SectionPeople & Books
People & Books
Profiles of the scholars, writers and activists who shaped the conversation about the region, and reviews of their books.
Sunday, 27 September 2026
- ProfileSami Hadawi: The Scholar Who Couldn't Go Home
The Jerusalem-born land expert who spent a century documenting Palestinian property, and most of it in exile, left behind records that historians and negotiators still rely on.
- ProfileSamia Nasir Khoury: A Palestinian Christian Voice from Birzeit
Educator, community leader and writer, Samia Nasir Khoury has spent a lifetime building institutions in Palestine and describing life under occupation to audiences abroad.
- ProfileRachelle Marshall and the High Cost of Occupation
A California writer and peace activist, Rachelle Marshall spent years chronicling the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for American readers, returning again and again to one theme: what occupation costs everyone involved.
- ProfileStephen Sizer: The Vicar Who Took On Christian Zionism
An English parish priest became one of the best-known critics of Christian Zionism, and one of the most controversial.
- AnalysisFor the Love of Blogging: How Jordan Built an Online Public Square
In the mid-2000s, a small circle of Jordanian bloggers created one of the Arab world's liveliest online communities, years before social media made such spaces commonplace.
- ProfileMichael Jansen: Five Decades Reporting the Middle East
An American-born correspondent based in the region since the 1960s, Michael Jansen has chronicled wars, occupations and uprisings from Beirut to Baghdad for readers in Ireland, Jordan and the Gulf.
- ReviewEmile Habiby's The Secret Life of Saeed the Pessoptimist
Half a century after it was published, Emile Habiby's darkly comic novel remains one of the sharpest portraits of life as a Palestinian inside Israel.
- ReviewReview: Sharing the Land of Canaan by Mazin Qumsiyeh
A Palestinian scientist makes the case for one democratic state built on human rights. The argument has aged better than its critics expected.
- ProfileRev. Donald Wagner: An American Evangelical Critic of Christian Zionism
A Presbyterian minister and scholar, Donald Wagner spent decades urging American evangelicals to see Palestinian Christians, and Palestinians generally, as part of the story of the Holy Land.
- ProfileJerry Levin: From Hostage in Beirut to Peacemaker in Hebron
CNN's Beirut bureau chief was kidnapped by Hezbollah-linked militants in 1984. What he did after his escape surprised many who knew his story.
- ProfileMaria Khoury: A Greek-American Voice from Taybeh
Writer, educator and village advocate, Maria Khoury has spent decades describing life in the West Bank's Christian village of Taybeh to readers around the world.
- ProfileJonathan Kuttab: A Palestinian Lawyer for Human Rights and Nonviolence
A co-founder of the human rights group Al-Haq, Jonathan Kuttab has spent a lifetime arguing for international law and nonviolence as the path to justice in Palestine.
- ReviewReview: The Unfurling by Nimah Ismail Nawwab
A Saudi poet writing in English gives voice to women, faith and change in the kingdom, years before reform became official policy.
- ProfileRashid Khalidi: Facts About the Palestinian-American Historian
Columbia University's Edward Said Professor of Modern Arab Studies is one of the most influential historians of Palestine, and a frequent target in America's political arguments about the Middle East.
- ProfileDaoud Kuttab: A Palestinian Journalist and Media Pioneer
Journalist, columnist and founder of independent media in Palestine and Jordan, Daoud Kuttab has spent four decades fighting for free expression in the Arab world.