The New Palestinian Nakba and Global Resistance to Colonialism

Anuradha Mittal

Anuradha Mittal, founder and executive director of the Oakland Institute, is an internationally renowned expert on issues of human rights, agriculture, development, and conservation policies. Recipient of several awards including the 2022 Feyerabend Award, All in for Justice, and Endow the Future awarded by the Responsible Endowments Coalition and the KPFA Peace Prize, Anuradha was named the “Most Valuable Thinker” by the Nation magazine. Anuradha has authored and edited numerous books and reports, including Stealth Game: "Community" Conservancies Devastate Land & Lives in Northern Kenya; Nicaragua's Failed Revolution: The Indigenous Struggle for Saneamiento; Losing the Serengeti: The Maasai Land that was to Run Forever; Palestine: For Land and Life; and The Long Shadow of War: The Struggle for Justice in Postwar Sri Lanka. Her articles and opinion pieces have been published in the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, Chicago Tribune, Bangkok Post, among others; and she is frequently interviewed on CNN, BBC World, CBC, ABC, Al Jazeera, and the National Public Radio. Anuradha often testifies before the US Congress, the United Nations, and has given several hundred keynote addresses including invitational events from governments and universities. Anuradha is on the board of several prominent non-profits and also serves as the Chair of the Independent Board for Ben & Jerrys.

Rabab El Mahdi ’96, ’98

Associate Professor, Political Science Department

The American University in Cairo

Rabab El Mahdi is an associate professor of political science at The American University in Cairo (AUC). She earned her PhD from McGill University in Montreal, where she wrote her dissertation on the impact of neo-liberal economic reconstruction on changing patterns of state-civil society relations in Egypt and Bolivia. Her field of specialization is comparative political economy and development, with a focus on Latin America and the Middle East. El Mahdi’s research interests cover the areas of state-civil society relations, social movements and resistance, as well as the political economy of social policy. Before joining AUC, she worked for several developmental organizations, including Non-governmental organizations and United Nation agencies. Previously she taught at Yale University and was a recipient of a number of fellowships at Columbia University, the University of Chicago, and the Rockefeller Bellagio Center Residency. She is also the recipient of a number of research grants from Carnegie Corporation of New York and The Rockefeller Brothers Foundation. Currently, she leads AUC's research project, Alternative Policy Solutions (APS). She serves on the boards of a number of civil society and professional organizations, including the Arab Political Science Network (APSN).