The following virtual panel was broadcast live on 26 May 2026. Sponsored by Oxford Department of International Development, and co-organized by Jad Baghdadi and Joumana Talhouk, the panel featured Lara Deeb, Hussein Chaabane, Nour Kilzi, Amal Saad, and Ziad Abu-Rish. It was moderated by Joumana Talhouk. Bios for organizers and participants are be found below the video.
Presenters and Organizers Bios:
Lara Deeb is Professor of Anthropology and Middle Eastern Studies at Scripps College and the author of four books, including Anthropology's Politics: Disciplining the Middle East, and, most recently, Love Across Difference: Mixed Marriage in Lebanon. She also co-authored the primer “Lebanon—History, Palestine, and Resistance to Israeli Violence” published in Middle East Report. Deeb has been organizing against compulsory Zionism and anti-Arab and anti-Muslim racism in academia since 2002 and currently co-chairs the Middle East Studies Association's Task Force on Civil and Human Rights.
Hussein Chaabane is an investigative journalist at the Legal Agenda, specializing in long-form investigations, open-source research, and field reporting, with a focus on war, political violence, and human rights. He is a graduate of the Lebanese University. Chaabane’s publications at the Legal Agenda include “Lebanese Prisoners and Hostages Held by Israel: Bodies for Bargaining” and “855 Violations in 60 Days Are Not Self-Defence: How Israel Turned a Truce into a Deathtrap.”
Nour Kilzi is a legal researcher at Legal Agenda, specializing in international law, with a focus on international humanitarian law, the legal framing of armed conflict, and international litigation. She holds a Master’s degree in international law and international organizations from the Sorbonne. Kilzi’s articles for the Legal Agenda include “How Israel Distorted the Concept of Legitimate Targets in War” and “Israeli Massacres in Lebanon Isolate the Displaced.”
Amal Saad is a Lecturer in Politics and International Relations at Cardiff University. She is a political analyst and leading scholar on Hizbullah. Amal has authored several works on the resistance movement including the 2002 book Hizbullah: Politics and Religion. Her most recent commentary, “Lebanon’s Rulers Have Surrendered the Country to Israel - This Is No Ceasefire,” was published in Middle East Eye.
Ziad Abu-Rish is Associate Professor of Human Rights and Middle Eastern Studies at Bard College in New York. His research centers around state formation, economic development, and popular mobilizations, particularly in Lebanon and Jordan. Abu-Rish is the author of The State of Lebanon: Popular Politics and Institution Building in the Wake of Independence (Stanford University Press, 2026). as co-editor of Jadaliyya e-zine.
Joumana Talhouk is a candidate for the DPhil in International Development at the University of Oxford. Her doctoral dissertation examines postwar Lebanese middle-class domesticity as it is constructed and contested through the employment of migrant domestic workers under the kafala system.
Jad Baghdadi is a doctoral candidate in International Development at the University of Oxford, where his research focuses on state-capital relations, class dynamics, sectarianism, and capital accumulation, particularly in Syria and Lebanon. His doctoral thesis examines how state-capital relations in Lebanon reproduce the country’s sectarian and capitalist order.