Writing FellowsAmatzia BaramAmatzia Baram is a professor emeritus of Middle East history at University of Haifa. During his tenure there, he served as chairman of the Department of Middle East History, director of the Jewish-Arab Center and the Institute for Middle East Studies, and founder and head of the Center for Iraq Studies. Baram has published six books, some 80 articles in academic journals, and numerous articles in newspapers such as the New York Times and the Washington Post. Rafael BardajiRafael Bardaji is executive director of Friends of Israel Initiative. He served in 1996-2004 as Spain's National Security Advisor for Prime Minister Jose' Mari'a Aznar. He is an advisor to the Special Operation Forces HQ at NATO and since 2004 has worked as director of Foreign Policy at the Foundation for Analysis and Social Studies. Mr. Bardaji has provided consultancy work for NATO military commands, the Spanish armed forces, the Spanish intelligence service and defense contractors. A member of the Atlantic Council of the United States Strategic Advisory Group, he is the author of books and articles. Follow Rafael Bardaji on Twitter @@rafael_bardaji Burak BekdilCharles Wax Writing Fellow Burak Bekdil is an Ankara-based Turkish columnist for Hurriyet Daily News. He has covered Turkey for the U.S. weekly Defense News since 1997. Previously, Bekdil worked as Ankara Bureau Chief for Dow Jones Newswires and CNBC-e television. He is frequently quoted in international media outlets, including the Wall Street Journal, Economist, Los Angeles Times, and New York Times. Todd BensmanTodd Bensman is a Texas-based senior national security fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies. For nearly a decade, he led counterterrorism-related intelligence efforts for the Texas Intelligence and Counterterrorism Division. Previously, Bensman worked on staff for The Dallas Morning News, CBS, and Hearst Newspapers, covering the FBI, federal law enforcement and serving on investigative teams. He reported extensively on national security issues after 9/11 and worked from more than 25 countries in Latin America, the Middle East, and Africa. Bensman holds a master's degree from the Naval Postgraduate School, Center for Homeland Defense and Security. He also holds a master's degree from the University of Missouri School of Journalism, and an undergraduate degree in journalism from Northern Arizona University. Follow Todd Bensman on Twitter. Lazar BermanLazar Berman is the Diplomatic Correspondent at The Times of Israel, where he also covers Christian Affairs. He holds an MA in Security Studies from Georgetown University, and taught at Salahuddin University in Iraqi Kurdistan. Lazar is a reserve captain in the IDF's Commando Brigade, and served in a Bedouin unit during his active service. Abdullah BozkurtAbdullah Bozkurt is a Swedish-based investigative journalist and analyst who runs the Nordic Research and Monitoring Network. He also serves on the advisory board of The Investigative Journal and as chairman of the Stockholm Center for Freedom. Bozkurt is the author of the book Turkey Interrupted: Derailing Democracy (2015). He previously worked as a journalist in New York, Washington, Istanbul and Ankara. He tweets at @abdbozkurt. Follow Abdullah Bozkurt on Twitter. A.J. CaschettaCampus Watch and Ginsburg/Milstein Writing Fellow A.J. Caschetta is a principal lecturer at the Rochester Institute of Technology where he teaches English and Political Science. He holds a Ph.D. from New York University, where he studied the effects of the French Revolution and Reign of Terror on British society. After 9/11, he began focusing on the rhetoric of radical Islamists and on Western academic narratives explaining Islamist terrorism. He has written frequently for the Middle East Quarterly. Phyllis CheslerAn analyst of gender issues in the Middle East, a psychotherapist and a feminist, Phyllis Chesler co-founded the Association for Women in Psychology in 1969, the National Women's Health Network in 1975, and is emerita professor of psychology at The City University of New York. She has published 15 books, most recently An American Bride in Kabul (2013) which won the National Jewish Book Award for 2013. Chesler's articles have appeared in numerous publications, including the Middle East Quarterly, Encyclopedia Judaica, International Herald Tribune, National Review, New York Times, Times of London, Washington Post and Weekly Standard. Based on her studies about honor killings among Muslims and Hindus, she has served as an expert courtroom witness for women facing honor-based violence. Her works have been translated into 13 languages. Follow Phyllis Chesler on Twitter @Phyllischesler Mark DurieA theologian, human rights activist and Anglican pastor, Rev. Mark Durie has published on linguistics, Christian-Muslim relations, the Qur'an, the Islamic Sharia and religious freedom. He holds a PhD in Linguistics from the Australian National University and a ThD from the Australian College of Theology. Durie, who has addressed the Middle East Forum, has held visiting appointments at the University of Leiden, MIT, UCLA and Stanford, was elected a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities in 1992, and was awarded an Australian Centennial Medal in 2001. He is a Senior Research Fellow at the Arthur Jeffery Centre of the Melbourne School of Theology, and Founding Director of the Institute for Spiritual Awareness. Follow Mark Durie on Twitter @markdurie Follow Mark Durie on Twitter. Tarek FatahRobert J. and Abby B. Levine Fellow Tarek S. Fatah is founder of the Muslim Canadian Congress, a group committed to fighting Islamism and promoting the separation between religion and state. A columnist at Toronto Sun and host of a Sunday afternoon talk show on Toronto's NewsTalk1010 AM Radio, he is the author of two award-winning books: Chasing a Mirage: The Tragic Illusion of an Islamic State and The Jew is Not My Enemy: Unveiling the Myths that Fuel Muslim Anti-Semitism. Follow Tarek Fatah on Twitter @TarekFatah Michel GurfinkielGinsburg/Milstein Writing Fellow A scholar of European Islamism, Turkey, and the Arab-Israeli conflict, Michel Gurfinkiel is founder and president of the Jean-Jacques Rousseau Institute, a Paris-based think tank, and a former editor-in-chief of Valeurs Actuelles, France's foremost conservative weekly magazine. A French national, he studied history and semitics at the Sorbonne and the French National Institute for Oriental Languages and Civilizations. Gurfinkiel is author of eight books and a frequent contributor to American media, including the Middle East Quarterly, Commentary, PJMedia, Wall Street Journal, and Weekly Standard. Joseph M. HumireJoseph M. Humire is executive director of the Center for a Secure Free Society (SFS), a national security think tank based in Washington, D.C. He provides regular briefings and testimony to the U.S. Congress, Department of Defense, and intelligence community on Islamic terrorism, transnational organized crime, and emerging threats in Latin America. He is the author of Iran's Strategic Penetration of Latin America (2014) and a regular national security commentator for major Spanish-language media, including Univision, Telemundo, and CNN Espanol. Humire was previously the director of institute relations at the Atlas Economic Research Foundation. He is a combat veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps with deployments to the Middle East and has a degree in Economics and Global Affairs from George Mason University. Raymond IbrahimJudith Friedman Rosen Writing Fellow Raymond Ibrahim specializes in Islamic topics. His books include Sword and Scimitar: Fourteen Centuries of War between Islam and the West (Da Capo, 2018); Crucified Again: Exposing Islam's New War on Christians (Regnery, 2013); and The Al Qaeda Reader (Doubleday, 2007). Among other media, he has appeared on C-SPAN, Al-Jazeera, CNN, NPR, and PBS; his writings have been published in the New York Times Syndicate, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, Financial Times, Weekly Standard, the Chronicle of Higher Education, and Jane's Islamic Affairs Analyst. He guest lectures at universities, briefs governmental agencies, and testifies before Congress. Ibrahim has been a visiting fellow and scholar at a variety of institutes—from the Hoover Institution to the National Intelligence University—and is the Judith Friedman Rosen Writing Fellow at the Middle East Forum. Soeren KernSoeren Kern is a Spain-based analyst of European politics and transatlantic defense and security-related issues, particularly the rise of Islam in the West. He is a regular commentator about European affairs for newspapers and radio programs on both sides of the Atlantic. Kern, who has worked for think tanks in Madrid, New York City and Washington, D.C., served in the U.S. Air Force (stationed in Germany) during the last decade of the Cold War. He has visited more than one hundred countries, including most of those in Europe and the Middle East. A dual citizen of the United States and Germany, Kern graduated with a degree in diplomacy and international security from the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, and also studied Middle Eastern history and geopolitics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Naser KhaderNaser Khader is a Danish politician, academic, author, defender of free speech, and opponent of Islamism. Of Syrian-Palestinian origins, he has been a member of the Danish parliament since 2001-2022 (with a break in the years 2011-2015). He has a BA in Middle East studies from the University of Southern Denmark; an MA in economics and political science from Copenhagen University; and an MA in Christian theology from Copenhagen University. A senior fellow at the Hudson Institute from 2011-15, he chaired the Danish parliament's Defence Committee from 2016-21. Khader has published nine books and hundreds of articles in Danish, English, and Arabic. Hussein Aboubakr MansourHussein Aboubakr Mansour is an Egyptian-American speaker and writer specializing in the history of antisemitism in Muslim and Arab societies. Hussein grew up in his native Cairo, Egypt where he was attracted to Salafist mosques at an early age and fascinated by popular antisemitic conspiracy theories in Egyptian popular culture. After a transformative educational journey, he became active and tried to push back against antisemitism, which got him into trouble with the Egyptian authorities. Hussein received political asylum in the United States in 2012 and worked as an assistant professor of Hebrew language in the Defense Language Institute. He is currently an educator at StandWithUs and a Project Director at the Endowment for Middle East Truth. His autobiography is titled Minority of One: The Unchaining of an Arab Mind. Asaf RomirowskyAsaf Romirowsky is the Executive Director of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East (SPME) and an affiliate professor at the University of Haifa. Trained as a historian, he holds a PhD in Middle East and Mediterranean Studies from King's College London and has published widely on various aspects of the Arab-Israeli conflict and American foreign policy in the Middle East, as well as on Israeli and Zionist history. Philip Carl SalzmanPhilip Carl Salzman is Emeritus Professor of Anthropology at McGill University. He is the author of Culture and Conflict in the Middle East (2008), a book that Stanley Kurtz called "the most penetrating, reliable, systematic, and theoretically sophisticated effort yet made to understand the Islamist challenge the United States is facing in cultural terms." His other works on the Middle East include Black Tents of Baluchistan (2000), Pastoralists: Equality, Hierarchy, and the State (2004), and Postcolonial Theory and the Arab-Israel Conflict (edited with D. R. Divine, 2008). He is a member of the Academic Board of the Canadian Institute for Jewish Research, as well as a member of the editorial boards of six academic journals about the Middle East and Central Asia. Joseph Morrison SkellyJoseph Morrison Skelly specializes in international terrorism, diplomatic history, military affairs, and the contemporary Middle East. His books include Ideas Matter: Essays in Honour of Conor Cruise O'Brien (1998), Political Islam from Muhammad to Ahmadinejad: Defenders, Detractors, and Definitions (2010). Skelly is an officer in the United States Army Reserve, where he served a tour of duty in Operation Iraqi Freedom. He currently serves as the Executive Officer of the 405th Field Hospital, a unit of more than 400 soldiers prepared to respond to military contingencies worldwide. He is a 2015 recipient of the United States Army's General Douglas MacArthur Leadership Award. Skelly is a professor of History and Chair of the Department of History at the College of Mount Saint Vincent and a fellow at the Middle East Forum. Raymond StockAn expert on Middle Eastern cultural and political affairs, Raymond Stock lived in Cairo for 20 years (1990-2010). He has translated seven books by Egyptian Nobel laureate in literature Naguib Mahfouz, whose biography he is presently writing for Farrar, Straus & Giroux. He was denied re-entry and deported from Egypt by the Mubarak regime in December 2010 due to his Foreign Policy magazine article criticizing the bid by the explicitly anti-Semitic culture minister Farouk Hosni to head UNESCO. A former Guggenheim Fellow, with a Ph.D. in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations (including ancient through modern studies) from the University of Pennsylvania, he has taught Arabic and Middle East Studies as a Visiting Assistant Professor at Drew University. A frequent commentator in the media, his articles and translations of Arabic fiction have appeared in the Middle East Quarterly, Bookforum, The Financial Times, Foxnews.com, Foreign Policy Research Institute E-Notes, Harper's Magazine, International Herald Tribune, London Magazine, PJMedia and many other venues. Michael TottenMichael Totten is an American journalist and author who has reported from the Middle East, Africa, the Balkans, Cuba, Vietnam, and the Caucasus. His work appears in various publications, websites, and on his blog. His first book, The Road to Fatima Gate, was published in 2011 and was awarded the Washington Institute Silver Book Prize. His most recent book is Tower of the Sun: Stories from the Middle East and North Africa. Benjamin WeinthalBenjamin Weinthal is an investigative journalist and a Writing Fellow at the Middle East Forum. He is based in Jerusalem and reports on the Middle East for Fox News Digital and the Jerusalem Post. He earned his BA from New York University and holds a MPhil from the University of Cambridge. Weinthal's commentary has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Haaretz, the Guardian, Politico, the New York Daily News, the New York Post, Ynet and many additional North American and European outlets. His 2011 Guardian article on the Arab revolt in Egypt, co-authored with Eric Lee, was published in the book The Arab Spring (2012). |
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