- Ehud Olmert
Ehud Olmert ; born September 30, 1945) is the 12th and current Prime Minister of Israel. Olmert became Prime Minister on April 14, 2006 but had been exercising the powers of the office since they were transferred to him on January 4, 2006 after Ariel Sharon suffered a severe hemorrhagic stroke. Olmert's title for that period was Acting Prime Minister. Olmert has previously been the Vice Prime Minister of Israel, Finance minister, Minister of Industry, Trade and Labor, …
- Marwan Barghouti
Marwan Bin Khatib Barghouti is a Palestinian leader from the West Bank and a leader of the Fatah movement. He is considered to be the leader of Fatah's 'young guard', and is renowned for his unparalleled grassroots popularity and pragmaticism with regards to making peace with the state of Israel. He is currently serving five life sentences in an Israeli jail for murder and attempted murder. During prisoner negotiations at the end of 2006, Hamas demanded his release, …
- Gideon Levy
Gideon Levy is an Israeli journalist for Ha'aretz, a member of its editorial board and former spokesman for Shimon Peres A recurring theme of his articles is what he calls the "moral blindness" of the Israeli society to the effects of its acts of war and occupation, an attitude which he attributes to the systematic dehumanization of Israel's neighbours.
- Ali Abunimah
Ali Hasan Abunimah is a Palestinian-American, born of a mother made a refugee in 1948 from the village of Lifta now in Israel, and a father from the village of Battir in the West Bank, who co-founded Electronic Intifada, a not-for-profit, independent online publication about the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict from a Palestinian perspective. Abunimah has served as the Vice-President on the Board of Directors of the Arab American Action Network.
- Amira Hass
Amira Hass ; born 1956) is an Israeli journalist and author, mostly known for her columns in the daily newspaper "Ha'aretz". She is especially famous for living in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and reporting on events from the Palestinian perspective of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The daughter of two Holocaust survivors (Bergen-Belsen), Hass was born in Jerusalem.
- Johann Hari
Johann Hari (born January 21, 1979) is a British journalist and writer. He is a columnist for "The Independent" and the "Evening Standard". His work has also appeared in the "New York Times", the "Los Angeles Times", The New Republic, "Le Monde" and "Ha'aretz".
- Benny Morris
Benny Morris (born in 1948) is an Israeli historian and unofficial leader of the New Historians, a group of scholars who dispute the mainstream historical view of the origins of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Known for his work on the history of Palestinian refugees and his refusal to perform reserve duty in the West Bank, Morris was widely seen as an Israeli sympathizer of the Palestinian cause, and his work was very often cited and praised by pro-Arab writers.
- Victor Davis Hanson
Victor Davis Hanson (born 1953 in Fowler, California) is a conservative military historian, columnist, political essayist and former classics professor, best known as a scholar of ancient warfare as well as a commentator on modern warfare. He is also a farmer (growing raisin grapes) and a critic of social trends related to farming and agrarianism. He is sometimes referred to as "VDH".
- Jonathan Cook
Jonathan Cook (born in 1965 in Buckinghamshire, England) is a British freelance journalist based in Nazareth, Israel, who has published in "The Guardian", "The Observer", "ZNet", "Electronic Intifada", "CounterPunch", Al Jazeera and Information Clearing House. He authored the book "Blood and Religion: The Unmasking of the Jewish and Democratic State".
- Hanan Ashrawi
Hanan Ashrawi is currently the Secretary-General of the Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy (MIFTAH). She was the Official Spokesperson for the Palestinian movement during the Madrid peace negotiations (1991-1993), and continues to be active in the efforts towards peace in the region. She was also a member of the Task Force on Higher Education convened by UNESCO and the World Bank.
- David Horowitz
The David Horowitz Freedom Center was founded in the 1988 by political activist David Horowitz and his long-time collaborato... ... The David Horowitz Freedom Center was founded in the 1988 by political activist David Horowitz and his long-time collaborato...
- Azmi Bishara
Azmi Bishara is a Palestinian Christian who was a Member of the Israeli Knesset and leader of the Balad party from 1996 until resigning in April 2007. His resignation took place amidst news of a series of "serious" but "unspecified" criminal charges being laid against him by Israeli security services, which were later revealed to be treason and espionage. By resigning, Bishara lost his parliamentary immunity and has chosen to remain abroad, …
- Mustafa Barghouti
Mustafa Barghouti (Arabic مصطفى البرغوثي also transcribed Mustafa Barghouthi, Mustafa Al Barghuthi, Dr Barghuthi; born 1954) is a Palestinian democracy activist. He was a candidate for the presidency of the Palestinian National Authority in 2005, finishing a distant second to Mahmoud Abbas. Barghouti was born in Jerusalem.
- Khaled Abu Toameh
Khaled Abu Toameh is an Israeli Arab Muslim journalist, documentarian and the West Bank and Gaza correspondent for the Jerusalem Post and U.S. News and World Report. He is also the Palestinian affairs producer for NBC News since 1988. His articles are published in numerous publications such as "The Sunday Times", "Daily Express" and the "New Republic". Khaled Abu Toameh was previously a senior writer for The Jerusalem Report, …
- Mahmoud Ridha Abbas
Mahmoud Abbas : Abbas is the president of the Palestinian National Authority. Abbas, also called Abu Mazen, was born in what is now northern Israel in 1935. He was elected president of the Palestinian National Authority on Jan. 9, 2005, and took office six days later. Abbas also took over as chairman of the Palestinian Liberation Organization in 2004, succeeding Yasser Arafat .
- David Grossman
David Grossman born in Jerusalem on January 25, 1954, is an Israeli author of fiction, nonfiction, and youth and children's literature. His books have been translated into numerous languages. "The Yellow Wind", his nonfiction study of the Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip met with acclaim abroad but sparked controversy at home. Grossman studied Philosophy and Theater at Hebrew University.
- Meron Benvenisti
Meron Benvenisti is an Israeli political scientist who was Deputy Mayor of Jerusalem under Teddy Kollek from 1971 to 1978 and administered East Jerusalem and its largely Arab neighbourhoods. He has long been a critic of Israel's policies towards Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and is an advocate of the idea of a binational state.
- Tanya Reinhart
Tanya Reinhart was an Israeli linguist who wrote frequently on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. She contributed columns to the Israeli newspaper "Yediot Aharonot" and longer articles to the "CounterPunch", "Znet", and "Israeli Indymedia" websites. Reinhart studied philosophy and Hebrew literature at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem as an undergraduate, where she later received an M.A. in comparative literature and philosophy.
- Abu Ali Mustafa
Abu Ali Mustafa, the kunya-style nom de guerre of Mustafa Zabri, was a Palestinian leader and the Secretary General of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) from July 2000 until he was killed by Israeli forces the following year. Abu Ali Mustafa was born in 1938, in the northern West Bank town of Arrabah, the son of a farmer. In 1955 he joined the Arab Nationalist Movement (ANM), …
- Michel Sabbah
Michel Sabbah is the Latin Patriarch and Archbishop of Jerusalem. The Hebrew Catholics and Arab Catholics of Israel, the West Bank and Gaza are under his care. Sabbah began his priestly studies at the Latin Patriarchal Seminary of Beit Jala in October 1949 and was ordained a priest for the Latin patriarchate of Jerusalem in June 1955. Father Michel Sabbah was a parish priest for a few years before being sent to the University of St.
- Walid Shoebat
Walid Shoebat is an American citizen, born to Palestinian father and American mother. By self definition, he is a former PLO terrorist. Shoebat came to public attention by becoming an ardent critic of Islam and supporter of Israel. He describes himself as a former member of the Palestine Liberation Organisation who took part in terrorist attacks against Israeli targets. He is the founder of the Walid Shoebat Foundation, …
- Tali Fahima
Tali Fahima (born 1976) is an Israeli woman of Algerian Jewish family background, who was tried and convicted for her contacts with Zakaria Zubeidi, Jenin chief of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades. She grew up in a single parent family in Qiryat Gat, a town in the south of Israel. Until 2003 she was a Likud supporter; she then read an interview in which Zubeidi described his transformation from peace activist to wanted terrorist; intrigued, she found Zubeidi's phone number, …
- Faisal Husseini
Faisal Abdel Qader Al-Husseini (July 17, 1940 - May 31, 2001) was a Palestinian politician who was considered a possible future leader of the Palestinian people. Husseini was born in Baghdad son of Abd al-Qadir al-Husayni, commander of local Arab forces during the siege of 1948 and grand-nephew of the Haj Mohammad Amin al-Husayni, the former Grand Mufti of Jerusalem. He studied in Cairo, Baghdad, and Damascus.
- Abu Qatada
Abu Qatada al-Filistini, sometimes called Abu Omar is a radical Islamist cleric who has been accused of terrorist activities by a number of governments. Under the name Omar Mahmoud Othman (عمر محمود عثمان), he is under worldwide embargo by the United Nations Security Council Committee 1267 for his affiliation with al-Qaeda. He is wanted on terrorism charges in Algeria, the United States, Belgium, Spain, France, Germany, Italy, …
- Victor Batarseh
Victor Batarseh (b. 1935) is the mayor of Bethlehem in the West Bank in the Palestinian territories. He was elected in 2005. He is a retired physician, a Roman Catholic, and a former activist in the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. By law, the holder of this post must be a Christian.
- Moussa Arafat
Major General Moussa Arafat al-Qidwi was a cousin of late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. Some reports describe Yasser Arafat as his nephew. In July 2004, Arafat was appointed head of the Palestinian Public Security Service in the Gaza Strip.
- Brian Avery
Brian Avery (born 1979) is a former volunteer for the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), who was injured in the face on April 5, 2003 while working for the ISM in the West Bank town of Jenin.
- Linda Gradstein
Linda Gradstein has been the Israel correspondent for NPR since 1990. She is a member of the team that received the Overseas Press Club award for her coverage of the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and the team that received Alfred I. DuPont-Columbia University Award for Excellence in Broadcast Journalism for her coverage of the Persian Gulf War. Linda spent 1998-9 as a Knight Journalist Fellow at Stanford University.
- Jamal Zahalka
Dr. Jamal Zahalka (born January 11, 1955) is an Israeli Arab politician and member of the Knesset. He was elected to the 16th Knesset on the Balad party list, along with Party Leader Azmi Bishara and Wasil Taha. Zahalka resides in Kafar Kanna, Israel and received a Ph.D. in pharmacology from Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Zahalka describes Israel's political discourse about the Palestinians as revolving around the ideas of separation, apartheid, and transfer.
- Moshe Kaplinsky
Maj. Gen. Moshe Kaplinski (b. 1957), is Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the Israel Defense Forces. He was previously head of the Israel Defense Force's Central Command, whose area of responsibility includes the occupied West Bank. As Deputy Chief of the General Staff he is second in command of the Israel Defense Forces. In August 2002, he took over as General Officer Commanding, Central Command from Major General Yitzhak Eitan.
- Dov Lior
Dov Lior is the Chief Rabbi of Hebron and Kiryat Arba in the southern West Bank. He is also the Head of a Yeshiva in Kiryat Arba, and also heads the "Council of Rabbis of Judea and Samaria". He was originally born to a Belz hasidic family, son to Moshe Leibland in Breslau, Galicia. He attempted to board the "Exodus", eventually arriving on the "Negba" a few weeks before the establishment of the State of Israel, …
- Eliyahu Asheri
Eliyahu Pinchas Asheri was an Israeli student from the town of Itamar, in the Samaria region of the West Bank who was kidnapped, and later murdered, by the Palestinian Popular Resistance Committees (PRC) on June 25, 2006, hours after the kidnapping of Gilad Shalit, an Israeli corporal, that led to Operation Summer Rains. Eliyahu was kidnapped on his way from Beitar Illit to Neveh Tzuf, northwest of Ramallah.
- Eric Hobsbawm
Eric John Earnest Hobsbawm CH (born June 9, 1917 in Alexandria, Egypt) is a British Marxist historian and author. Hobsbawm was a long-standing member of the now defunct Communist Party of Great Britain and the associated Communist Party Historians Group. He is president of Birkbeck, University of London. One of Hobsbawm's interests is the development of traditions. His work is a study of their construction in the context of the nation state.
- Suad Amiry
Suad Amiry is an author and architect living in the West Bank town of Ramallah. She studied architecture at the American University of Beirut, Michigan, USA and in Edinburgh, Scotland. Her parents went from Palestine to Amman, Jordan. She was brought up there and went to Lebanon's capital of Beirut to study architecture. When she returned to Ramallah as a tourist in 1981, she met Salim Tamari, whom she married later, and stayed.
- Felicia Langer
Felicia Langer (born 1930) is an Israeli human rights attorney known for her defense of Palestinians charged with political violations in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip. She has also authored numerous books alleging human rights violations on the part of Israeli occupation authorities. Her books detail widespread torture of detainees, as well as routine violation of international law prohibiting deportation and collective punishment.
- Noam Federman
Noam Federman is a lawyer and a right-wing Israeli Jew in Hebron and a former leader of the Kach Party. Federman is a former Kach member. Noam Federman is married to Elisheva Federman.
- Mazen Dana
Mazen Dana (1962-August 17, 2003) was a Palestinian journalist who worked as a Reuters cameraman and was shot by United States soldiers in Baghdad, Iraq on August 17, 2003. The soldiers mistook his camera for a rocket launcher. Mazen Dana was filming outside Abu Ghraib Prison after obtaining permission from US authorities. Days before his death, Dana had filmed a mass grave constructed by U.S. soldiers to bury other U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq.
- Saint Nicholas
Saint Nicholas (" Agios Nikolaos", "victory of the people") is the common name for Saint Nicholas, Bishop of Myra (in modern day Antalya province, Turkey), a Lycian saint who had a reputation for secret gift-giving, but is now commonly identified with Santa Claus. In 1087 his remains were abducted and removed to Bari in southern Italy, so that he is also Saint Nicholas of Bari.
- Chris Hondros
CHRIS HONDROS was born in New York City in 1970. After receiving a Master's degree photojournalism at Ohio University's School of Visual Communications, Hondros returned to New York to concentrate on international reporting. Hondros has photographed in most of the world's major conflict zones since the late 1990s and his work has appeared in every major international magazine.
- Ahmad Sa'Adat
Ahmad Sa'adat is a Palestinian politician, and Secretary-General of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). Saadat took over as leader of the PFLP in October 2001. He stands for a more radical position within the PFLP, encouraging the dismantling of Israel as a soveriegn state, rejecting the Oslo Peace Process and demanding the right of return for all Palestinian refugees and their descendants into all parts of the former British mandate Palestine.