Leila Farsakh

Palestinian

Ongoing violence has a devastating effect on the economy of a region. In the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, unemployment is above 10 percent in Israel and between 27 and 37 percent in the occupied territories. Leila Farsakh, a Palestinian political economist, is a post-doctoral fellow at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Harvard University and research fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Center for International Studies. She teaches a course on the Lebanese civil war, and she has published numerous articles and studies related to the Palestinian economy and the Oslo process, international migration, and regional integration. She has worked at both the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development in Paris and the Palestine Economic Policy Research Institute in Ramallah. Her forthcoming book, Labor Migration and the Palestinian State: The Political Economy of Palestinian Labor Flows to Israel, 1967-2002 (Routledge), addresses the evolution of land and labor in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It shows how Israel and the occupied territories have become intricately entangled in their economic and territorial links, making the prospect of a viable Palestinian state more difficult, if ever more necessary. Holding a doctorate in development economics from the University of London, Dr. Farsakh is a founding member of the Boston Coalition for Palestinian Rights; a member of the American-Arabs Anti-Discrimination Committee, Massachusetts chapter; and a member of the Faculty for Israeli-Palestinian Peace. She received the Peace and Justice Award from the Cambridge Peace Commission in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Dr. Farsakh’s peace-building activities include:

• organizing seminars on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, including the Palestine Refugee Right of Return Seminar Series, sponsored by the Trans-Arab Research Institute and the Arab Students at MIT;
• participating in speaking tours and conferences with local churches, synagogues, grassroots organizations, as well as international organizations and universities;
• reporting on the current conflict in US radio and television interviews (NECN, WGBH, NPR, and others);
• authoring The Viability of the Palestinian State in the West Bank and Gaza Strip; The Redefinition of Boundaries between Israel and the West Bank and Gaza; and The Peace Process and Labour Flows to Israel in the Interim Period: A Critical Assessment.

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