Sami Amin Al-Arian is a Kuwaiti-born political activist of Palestinian origin who was a computer engineering professor at University of South Florida. During the Clinton administration and Bush administration, he was invited to the White House. He actively campaigned for the Bush presidential campaign in the United States presidential election in 2000.
Ileana Ros-Lehtinen is a politician and lobbyist from Miami, Florida, who represented Florida's 27th congressional district from 1989 to 2019. By the end of her tenure, she was the most senior U.S. Representative from Florida. She was Chairwoman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee from 2011–2013. In 1989, Ros-Lehtinen won a special election and became the first Cuban American elected to Congress. She was also the first Republican woman elected to the House from Florida. Ros-Lehtinen gave the first Republican response to the State of the Union address in Spanish in 2011, and gave the third in 2014.
Steven Emerson is an American investigative journalist, author, and pundit on national security, terrorism, and Islamic extremism. He is the founder and director of The Investigative Project on Terrorism, and received a George Polk Award for the 1994 documentary Terrorists Among Us: Jihad in America.
Christopher Lynn Hedges is an American journalist, author, commentator and Presbyterian minister.
Al Jazeera English is a 24-hour English-language news channel operating under Al Jazeera Media Network, which is partially funded by the government of Qatar. In a bid to broaden its reach, Al Jazeera introduced an English-language division in 2006. It is the first global English-language news channel to be headquartered in the Middle East.
The post-9/11 period is the time after the September 11 attacks, characterized by heightened suspicion of non-Americans in the United States, increased government efforts to address terrorism, and a more aggressive American foreign policy.
Nir Rosen is an American journalist and chronicler of the Iraq War, who resides in Lebanon. Rosen writes on current and international affairs. In 2014 he was a special adviser for the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue, a conflict resolution NGO.
Firedoglake was an American collaborative blog that described itself as a "leading progressive news site, online community, and action organization". Established by film producer Jane Hamsher in 2004, Firedoglake served as a platform for Hamsher, other writers and commenters to engage in debate and activism. Hamsher shut down Firedoglake on August 1, 2015, citing health reasons, and announced that all posts would be archived at the Shadowproof website, which was launched that year by former staff members. Shadowproof describes itself as "a press organization driven to expose systemic abuses of power in business and government while developing a model for independent journalism that supports a diverse range of young freelance writers and contributors."
Aaron Glantz is a two-time Peabody Award-winning journalist and Pulitzer Prize finalist known for producing journalism with impact. Projects he's led have sparked new laws that curtailed the opioid epidemic, improved care for U.S. military veterans, and kept the FBI's international war crimes office open. They have also prompted dozens of Congressional hearings and investigations by the FBI, DEA, and United Nations. His reporting has appeared in nearly every major media outlet, including the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, NPR, NBC News, ABC News, Reveal and the PBS Newshour, where his investigations have received three national Emmy nominations.
Tomas Young was an American military veteran of the Iraq War. In 2004, he was wounded and paralyzed by a bullet to the spine five days after he reached Iraq. One of the first veterans to come out publicly against the war, Young actively protested against the war after he returned to the United States. When his physical condition worsened in 2013 due to various medical complications, Young chose to go into hospice care. He later reversed that decision and accepted medical treatment until he died in 2014.
Marwan Bishara is a Palestinian Arab, born in Nazareth, Israel. He is currently an author, columnist and the senior political analyst for Al Jazeera English. From 2007 to 2014, Bishara was the editor and host of their flagship programme Empire, which examined global powers and their agendas in a fusion of documentary and debate with politicians, generals, philosophers, academics, novelists, movie directors, and activists from the world over. He has been described as "one of the Arab world's leading public intellectuals" and writes extensively on global politics and is widely considered a leading authority on the Middle East and international affairs.
Shaker Elsayed is an Egyptian American imam who was posted at the Dar Al-Hijrah mosque in Falls Church, Virginia from 2005 to 2017, when he resigned because of backlash stemming from his comments about female genital mutilation. He was born in Cairo, Egypt.
Laura Poitras is an American director and producer of documentary films.
Fault Lines is an American current affairs and documentary television program broadcast on Al Jazeera English. Premiering in November 2009, the program is known for investigative storytelling across the United States and the Americas, examining the United States and its role in the world.
Homeland is an American espionage thriller television series developed by Howard Gordon and Alex Gansa based on the Israeli series Prisoners of War which was created by Gideon Raff, who serves as an executive producer on Homeland. The series stars Claire Danes as Carrie Mathison, a CIA officer with bipolar disorder, and Damian Lewis as Nicholas Brody, a Marine Corps Scout Sniper. Brody was held captive by al-Qaeda as a prisoner of war, and Mathison becomes convinced that he was "turned" by the enemy and poses a threat to the United States. The series storyline grows from that premise, together with Mathison's ongoing covert work.
Sebastian Walker is an investigative journalist and an Emmy Award-winning broadcast journalist who is currently a correspondent and Middle-East bureau chief for Vice on Showtime and VICE News.
The first season of the American television drama series Homeland premiered on October 2, 2011, on Showtime and concluded on December 18, 2011, consisting of 12 episodes. The series is loosely based on the Israeli television series Hatufim created by Gideon Raff and is developed for American television by Howard Gordon and Alex Gansa. The first season follows Carrie Mathison, a CIA operations officer who has come to believe that Nicholas Brody, a U.S. Marine Sergeant, who was held captive by al-Qaeda as a prisoner of war, was turned by the enemy and now poses a significant risk to national security.
Al Jazeera America was an American pay television news channel owned by the Al Jazeera Media Network. The channel was launched on August 20, 2013, to compete with CNN, HLN, MSNBC, Fox News, and in certain markets RT America. It was Al Jazeera's second entry into the U.S. television market, after the launch of beIN Sports in 2012. The channel, which had persistently low ratings, announced in January 2016 that it would close on April 12, 2016, citing the "economic landscape".
Phyllis Bennis is an American Jewish writer, activist, and political commentator. Focusing mainly on issues related to the Middle East and the United Nations, she is a strong critic of Israel and the United States and a leading advocate of Palestinian rights.
Rawya Rageh is an Egyptian journalist and Senior Crisis Adviser for Amnesty International based in New York City. She was previously a broadcast journalist known for her in-depth coverage of notable stories across the Middle East and Africa, including the Iraq War, the Darfur crisis in Sudan, the Saddam Hussein trial, the Arab Spring, and the Boko Haram conflict in Northern Nigeria. Working as a correspondent for the Al Jazeera English network her contribution to the Peabody Award-winning coverage the network provided of the Egyptian Revolution of 2011 and the Arab Spring was documented in the books 18 Days: Al Jazeera English and the Egyptian Revolution and Liberation Square: Inside the Egyptian Revolution and the Rebirth of a Nation. The news story she broadcast on 25 January, the first day of the Egyptian Revolution of 2011, was selected by Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism as one of the "50 Great Stories" produced by its alumni in the past 100 years. In addition to her broadcast reporting, Rageh is an active social media journalist, recognized by the Washington Post as one of "The 23 Accounts You Must Follow to Understand Egypt" and by Forbes Middle East Magazine as one of the "100 Arab personalities with the most presence on Twitter."
