum for Regional Thinking focuses on the political and social path China is taking today, and how the “Chinese Model” might affect trends and developments in other parts of the world.
Contact: kobi2401@yahoo.com
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Dr. Ronit Marzan is a research fellow at the Forum for Regional Thinking (FORTH), focusing on Palestinian politics and society in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza. She teaches at the School of Political Science at the University of Haifa.
Contact: r.marzan1959@gmail.com
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Inbal Nissim-Louvton holds an MA in Middle Eastern and African studies from Tel Aviv University. She teaches at the Department of History, Philosophy and Judaic Studies at the Open University in Israel.
Inbal’s final paper for MA explores British-Saudi Relations by focusing on Harry St. John Philby’s mission to Ibn-Saud during the First World War.
Her research at FORTH focuses on Yemen as well as gender in the Middle East.
Contact: inbalnissim@gmail.com
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Dr Iris Fruchter-Ronen teaches at the Department of Interdisciplinary Studies and in the Department of Culture and Film Studies, University of Haifa.
Her research at the Forum for Regional Thinking focuses on popular culture and gender in the Middle East.
Contact: irisfruro@gmail.com
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Elie Friedman (Ph.D.) is an adjunct lecturer at School of Communication, Bar-Ilan University, and a visiting lecturer at University of Maryland, Department of Israel Studies. He is the Director of the S. Daniel Abraham Center for Strategic Dialogue, Netanya Academic College, and an assoicate research at the Harry S. Truman Institute for the Advancement of Peace associate researcher at the Hebrew University.
His research interests include political discourse in national and international contexts with an emphasis on conflict resolution, public diplomacy, and media studies. His first book (with Dalia Gavriely-Nuri) Israeli Discourse and the West Bank: Dialectics of Normalization and Estrangement was published in 2018 by Routledge. He has published articles in several leading discourse and communication journals, including Discourse & Society (2014), International Journal of Communications (2017), and Journalism: Theory, Practice & Criticism (2018).
Contact: elie.friedman@mail.huji.ac.ilpersonal page
Eran Tzidkiyahu is a research associate at the Forum for Regional Thinking (FORTH), focusing on religious nationalism and sacred spaces in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He is a PhD candidate in the Paris Institute of Political Studies (Sciences Po).
Contact: tsidky1@gmail.com
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Elizabeth Tsurkov is a research associate at the Forum for Regional Thinking (FORTH), focusing on Syria, social media and struggles for democratic change in the Middle East. She holds an MA in Middle Eastern studies from the Tel Aviv University.
Contact: lizrael@gmail.com
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Prof. Yaël Ronen is a faculty member and teaches international law at the Academic Center for Law and Science, and a research fellow at the Minerva Center for Human Rights, Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Her publications are available here.
Contact: yael.ronen@mail.huji.ac.il
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Dr. Liora Sion is a sociologist who specialized in peacekeeping, peacebuilding, gender and ethnicity. She got her PhD from Amsterdam School for Social Research and was a postdoctoral fellow at Olin Institute for Strategic Studies, Harvard University, and the Sociology Department at Northwestern University.
She was a lecturer at the University of Nottingham. Her forthcoming book, sponsored by the British Academy for Small Grants, focuses on UN agencies involvement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Liora will be mainly writing about the UN, military and informal relations between Jewish-Israelis and Palestinians.
See list of publications here.
Contact: liora1234@gmail.com
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She completed her doctoral studies at Tel Aviv University while writing on the material culture of the Ottoman elite in the 18th century. After she served as a research fellow at the Research Center for Anatolian Civilizations (RCAC) in Istanbul, she returned to Israel and taught at various universities and colleges.
Today, Tsameret writes, lecture and initiate academic collaborations and events in the fields of Turkish society and culture, and thus seeks to contribute a different angle and understanding of Turkey in this region.
In the Forum Tsameret will deal with the analysis of the social, cultural and political processes currently taking place in Turkey and in comparison with Israel.
TsameretL@vanleer.org.il
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Idan Yaron, Ph.D. in sociology and social anthropology from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Areas of specialization: cultural studies; research of radical and extreme right in Israel; military studies; the sociology of school; the study of human-animal relationships; editing studies.
Books: The Toilet in the Symbolic Sphere. Tel Aviv: Resling, 2005 (Hebrew); Reflections: Visiting the Jerusalem Biblical Zoo. Jerusalem: Carmel, 2010 (Hebrew); Snapshots from the Life of a Secondary School (with Yoram Harpaz). Tel Aviv: Sifriat Poalim and Mofet Institute, 2015 (Hebrew); War Casualties: Killing-Wounding on the Battlefield. Jerusalem: Carmel, 2017 (Hebrew); The Shkolnic Saga: The True Story of a Tied Terrorist. Haifa: Pardes, 2017 (Hebrew); Military Law and Ethics. Jerusalem, Carmel, 2018 (Hebrew).
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