Mubarak Awad is a Palestinian-American psychologist and an advocate of nonviolent resistance.
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Awad, a Palestinian Christian (a member of the Greek Orthodox Church), was born in 1943 in Jerusalem when it was under the British Mandate.[1] When Awad was five years old, his father was killed during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War and he became a refugee in the Old City of Jerusalem.[2][1] His mother was a pacifist and argued against revenge.[2] He was given the right to Israeli citizenship in 1967 when East Jerusalem was annexed by Israel after the Six-Day War but refused and kept his Jordanian citizenship.[3][4]
Mennonite and Quaker missionaries influenced Awad's views in his youth.[2] In the 1960's he moved to the United States to study at the Mennonite Bluffton University and received a BA in social work and sociology.[2][5] He went on to obtain a MS in education from Saint Francis University and a PhD in psychology from the International Graduate School of Saint Louis University.[5][6][1]
He was granted U.S. citizenship in 1978 and settled in a small town in Ohio.[3][2]
Awad was the founder and former president of the National Youth Advocate Program (NYAP) in the United States.[6] The organization developed from the Ohio Youth Advocate Program (OYAP) established by Awad in 1978 with support from the Ohio Youth Commission (now the Department of Youth Services), the state department responsible for finding placements for "at risk" youth referred to the state from county juvenile courts.[7][5]
In 1983 Awad returned to Jerusalem and established the Palestinian Centre for the Study of Nonviolence.[8][2] Prior to the intifada, Awad published papers and lectured on nonviolence as a technique for resisting the Israeli occupation. He wrote that nonviolence could be used as a means of resistance. The Centre also sponsored a number of nonviolent actions during the early months on the first intifada. Among the tactics employed was the planting of olive trees on proposed Israeli settlements, asking people not to pay taxes and encouraging people to eat and drink Palestinian products. In the Middle East he is called the Arab Gandhi because he was teaching the power of nonviolence similar to Mahatma Gandhi in India during the British Raj. He believed these tactics could be used to resist the Israeli military occupation. He also drew upon the methodologies of Gene Sharp's trilogy, The Politics of Non-Violence. Using this knowledge and his experience, Awad prepared his own "12-page blueprint for passive resistance in the territories," eventually published in the Journal of Palestine Studies.[9]
In 1987, Awad attempted to renew the residency permit he had been issued in 1967.[3] His application was declined and he was ordered to leave the country when his tourist visa expired.[3] Awad claimed, with strong support from U.S. consular officials, that under international conventions Israel did not have the right to expel him from his place of birth and he refused to leave.[3] The Israeli government stayed the deportation order mainly at the insistence of the U.S.[2] In May 1988, Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir ordered Awad arrested and expelled.[3] Officials charged that Awad broke Israeli law by inciting "civil uprising" and helping to write leaflets that advocated civil disobedience that were distributed by the leadership of the First Intifada.[3] No evidence was provided to support the charge and Awad appealed the decision to the Supreme Court.[3] The court ruled that he had forfeited his right to residence status in Israel when he became a U.S. citizen and he was deported in June 1988.[3] U.S. Secretary of State George Shultz's appeal to Shamir to revoke the deportation order was declined.[3] Ian Lustick, professor of political science at the University of Pennsylvania, cited the ruling in Awad's case as one of a number of examples that he argues demonstrate that "[t]here has never been an official act that has declared expanded East Jerusalem as having been annexed by the State of Israel."[10]
In 1989, Awad founded Nonviolence International, a non-governmental organization in Special Consultative Status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council.[11] Nonviolence International's stated mission is to promote nonviolent action and seek to reduce the use of violence worldwide.[11]
Awad has taught at the American University in Washington, D.C. since the early 1990's.[5][1] He is an Adjunct Professor in the School of International Service where he teaches classes in the theories and methods of nonviolence.[5]
