Hussein Yusuf Kamal Ibish is a Senior Fellow at The American Task Force on Palestine. He was born in Beirut, Lebanon in 1963. He has a Ph.D. in Comparative literature from University of Massachusetts, Amherst and is active in advocacy for Arab causes in the United States. He describes himself as an agnostic from the Muslim American community.
Ibish comes from an academic background. His father, Yusuf Ibish, studied at Harvard University's Department of Government in the 1950s and was on the faculty of the American University of Beirut as a scholar of Islam.
Ibish attended Emerson College and earned a bachelor of science in mass communications in 1986. He later attended the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and earned a Ph.D. in comparative literature in February 2002.
Ibish has won three awards. In 2002, he became Arab-American of the Year, a recognition awarded by the Arab-American Community Center for Economic and Social Services in Ohio (AACCESS, Ohio). A year later, he became Best TV Spokesperson for the Arab Cause (New York Press). Lastly, in 2004, Ibish earned the Dedicated Service Award by the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee.
What's Wrong with the One-State Agenda? Why Ending the Occupation and Peace with Israel is Still the Palestinian National Goal (ATFP, 2009)
Hate Crimes and Discrimination against Arab Americans 1998-2000 (ADC, 2001)
Sept. 11, 2001-Oct. 11, 2002 (ADC, 2003)
Report on Hate Crimes and Discrimination against Arab Americans: 2003-2007 (ADC, 2008)
"At the Constitution's Edge: Arab Americans and Civil Liberties in the United States" in States of Confinement (St. Martin's Press, 2000)
"Anti-Arab Bias in American Policy and Discourse" in Race in 21st Century America (Michigan State University Press, 2001)
"Race and the War on Terror," in Race and Human Rights (Michigan State University Press, 2005)
Symptoms of Alienation: How Arab and American Media View Each Other" in "Arab Media in the Information Age (ECSSR, 2005).
"The Palestinian Right of Return" (ADC, 2001)
"The Media and the New Intifada" in The New Intifada (Verso, 2001).
Editor, Principles and Pragmatism (ATFP, 2006).
Numerous Op-eds in newspapers and magazines including the Chicago Tribune, Philadelphia Inquirer, Los Angeles Times, Arab American News, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Newsday, Lexington Herald Leader (Kentucky), The San Diego Union-Tribune, Milwaukee Journal, Pittsburgh Post Gazette, The Washington Post, Detroit Free Press, Dallas Morning News,The Record,Sunday Gazette-Mail, The Boston Globe, The Houston Chronicle and The Nation.
Ibish has taken part in numerous invited talks, lectures and debates at colleges and universities, including Yale Law School, Harvard Business School, Princeton, MIT, Tufts University, Georgetown, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, New School for Social Research, North Carolina State, University of California Irvine and many other American universities, as well as the University of Costa Rica.
Keynote presentations about race in 21st century America were delivered on the 3rd National Conference, Michigan State University, East Lansing (2003) and the National Convention of the Muslim Public Affairs Council (2003). He also addressed the 7th Annual National Latina/o Law Student Conference, Nuestro Deber: Our Duty to Empower Our Communities, (2003), and numerous Arab-American student conferences.
Ibish twice addressed the National Association of Attorneys General Annual Spring Meeting (2002 and 2004). In addition, he addressed the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars, the Nixon Library and the Unity National Journalists of Color Conference (2004).
Charlie Rose interview him live on stage at the Rising Tide Summit III (2000). Ibish was invited to participate in the first US-Islamic World Conference hosted by the Brookings Institute and the Qatari Foreign Ministry in Doha, Qatar (2004).
Panelist at Nation Institute forum Patriot Games: Civil Liberties After September 11, moderated by Phil Donahue; panelists also included Arthur Schlesinger Jr., Molly Ivins, Nadine Strossen, and Elaine Jones.
Many talks and presentations were broadcast on C-Span television, including a National Press Club Newsmaker Press Conference (The condition of Arab-Americans Post September 11, November 20, 2001). Newsmaker press conferences are by invitation of the Press Club itself.
