The Fourth Annual Palestine Forum set off in Doha on Saturday 24 January 2026. Jointly organized by the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies and the Institute for Palestine Studies, the Forum runs for three days in attendance of a number of ambassadors and diplomatic missions.
In its fourth year, the Forum has become an annual tradition marked by scholarly rigour, academic and methodological diversity, and a wide spectrum of topics and participants. The papers presented in this year’s installment cover core issues related to Palestine, ranging from history and structural transformations in the Palestinian national project, to Palestine’s position within the Arab and international systems, analyses of settler colonialism and the apartheid regime, the limits of international law, transformations in global solidarity, and the roles of media, knowledge, and universities in a time of genocide. Through its successive editions, the Forum has consolidated its position as a key contributor to the production of critical, in-depth knowledge on Palestine, gaining a distinguished Arab and international reputation and attracting wide participation from academics and others concerned with the Palestinian cause and its regional and global contexts. It has thus become an inclusive space for meeting, exchanging perspectives, and engaging in deep discussion.
This edition acquires exceptional significance as it is being held at a critical historical juncture in Palestinian history; with the ongoing genocide of unprecedented scale in recent history in the Gaza Strip, alongside the escalation of colonial violence in the West Bank, and amid profound international transformations marked by the erosion of accountability mechanisms and international law. Over three days, the Forum is holding eight main sessions in parallel tracks, in addition to three general panels and three specialized workshops. Among these is a workshop dedicated the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip, organized in partnership between Hikama Journal and the Conflict and Humanitarian Studies Center, reflecting the forum’s endeavour to link academic research, policy analysis, and pressing practical questions in the post-genocide phase.
Ayat Hamdan, a researcher at the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies and Chair of the Annual Palestine Forum Committee, emphasized in her opening remarks that this edition is being held in an exceptionally complex international and regional context. More than two years have passed since the outbreak of Israel’s genocidal war on the Gaza Strip and the escalation of its violence in the West Bank. She noted that the programme includes 83 peer-reviewed academic papers distributed across 23 parallel panels. She also pointed out that the ongoing Israeli escalation has, for the second consecutive year, prevented a number of researchers from the West Bank from attending and participating in the forum.
In his own opening remarks, Majdi Maliki, Director General of the Institute for Palestine Studies, stressed the importance of scholarly engagement with the Palestinian narrative. He lauded the success of the Forum thus far in providing a space for communication, dialogue, and interaction, and in strengthening a sense of individual and collective responsibility among researchers. He noted the unprecedented challenges facing the Palestinian cause in light of the continued devastation in Gaza and ever escalating aggression in the West Bank, and the persistence of Israeli colonial policies that impose new facts on the ground and on international law, explicitly obstructing the establishment of a Palestinian state. Maliki also addressed the realities of life under occupation, including the destruction of health, educational, and civil infrastructures, and policies aimed at suffocating Palestinians through the seizure of tax revenues. He outlined the Institute for Palestine Studies’ role in knowledge documentation since the onset of the genocide through the launch of specialized digital platforms, extensive production of research and policy papers, and the opening of opportunities for youth training and research. He concluded by affirming that the continuation of the Forum is a message of steadfastness, and that research in this context is not merely an academic duty, but a moral duty and an act of hope and resistance in a time when truth itself is under attack.
Palestine in International Law, International Contexts, and the Western Media
The first set of sessions was held across three parallel tracks. The first, titled “International Law and Palestine”, was chaired by Aicha Elbasri. Nicola Perugini presented his paper, “Between Resistance and Genocide: Palestinian National Liberation and Israel's Annihilation at the Limits of International Law”; Abdelhamid Siyam presented “The ICC and the Palestine Question”; and Hamid Belrhit and Asmae El Alaoui jointly contributed, “Annexation Policies in Light of the Evolutive Interpretation of International Law Rules: The Sanctity of the Principle and the Responsibility of Third States”.
The second track, titled “Palestine in the International Context”, was chaired by Adham Saouli. Razan Shawamreh presented her paper, “Disconnected Realities: China's Perception-Creation Strategy and Palestinian Narratives of Liberation”; Houriya Ben Ali presented “From Denouncing the Crime to Criminalizing Condemnation: How Official Moral Discourse Is Used to Enforce Silence on Genocide”; and Rovshan Mammadli discussed, in his paper “Navigating (In)Solidarity: South Caucasus States' Positions on Palestine during the Gaza Genocide”.
The third track, titled “The Genocide in Gaza in Western Media”, was chaired by Lamis Andoni. Amena ElAshkar presented her paper, “Breaking News, Breaking Frame: Chaotic Visuality and the Image War on Gaza”; Diana Buttu and Nidal Rafa presented their joint paper “How (Not) to Cover a Genocide: Experiences from Journalists in Palestine Reporting on Israel's Genocide in Gaza”; and Djamil Kerrouche presented his paper, “Framing the Human Cost: Emotional Narratives in Coverage of the Gaza Prisoner Exchange by The New York Times, The Guardian, and Fox News”.
Palestine in History and International Politics: Narratives, Actors, and Transformations
The first track in the second set of sessions was titled “Milestones in Palestinian History: From the 19th Century to the Nakba”, was chaired by Issam Nassar. Munir Fakher Eldin presented his paper, “Ottoman "Historical Capital" and Land Law in Palestine: The Struggle over the Legacy of Sultan Abdülhamid II, 1909–1914”; Mohannad Abusarah participated remotely with his paper, “Ottoman Palestine through Traditionalist Regional Networks in the Hamidian Era”; Yanis Arab contributed a paper titled “The Algerians of Palestine: Vectors of the Palestinian Nakba Narrative to French Consular Representations in Palestine”; and Mahmoud Muhareb presented a case study on “The Contact between Israel and Akram Al-Hourani, Adib Al-Shishakli, and Field Marshal Abdel Hakim Amer”.
The second track, “International Organizations and the Genocide in Gaza”, was chaired by Ghada al-Madbouh. Adel Ruished presented his paper, “Regulating and Phasing out UNRWA in Occupied Palestine through Exception”; Heba Mohamed contributed an analytical study titled “The United Nations between Collapse and Reform amid the War on Gaza and Escalating Global Conflicts”; Rinda Saleh examined “Humanitarian Organizations Discourse amid Genocide: Gaza 2023”; and Pietro Stefanini presented “Annihilation through Aid: Airdrops, Maritime Piers, and Privatized Relief as Tools of Genocide in Gaza”.
The third track, titled “Palestine and Global Solidarity”, was chaired by Majdi Maliki. Muzna Shihabi presented a paper entitled “Lines in the Sand: How Palestine Rewrites the French Political Landscape”; Fanny Christou presented “Reimagining Resistance and Contesting Silence Beyond Borders: Palestinian Diaspora Mobilization and Solidarity Movements in Sweden Post-7 October 2023”; Muhannad Ayyash contributed his paper, “Palestinian-Indigenous Solidarities in Canada: Situating the Palestinian Cause as a Global Decolonial Struggle in Praxis”; and Marie Kortam rounded off the panel with “The Transnational Student Movement for Justice in Gaza”.
US Policy and Palestine
The sessions were followed by a public symposium titled “US Policy toward Palestine: Domestic and International Implications”. Khalil Jahshan moderated the panel and also presented his paper, “Trump, MAGA, and the Palestine Question: The Pursuit of US Hegemony in the Region”. He was followed by Tamara Kharroub, who presented “Palestine and the Democratic Party Crisis: Drivers and Impacts of Shifts in US Public Opinion and Discourse”; then Yousef Munayyer, with his paper “Paradigm Shift: The Groundwork for a New American Politics around Palestine Hanna Alshaikh: Palestine and the Reshaping of the US Institutional Order”.
Towards Palestinian Frameworks for Reconstruction in the Gaza Strip
In parallel with the first and second sets of forum sessions, Hikama Journal and the Conflict and Humanitarian Studies Center, organized the first workshop, “Reconstruction Policies in Gaza and the Centrality of Palestinian Survival”. It began with an opening session featuring Ghassan Elkahlout, Abdel-Fattah Mady, Nour Allah Munawar. This was followed by the first session, titled “Reconstruction Policies in Gaza and the Centrality of Palestinian Survival”, chaired by Marwa Farag. Contributions included a remote paper Talal Abu Rokbeh, titled “Reconstruction Policies in Gaza: Toward a Comprehensive Approach Linking Urban Planning with the Rebuilding of the State and the Local Community”; a paper by Yosef Jabarin, “Planning a Postwar Order: Israeli and US Think Tanks, Reconstruction, and the Politics of Sovereignty in Gaza”; and a paper by Mandy Turner, “Colonial Administration, Counterinsurgency Pacification, and Disaster Capitalism in Trump's ‘Day After’ Plans for Palestine”.
A roundtable titled “Gaza after the Ceasefire: The Humanitarian Reality and the Limits of Recovery” was also held as part of the workshop, chaired by Mohammed Alsousi. It discussed the current humanitarian challenges in the Gaza Strip and the prospects for recovery in light of the devastation left by genocidal war. The workshop opened in-depth discussions linking academic analysis with field experience, in parallel with the Forum’s concurrent sessions on the repercussions of the war and post-genocide policies.
The Conditions of the Palestinian National Project
The first day concluded with a public lecture delivered by Azmi Bishara, General Director of the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies, titled “The Palestinian National Project in the Current International/Arab Context”. In his lecture, Bishara offered an in-depth critical review of the trajectory of the Palestinian national project, emphasizing that it cannot be reduced to a political programme or a single mode of struggle, but necessarily encompasses the organizational structures and social bases capable of claiming and representing national legitimacy. Bishara devoted particular attention to the ongoing genocide on the Gaza Strip and the repercussions of the Al-Aqsa Flood, which he described as a political and historical earthquake, hailing a new phase not only in Palestine, but in the entire region. He warned against attempts to dissolve the Palestinian national project and international attempts to reframe the cause as a humanitarian or administrative issue rather than a struggle for national liberation from a settler-colonial regime. In this context, he stressed the necessity of reformulating the Palestinian national project around the struggle against the apartheid system imposed by Israel over the entirety of historic Palestine. Bishara concluded by stressing that the central challenge now lies in building a comprehensive national liberation project that unites Palestinian forces and institutions both inside and outside Palestine and commits to a political goal. Without this, any constructive debate will risk devolving into political power struggles prior to liberation, which can only reproduce the destructive dynamic that led us to the situation in which we have found ourselves since the Oslo Accords.
