Bassam Haddad is Founding Director of the Middle East and Islamic Studies Program and Associate Professor at the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University. He is the author of Business Networks in Syria: The Political Economy of Authoritarian Resilience (Stanford University Press, 2011) and co-editor of A Critical Political Economy of the Middle East (Stanford University Press, 2021). Bassam is Co-Founder/Editor of Jadaliyya Ezine and Executive Director of the Arab Studies Institute. He serves as Founding Editor of the Arab Studies Journal and the Knowledge Production Project. He is co-producer/director of the award-winning documentary film, About Baghdad, and director of the acclaimed series Arabs and Terrorism. Bassam is Executive Producer of Status Podcast Channel and Director of the Middle East Studies Pedagogy Initiative (MESPI). He received MESA's Jere L. Bacharach Service Award in 2017 for his service to the profession. Currently, Bassam is working on his second Syria book titled Understanding The Syrian Tragedy: Regime, Opposition, Outsiders (forthcoming, Stanford University Press).
Ghassan Abu-Sittah:
Disability & The Future of Gaza
In Conversation with Bassam Haddad
In this conversation, Ghassan Abu-Sittah discusses the grim reality of disability and the future of Gaza in times of Genocide, including Israel’s organ harvesting/theft, the deliberate targeting of Palestinians, and the cynical/intentional disablement and mutilation it produces. He also addresses the status of the healthcare system and the continuing Genocide during “ceasefire.”
Gaza in Context Collaborative Teach-In Series
We are together experiencing a catastrophic unfolding of history as Gaza awaits a massive invasion of potentially genocidal proportions. This follows an incessant bombardment of a population increasingly bereft of the necessities of living in response to the Hamas attack in Israel on October 7. The context within which this takes place includes a well-coordinated campaign of misinformation and the unearthing of a multitude of essentialist and reductionist discursive tropes that depict Palestinians as the culprits, despite a context of structural subjugation and Apartheid, a matter of consensus in the human rights movement.
The co-organizers below are convening weekly teach-ins and conversations on a host of issues that introduce our common university communities, educators, researchers, and students to the history and present of Gaza, in context.
Featuring
Ghassan Abu-Sittah is a multi-award-winning Plastic and Reconstructive Surgeon, He is a prominent war surgeon who has selflessly put himself in harm's way volunteering to treat patients in the most treacherous conflict zones throughout his career, most recently in Gaza. He has championed the cause of war-injured patients, particularly children, with an indomitable spirit and a firm stance for human rights and the freedom of Palestine.