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Palestine

Palestine Reporting

Concrete tent embodies contradictions of Palestine refugee life

Posted on June 28, 2015 by Alex Shams

Originally published on Ma’an News Agency on June 28, 2015. A newly constructed concrete tent in the Duheisha refugee camp south of Bethlehem in the West Bank. (MaanImages/Alex Shams) BETHLEHEM (Ma’an)

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Israel Palestine Reporting

Zionist tour for Muslim-Americans sparks anger in Palestine

Posted on June 25, 2015 by Alex Shams

Originally Published by Ma’an News Agency on June 25, 2015. BETHLEHEM (Ma’an) — An all-expenses paid trip to Israel organized for Muslim-American leaders by a Duke University-based imam has set

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Palestine Reporting

Palestinian drivers pay the price as Israeli police patrol West Bank

Posted on June 19, 2015 by Alex Shams

To travel the one-hour trip from Ramallah to Bethlehem, drivers have to pass through a total of five different regulating authorities

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Israel Opinion Palestine

Seattle mayor’s Israel trip highlights dangers of ‘pinkwashing’

Posted on June 12, 2015 by Alex Shams

Originally published on the Washington Blade. Ed Murray (Photo by Ryan Georgi; courtesy Wikimedia Commons)   On Monday, Seattle mayor Ed Murray touched down in Israel as part of a

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Palestine Reporting

Amid repression, Palestine student politics revive democratic hopes

Posted on June 2, 2015 by Alex Shams

Originally published on Ma’an News Agency on June 2, 2015. BETHLEHEM (Ma’an) — It has been nine years since Palestine’s second and last parliamentary elections in 2006, and although hopes were

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Palestine Reporting

Armenians in Palestine face uncertain future

Posted on April 24, 2015 by Alex Shams

Originally published on Al Jazeera.  The community is under threat, residents say, amid problems with Israeli policy and economic malaise. Church officials say the number of Armenians in Palestine has

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Israel Palestine Reporting

Armenians in Palestine mark 100 years since Genocide

Posted on April 23, 2015 by Alex Shams

Originally published by Ma’an News Agency on April 23, 2015. JERUSALEM (Ma’an) — The Armenian community of the Holy Land this week marks the 100th anniversary of the beginning of

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Palestine Reporting

Jerusalem family fights against all odds to prevent eviction

Posted on April 22, 2015 by Alex Shams

Originally published on Ma’an News Agency on April 22, 2015. JERUSALEM (Ma’an) — On a small alley in Jerusalem’s Old City, a Palestinian family is fighting both Israeli government and Jewish

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Palestine Reporting

Hamas student list victorious in Birzeit University elections

Posted on April 22, 2015 by Alex Shams

Originally published by Ma’an News Agency on April 22, 2015. RAMALLAH (Ma’an) — A student list affiliated with Hamas on Wednesday came out on top in the closely-watched student elections

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Palestine Reporting

Birzeit students rally as thousands turn out to vote

Posted on April 22, 2015 by Alex Shams

Originally published on Ma’an News Agency  on April 22, 2015. RAMALLAH (Ma’an) — Thousands of students at Birzeit University in the central West Bank went to the polls on Wednesday, bringing

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About me

Alex Shams is an Iranian-American writer and a PhD student of Anthropology at the University of Chicago.

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  • Looking A Tyrant In the Eye: Iran’s Long Struggle for Freedom and Justice
  • Iran After Khamenei
  • Iran’s Protesters Are Caught Between State Repression and Foreign Intervention
  • Quiet Solidarity: The Underground Networks that Defied Israel’s War on Iran
  • Our Man For Tehran
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About

Born and raised in an Iranian-American family in Los Angeles, Alex Shams has long been fascinated by the stories that places can tell us. Growing up, he learned Persian and Spanish; in college, he learned Arabic and studied abroad at the American University of Cairo before moving to Beirut after graduation. After receiving his master’s in Middle Eastern Studies from Harvard, he moved to Bethlehem, Palestine, where he was a journalist at Ma’an News Agency, the largest independent Palestinian news organization. He received his PhD. from the University of Chicago in Sociocultural Anthropology. His dissertation, entitled “Constructing Islamic Modernity: Power, Religion, and Masculinity in Post-Revolutionary Iran,” was based on three years of ethnographic research in Iran, Iraq, and Pakistan as well as archival research in the British Library and Ba’ath Party Archives.

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