Arab Media Watch Advisers

Chris Doyle

AMW adviser Chris Doyle is director of the Council for Arab-British Understanding (CAABU). He has worked with the Council since 1993, after graduating with a first-class honours degree in Arabic and Islamic Studies at Exeter University. As part of this course he spent a year in Alexandria, Egypt. Since then, he has travelled to nearly every country in the Middle East and North Africa.

In 1996, Chris moved to work for a professional government relations firm, but returned to a more senior role at CAABU in 1997. In November 2002, he was made full-time director.

As the lead spokesperson for CAABU and an acknowledged expert on the region, Chris is a frequent commentator on TV and radio. He gives numerous talks around the country on issues such as Palestine, Iraq, Islamophobia and Arabs in Britain. He has numerous letters published in the British and international media.

Dr Dina Matar

AMW adviser Dr Dina Matar is a teaching fellow at the Media and Film Studies Centre at the School of Oriental and African Studies. She previously worked as a tutorial fellow at the Media and Communications Department at the London School of Economics, and a part-time lecturer in diplomatic journalism at City University.

Before turning to academia, she worked as a foreign correspondent and editor, mostly covering the Middle East, Europe and Africa with various news agencies. Dina's areas of interest are specifically the Middle East, with a focus on media, politics, society and culture. She has devised, and is teaching at SOAS, a graduate course called Mediated Cultures: Politics, Communication and Society in the Middle East.

Her other areas of interest include journalism studies, political communication, political and media systems in the Middle East, cultural politics, trans-national movements and diasporas. Her PhD focused on the Palestinian diaspora in Britain and their uses of news. Dina has taken part in a comparative research project examining British-based diverse groups' perceptions of post-September 11 coverage.

She has already published a number of articles in major peer-reviewed journals, and has attended several academic conferences. She is the co-editor and co-founder of the forthcoming "The Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication," to be published by Brill in mid-2008.

Fouad Majdalawi

AMW adviser Fouad Majdalawi is founder and managing director of Interactive Knowledge Centre, an educational research centre promoting an engaging, enjoyable and enriching approach to teaching in Arabic.

Prior to establishing the centre, Fouad was the Middle East and North Africa business development manager for a major financial publishing house. Throughout his career, he has organised investment conferences and commissioned economic profiles for Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Oman, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Islamic finance.

George Asseily

AMW adviser George Asseily has been a director of the Arab British Chamber of Commerce since 1986, and is presently chairman of the finance committee. He is also chairman and founder of the Centre for Lebanese Studies in Oxford, managing director and chairman of Edouard Asseily et Fils SAL (Lebanon), chairman of Societe Fonciere pour la Construction SAL, and managing director of GT Asseily SAL, Lebanon.

George was born in Lebanon and educated in Beirut and the UK. He is a banking professional and industrialist with extensive experience in running industrial, financial and real-estate companies, and is well-connected with City and international financial institutions. George lives in London and Beirut, and is co-author of "Lebanon - The Business Travellers Handbook" published by Gorilla Guides (ISBN: 1566564964 ).

Dr Ghada Karmi

AMW adviser Dr Ghada Karmi is a leading Palestinian activist, academic and writer. She was born in Jerusalem, but was brought up and educated in England. She is currently a research fellow at the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies at the University of Exeter. She is also vice-chair of the Council for Arab-British Understanding (CAABU), and a patron of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign.

Ghada's major area of work has been on the Palestine/Israel conflict, and she has published widely on this subject. She is also a well-known figure on British radio and TV. Her books include Jerusalem Today: What Future for the Peace Process? (Ithaca Press, 1996) and The Palestinian Exodus 1948-1998 (with Eugene Cotran, Ithaca Press, 1999). 

Ghada's most recent and widely acclaimed memoir, In Search of Fatima; a Palestinian Story (Verso Press, 2002), represents a rare example of Palestinian personal narrative writing in English. Her forthcoming book is published by Pluto Press later this year, and deals with the one-state solution in Israel/Palestine.

Ghayth Armanazi

AMW adviser Ghayth Armanazi was director of the Syrian Media Centre, and former ambassador of the League of Arab States to London. He used to be editor-in-chief of the quarterly review Arab Affairs, and is a writer and broadcaster on the Middle East, particularly regarding Syria, the Arab-Israeli conflict, and British-Arab, Euro-Arab and American-Arab relations.

Guy Gabriel

AMW adviser Guy Gabriel trained as a linguist, graduating in French and European literature in 1999. He left the UK shortly after to indulge a passion for travel, which led him via Australasia to the Middle East. He experienced the events of 9/11, the invasion of Iraq, 7/7 and their respective media coverage all while living in the Middle East, yet found no clash of cultures nor confirmation of what Western media portrayed.

He has travelled extensively in the region, learning Egyptian colloquial Arabic on the way, including script. Upon returning to the UK in early 2006, he decided to build on his experiences and took a Masters in Near and Middle East Studies at London's School of Oriental and African Studies. Guy speaks fluent French and German also.

He can be reached at guy@arabmediawatch.com

Haifa Zangana

AMW adviser Haifa Zangana is a regular columnist for Al Quds newspaper, and a commentator for, among others, Al Ahram Weekly and the Guardian:

http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/haifa_zangana/index.html

She is the chair of the Iraqi Committee for National Media and Culture, a founding member of the International Association of Contemporary Iraqi Studies, a member of the advisory board for the UN Development Programme's 2005 Arab Human Development report "Towards the Rise of Women in the Arab World", and a member of the advisory board of the Brussels tribunal on Iraq.

Haifa is the author of three novels, three collections of short stories and "Halabja" - Iraqi and Arab writers' and artists' homage to the Kurdish town. Her short stories have been translated into English, French and Italian. Her comments on Iraqi affairs have been re-published worldwide. She lectures regularly on Iraqi culture, literature and women's rights.

Dr Hassan Khalil

AMW adviser Dr Hassan Khalil is a regular writer and TV interviewee on Lebanon and the Middle East. Born in Beirut, he has been a banker in regional and international banks since 1977 in the Middle East, the Far East and Europe. His academic background is in industrial engineering and managament science in USC Los Angeles and Stanford University.

Dr Judith Brown

AMW director Dr Judith Brown took early retirement from her private healthcare business in 1992, and then became an aid worker specialising in management of refugee health programmes in Eastern Europe, Africa and the Middle East (specifically southern Lebanon and Yemen).

She was previously disinterested in politics, and knew very little about the Middle East except for small amounts of information gleaned from the news. When she first worked in the Middle East, she was shocked to find that what she was witnessing with her own eyes was very different from what she had expected to see. She believed she had been deceived by the British media and politicians, and wanted to know why.

This led her on a journey to investigate media power, the history of the Middle East, and the relationship between Arabs and the West. She has now completed a PhD thesis on the imagery of Arabs in the British media from Exeter University, and has contributed to a book entitled "Leading to the 2003 Iraq War - the Global Media Debate", edited by a. Nikolaev and E. Hakanen and published by Palgrave MacMillan.

She is particularly interested in utilising existing channels of redress - for example the Freedom of Information Act, Ofcom, the Press Complaints Commission and the BBC board of governors - and creating more opportunities for British peace campaigners, including Arabs and Muslims, to coordinate their media activities to increase their effectiveness.

Judith can be reached at judith@arabmediawatch.com

Dr Karma Nabulsi

AMW adviser Dr Karma Nabulsi is a fellow in politics at St Edmund Hall, Oxford, and university lecturer at the department of politics and international relations, Oxford University. She was a PLO representative from 1977-90, working at the UN, in Beirut, Tunis and the UK. She was an advisory member of the Palestinian delegation to the peace talks in Washington from 1991-93.

Karma then did her doctorate at Balliol College, and was prize research fellow at Nuffield College until 2005. During this time, she was the specialist adviser to the UK all-party parliamentary commission of inquiry on Palestinian refugees (and its report, Right of Return, 2000), and the specialist adviser to the House of Commons select committee's inquiry on development assistance and the occupied Palestinian territories, and its report on donor assistance.

She is currently engaged in an EU-funded collective research project, based at Nuffield College, entitled Foundations for Participation: Civic Structures in Palestinian Refugee Camps and Exile Communities.

Karma is the author of Traditions of War: Occupation, Resistance and the Law (Oxford University Press, paperback edition 2005), and writes on the philosophy, ethics and laws of war, European political history and theory, and Palestinian history and politics. She contributes to the Guardian, Al Hayat and other journals.

She is a patron of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, and adviser for the Badil legal unit and a member of its expert forum. She is a trustee of the Hoping Foundation, which raises money and provides grants to grassroots community organisations working with Palestinian youth in refugee camps all over the Middle East. She was a founding member of the Association of the Palestinian Community in the UK in 1988, and of the Palestinian Women's Union, UK branch.

Dr Makram Khoury-Machool

AMW adviser Dr Makram Khoury-Machool holds degrees and qualifications from the universities of Tel-Aviv, Oxford, and a PhD from the School of Oriental and African Studies (University of London). He specialises in media, and is the author of the first academic textbook on Arab media in English, Arab Media: From the First Press to New Media (Routledge, 2009). Other publications include:

• "Palestinian Youth and Political Activism: The Emerging Internet Culture and New Modes of Resistance." Policy Futures in Education (5:1) 2007, pp. 17-36.

• "Kidnap Videos: Setting the Power Relations of New Media," in Communicating War: Memory, Media and Military, eds. S. Maltby, and R. Keeble. (Bury St Edmunds: Arima, 2007) Pp.163-176

• "Religion, Ideology and the Media: Iraqi Writers in Israel." Chapter in: Religious Refugees in Europe, Asia and the Americas, 6th-21st Centuries, ed. S. Lachenicht, Atlantic Cultural Studies Series, (Hamburg LIT-Verlag 2007). Pp 275-291.

• "Propaganda and Arab Audiences," in R. Berenger (ed.), Global Media Go to War (Washington: Marquette Books, 2004), pp. 313-320.

He has taught at SOAS, the University of Bedfordshire, and was appointed in September 2006 as Pathway Leader/Senior Lecturer in Media Studies at Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge, and has been teaching / supervising at the University of Cambridge since 2003.

Fluent in Arabic, Hebrew and English, he was at one time the only Arab journalist working for the Tel-Aviv Hebrew press. On 15 December 1987, he published an extensive report in Ha'aretz's Tel-Aviv supplement Ha-Ir (The City), which led to him being acclaimed as the first journalist to announce the outbreak of the first Palestinian intifada (uprising).

In 1988, Makram founded and managed the Jaffa Area Bureau of the oldest existing Palestinian newspaper, Al-Ittihad (established 1944), working under the eminent journalist-writer Emile Habibi.

Having received wide international coverage, Makram's report "It's Not a Rebellion, It's a War," and other journalistic works, led to him being awarded the International Reuters Award for Journalism in 1990. During the academic year 1990-1991, Makram became a Reuters Research Fellow at Oxford University.

In 1996, he was elected by the World Economic Forum (Geneva-Davos) as one of 100 Young Global Leaders, alongside other international figures.

In 1995, Makram laid down the principles of a unique social, political and economic movement, which in 1998 became known as the "Movement of The New Arab." The philosophy of the movement is based on the juxtaposition of classical Arab norms and beliefs with modern principles. Besides the empowerment of Arab women, the movement is concerned with the development of education and economics.

Matthew Skelton

Adviser Matthew Skelton, in charge of AMW's technical operations, is a freelance software consultant specialising in the development and diagnosis of large web-enabled systems. He graduated from the University of Reading in 1999 with a BSc in cybernetics and computer science, then undertook an MSc in neuroscience from the University of Oxford. Since then, he has written software for medical imaging, the oil industry, local government, and a variety of other industry sectors.

He is a longtime activist with organisations such as Stop the War and the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, and is active in local grassroots politics. He joined AMW in 2005 to help rebuild the website, and advise on other technical matters. Matthew also pursues interests in photography and writing, and regularly collaborates on projects with other artists.

He can be reached at matthew@arabmediawatch.com

Nadim Shehadi

AMW adviser Nadim Shehadi is associate fellow, and former acting head of the Middle East Programme, at the Royal Institute of International Affairs, also known as Chatham House. His main work there is in connection with the Middle East peace process and the Palestinian refugee issue in particular, as well as European policy with Levant states and Euro-Meditteranean issues.

Nadim is an 'academic visitor' at St Antony's College, Oxford, and was director of the Centre for Lebanese Studies in Oxford for about 20 years.

Nore Gabbidon

AMW adviser Nore Gabbidon graduated from the University of Central England, now called Birmingham City University, in 2002 with a BSc in computer science. Before settling down in Birmingham, he worked in London and Bristol in various software and web development roles before returning to his home town.

In his spare time Nore likes to use his software engineering skills, and he plans to continue studying by aiming for a masters degree or equivalent in computer science or business studies.

Rami Khouri

AMW adviser Rami Khouri is a Palestinian-Jordanian and US citizen whose family resides in Beirut, Amman and Nazareth. He is director of the Issam Fares Institute of Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut, as well as editor-at-large of the Beirut-based Daily Star newspaper, published throughout the Middle East with the International Herald Tribune. He is an internationally syndicated political columnist and author.

Rami was a visiting scholar at Stanford University in October 2006, and in November 2006 he was the co-recipient of the Pax Christi International Peace Award for his efforts to bring peace and reconciliation to the Middle East. His website is www.ramikhouri.com.

Rime Allaf

AMW adviser Rime Allaf is a writer, broadcaster and consultant specialising in Middle East affairs, and an associate fellow of the Royal Institute of International Affairs, also known as Chatham House.

In her writings, interviews and talks, she covers various political, socio-economic and cultural aspects of the Middle East (particularly the Arab-Israeli conflict, Iraq and Syria), in addition to media and communication, and the role of Islam.

Rime has published numerous political analyses and commentaries, and is interviewed frequently by international media, broadcast and print. She also regularly posts brief comments about current affairs in the blog on her website www.rimeallaf.com.

With an extensive consultancy background in marketing and market research, she has gained significant insight on Arab and European markets, having conducted numerous projects for international business and media corporations in Europe, the US and the Arab world. 

Rime was managing director of a consultancy in Damascus, advising foreign companies entering the region on political, business, legal and social issues. She was a member of the founding board of directors of the British Syrian Society, a non-governmental organisation aiming at enhancing relations between Britain and Syria.

She is multicultural and multilingual (fluent in English, French and Arabic since childhood, and Spanish, German and Italian). She studied political science in Switzerland, before acquiring an American Bachelor's in management and a Master's in marketing.

Born in Syria, Rime has spent most of her life living, studying and working in Switzerland, the US, Austria and Britain, regularly visiting the Middle East. She is married and currently lives in London.

Sami Ramadani

AMW adviser Sami Ramadani was born in Iraq and became an exile from Saddam Hussein's regime in 1969, as a result of his political activities in support of democracy and socialism. He opposed the sanctions imposed on the Iraqi people (1991-2003) and the invasion of Iraq (2003), and is active in the movement for an immediate end to the US-led occupation.

He is a senior lecturer in sociology at the London Metropolitan University, a member of the UCU (university lecturers' trade union), and a member of BRICUP (the British Committee for Universities in Palestine, which campaigns in support of Palestinian academics languishing under Israeli occupation). He writes commentaries on Iraq for the Guardian, and contributes to many anti-war publications and websites, including Iraqi Democrats Against Occupation.

Sara Bouzo

Born in France and raised in Saudi Arabia and Lebanon, AMW adviser Sara Bouzo graduated with a bachelor in business administration and a concentration in finance from the American University of Beirut, then worked for the UN Development Programme and later for the Saudi French Bank (Crédit Agricole) as the first female trader on the international equities market in Riyadh.

She then took up a masters degree in investment management at London's City University, as well as a financial consulting degree from Berkeley Square Associates. Growing up in a family of politicians, Sara was made conscious of the vital role the media plays in bringing awareness, if not justice, to different causes, hence her involvement with AMW.

Shipra Dingare

AMW adviser Shipra Dingare is a law graduate, having previously studied and worked in the area of language technology. Shipra graduated from Stanford University in 2001 with degrees in linguistics and cognitive science.

Following her arrival in the UK in 2002, she worked in the Language Technology Group at the University of Edinburgh until 2004, and then completed a diploma in law at Brunel University in 2006, and an LLM from the School of Oriental and African Studies in 2007.

Drawing on this academic and work background, Shipra's interests include the international legal aspects of conflicts in the Arab world, and the application of language technology to the study of media coverage of the region.

Tahrir Swift  

AMW adviser Tahrir Swift is a peace campaigner who was born in Iraq and lived the first 20 years of her life there. She came to the UK in 1979, fleeing Saddam Hussein's regime. She studied computer science at Essex University and worked one year in Libya, before coming back to the UK to settle down and work in the banking sector.   She has followed the affairs of Iraq throughout Saddam's rule , the 1991 war, UN sanctions and the current war. These events prompted Tahrir to become a peace activist and follow closely the news and analyses on Iraq in the British media. She is married with a 16 year old daughter.

Tahrir can be reached at tahrir@arabmediawatch.com

Victor Kattan

AMW adviser Victor Kattan joined the organisation in February 2004 as a correspondent, when he covered the oral pleadings before the International Court of Justice in The Hague on the UN General Assembly's request for an advisory opinion on the Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.

Prior to that, he was a UN Development Programme consultant to the Badil Resource Centre for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights in Bethlehem from 2003-2004. He is a member of Badil's global legal support unit, and has worked on projects for them as an external consultant.

Victor has law degrees from Brunel University in Uxbridge, and from Leiden University in the Netherlands. He has published several papers on the question of Palestine in international law journals, and is writing a book on the Israel-Palestine conflict. He is the assistant editor of the Yearbook of Islamic and Middle Eastern Law and is a Visiting Fellow at the British Institute of International and Comparative Law. His journalism has appeared in newspapers in the US, Europe and the Middle East.

Victor can be reached at victor@arabmediawatch.com

Zaki Boulos

A Beirut-born Palestinian, AMW adviser Zaki Boulos was raised and lived in Qatar until 1980, returning to study in Beirut at the age of 11. He spent 3 years there before civil war gripped Lebanon, and was forced to continue his education in Britain, where he still resides.

He graduated from King's College London with a Bachelor in mechanical engineering, and following two years of further studying in the field of music, he embarked on a 10-year career as a sound engineer. Zaki then enrolled in a Masters course in computer science at Birkbeck College, University Of London, from where he graduated in 2005.

During his studies at Birkbeck, Zaki began to rediscover his Palestinian roots. He was deeply affected by the Israeli destruction of Jenin in 2002, reminding him of when he was a boy fleeing Beirut during the 1982 Israeli invasion.

Zaki is an active member of the Palestine Society at the School of Oriental and African Studies, and has recently started putting his literary skills to paper. He was involved in the 2006 Deir Yassin Day, Palestine Film Festival and Iraq Film Festival. He was also involved in founding Tlaxcala, a "network of translators for linguistic diversity," whose aim is to promote, through translation, ideas and discourse on a global scale.

As a student of art and science, Zaki continues his research in artificial intelligence in his spare time, with plans for future studies.

He can be reached at zaki@arabmediawatch.com