Rami Khouri
Senior Fellow, Middle East Initiative
Contact:
Email: rgkhouri@gmail.com
Experience
Rami George Khouri is a Palestinian-Jordanian and U.S. citizen whose family resides in Beirut, Amman, and Nazareth. He is director of the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut. His journalistic work includes writing books and an internationally syndicated column, and he also serves as editor at large of the Beirut-based Daily Star newspaper.
He spent the 2001–2002 academic year as a Nieman Journalism Fellow at Harvard University and was appointed a member of the Brookings Institution Task Force on US Relations with the Islamic World. He is a research associate at the Program on the Analysis and Resolution of Conflict at the Maxwell School, Syracuse University (NY, USA), a Fellow of the Palestinian Academic Society for the Study of International Affairs (Jerusalem), and a member of the Leadership Council of the Harvard University Divinity School. He also serves on the board of the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies at Georgetown University.
He was executive editor of the Daily Star newspaper in 2003–2005, and before that had been editor-in-chief of the Jordan Times for seven years, when he also wrote for many years from Amman, Jordan for leading international publications, including the Financial Times, the Boston Globe, and the Washington Post. For 18 years he was general manager of Al Kutba, Publishers, in Amman, and in recent years served as a consultant to the Jordanian tourism ministry on biblical archaeological sites. He has hosted programs on archaeology, history, and current public affairs on Jordan Television and Radio Jordan. He often comments on Mideast issues in the international media and lectures frequently at conferences and universities throughout the world.
He has BA and MSc degrees respectively in political science and mass communications from Syracuse University
May 22, 2013
"Hezbollah's Moment of Reckoning in Qusayr"
Op-Ed, Agence Global
By Rami Khouri, Senior Fellow, Middle East Initiative
The battle for Qusayr is only the haphazard spark within the larger Syrian war that could ignite this fire. The real causes of this combustible condition of the Arab region remain the dysfunction of modern Arab states and central governments, the ascendancy of police states and military regimes, the repercussions of the century-long Zionism-Arabism conflict, and the continuing status of the Middle East as a proxy battleground for regional and foreign powers.
May 18, 2013
"When Arab States and Citizens Differ on Palestine"
Op-Ed, Agence Global
By Rami Khouri, Senior Fellow, Middle East Initiative
"Tensions between the Arab state and its citizens will expand in the years ahead, as the fundamental contradictions of Arab state-building, national identity, regional relations, the Arabism-Zionism confrontation, and international alliances all clash visibly. Jordan and Egypt provide the clearest examples because of their peace treaties with Israel, but they are not unique. Most other Arab states suffer similar contradictions and stresses, especially Levantine and Gulf states that must satisfy American-Israeli demands that contradict the sentiments of many of those Arab states’ own citizens."
May 14, 2013
"New Rules of the Evolving Arab Order"
Op-Ed, Agence Global
By Rami Khouri, Senior Fellow, Middle East Initiative
The uprisings that erupted across the region as of December 2010 have been the single most important sign of a region-wide malaise that was gnawing at the core of Arab countries for decades, signaled in its earlier stages in the 1980s-90s by the rise of mass Islamist movements that reflected widespread citizen discontent and challenged autocratic governments. The evolving regional order is now entering its most dynamic stage of change, with every component element transforming into something new.
Wikimedia Commons
May 10, 2013
"China Addresses the Middle East"
Op-Ed, Agence Global
By Rami Khouri, Senior Fellow, Middle East Initiative
The Israeli settlement news is nothing new, but the actions of the three big powers are new and noteworthy. The American, Russian and Chinese initiatives to resolve the Arab-Israeli and Syrian conflicts are as laudatory as they are difficult to achieve, though efforts like this open up new possibilities for collaborative diplomacy through the UN Security Council, which is usually critical for success.
iStock
May 7, 2013
"The Real Scare in Syria is Not Chemical Weapons"
Op-Ed, Agence Global
By Rami Khouri, Senior Fellow, Middle East Initiative
"One of my rules of thumb of observing which way the wind blows in the Middle East is now in active operative mode: When Hezbollah and Israel both are actively fighting in the same third country, and Iran and the United States are both actively warning about their determination to act to protect their allies and their interests in that same third country, it is time to make another pot of coffee and make sure you have plenty of fresh batteries at home for your transistor radio."
May 4, 2013
"Drop the Failed Approaches and Try New Ideas"
Op-Ed, Agence Global
By Rami Khouri, Senior Fellow, Middle East Initiative
"There is good news and bad news on the Arab-Israeli peace-making front this week. The good news is that the United States and the Arab League’s ministerial committee seem energized to restart Palestinian-Israeli negotiations. This culminated a few days ago in the Arab clarification that the 2002 Arab Peace Plan that offers Israel a comprehensive and permanent peace can include minor and mutually agreed land swaps around the 1967 borders."
May 1, 2013
"Arab Transitions Are Slow for Good Reasons"
Op-Ed, Agence Global
By Rami Khouri, Senior Fellow, Middle East Initiative
"In the context of today’s Arab world, the political transitions being experienced in some countries provide the first ever opportunity for citizens to discuss and agree on the core elements of their statehood and nationhood."
Foreign Policy
April 27, 2013
"The Test to Come: Forgiveness and Reconciliation"
Op-Ed, Agence Global
By Rami Khouri, Senior Fellow, Middle East Initiative
Is reconciliation a feasible option for the Arab world that now seems to be moving in the direction of greater domestic intolerance and warfare? We do not know, and only time will tell. The track record of intra-Arab reconciliation has not been very impressive in recent decades, in countries like Lebanon, Jordan, Yemen, Bahrain, Sudan and others.
April 23, 2013
"Kuwait's Historic Civil Disobedience"
Op-Ed, Agence Global
By Rami Khouri, Senior Fellow, Middle East Initiative
Though they go back many years, in their simplest and latest manifestations Kuwait’s political developments revolve around the issue of whether or not the emir has the authority to unilaterally revise the parliamentary electoral districts system to ensure a pro-regime and docile legislature, and whether or not citizens who oppose such manipulation have the right to peacefully protest against such moves and demand more democratic behavior by the ruling elite.
U.S. Department of State
April 12, 2013
"Development with Sovereignty"
Op-Ed, Agence Global
By Rami Khouri, Senior Fellow, Middle East Initiative
I join with many others who applaud and are surprised by the speed and persistence of U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry’s engagement in diplomatic efforts to relaunch Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. I applaud his initiative because it can only result in something positive, whether it succeeds or fails.
