Meet the People Behind The Agora Initiative

Ghanem Nuseibeh was born in Jerusalem and educated in the UK. Ghanem is a businessman with expertise in political and economic advisory with business interests in the Middle East and Europe. Besides his professional work, he has been engaged in interfaith dialogue for over two decades, and is currently Chairman of the UK’s Muslims Against Antisemitism.
He is a Trustee of the British Friends of Neve Shalom Wahat Al Salam and Patron of UK anti-extremism charity Faith Matters. He graduated from Imperial College London and was a Senior Visiting Fellow at King’s College London and a Network Fellow at the Harvard University Edmond J Safra Center for Ethics. He has homes in Jerusalem, London and Dubai.

Aziz Alghashian is the Geopolitics Senior Research Fellow and Director of Research with ORF Middle East in Dubai. He is known, in particular, as a specialist in the Saudi-Israeli relationship. Aziz joined the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, where he underwent Officer Training, before obtaining his undergraduate degree in International Relations and Global Security at Nottingham Trent University, followed by an MA degree in Diplomacy and International Relations.
Aziz has taken his specific research focus on Saudi-Israeli relations to the next level by starting a PhD program at the University of Essex, examining the nuances of Saudi Arabia’s pragmatic policies towards Israel. From 2014-2021, Aziz was a lecturer of International Relations and Middle East politics at the University of Essex. Since then, Aziz’s research has focused on leveraging Saudi-Israeli relations into a Palestinian-Israeli peace process. He is a firm believer in outreach and speaking to both Israeli and Palestinian audiences to raise awareness of the opportunities that can be built upon towards a two-state-solution.

Dr. Anwar Mhajne, is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Stonehill College. She is a native of Umm al-Fahm and specializes in international relations and comparative politics, with a research focus on feminist security studies, critical cybersecurity, disinformation, and Middle Eastern politics. She has written extensively on Israel-Palestine and engages in public talks and op-eds on the subject. She is the coeditor of Critical Perspectives on Cybersecurity (Oxford University Press, 2024).
Her writing has been featured in the Journal of Genocide Research, the Journal of Women, Politics & Policy, The International Feminist Journal of Politics, Political Research Quarterly, Religion and Politics, Culturico, The Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs, Foreign Policy, The Conversation, Times of Israel, Haaretz, Middle East Eye, +972 Magazine, Quartz, The Defense Post, The Jerusalem Post, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Albawaba, The New Arab, and The National, among others.

Dov Waxman is the Rosalinde and Arthur Gilbert Foundation Professor of Israel Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). From 2000-2004, he was the director of the UCLA Y&S Nazarian Center for Israel Studies. Before joining UCLA, he was the Stotsky Professor of Jewish Historical and Cultural Studies and the co-director of the Middle East Center at Northeastern University. He has had visiting fellowships at the University of London, Oxford University, Tel Aviv University, Bar-Ilan University, and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He received his B.A. degree from Oxford University and his Ph.D. and M.A. from the School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) at Johns Hopkins University. His research and writing focus on the Israel-Palestine conflict, contemporary antisemitism, Israeli politics and foreign policy, and U.S.-Israel relations. He is the author of four books: The Pursuit of Peace and The Crisis of Israeli Identity: Defending / Defining the Nation (2006), Israel’s Palestinians: The Conflict Within (2011), Trouble in the Tribe: The American Jewish Conflict over Israel (2016), and The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: What Everyone Needs to Know (2019). His writing has also been published in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, The Guardian, Haaretz, The Forward, The Atlantic, Time, Slate, Foreign Policy and many other places. He also appears regularly as a commentator for major media outlets including CNN, NBC, MSNBC, FOX News, CBS, PBS, BBC, Al Jazeera, Bloomberg TV, NPR.