Laila el-Haddad

Laila El-Haddad is a Palestinian journalist and writer based between Gaza and the United States, who writes principally for the al-Jazeera English website and the Guardian Unlimited. She was educated in Bahrain and the United States. She earned her B.A. from Duke University and her Master in Public Policy from Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, after being awarded the [http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/05/education/05ED12T.html?ex=1144123200&en=33fefd4071fc2607&ei=5070 Clinton Scholarship] for Palestinian graduate students.

Most recently, Laila made two Gaza-based documentaries for Al-Jazeera International (Tunnel Trade and A Rafah Playground) with Tourist With A Typewriter.

A running theme in El-Haddad's writing is the personalization of the situation of Gazans and Palestinians by writing with humor and introspective humanity about her domestic life and those of other Gazans. By revealing Palestinians neither as terrorists nor as currency in a worldwide market of political opposition to western dominance, but as sympathetic people capable of wit and humor amid violence and the occupation of their territory, she thereby contributes a human voice from Palestine.

El-Haddad's work is also frequently found in the [http://www.newstatesman.com/nssubsfilter.php3?newTemplate=NSArticle_World&newDisplayURN=200601090007 New Statesman] , [http://www.dailystar.com.lb/ Daily Star] , [http://www.electronicintifada.net/new.shtml Electronic Intifada] , [http://www.monde-diplomatique.ro/ le monde diplomatique] and [http://www.pacifica.org/ Pacifica Radio] . Since November 2004, she has also authored a blog called [http://a-mother-from-gaza.blogspot.com Raising Yousuf: A Diary of a Mother Under Occupation] . El-Haddad is married with one son, Yousuf, and one daughter, Noor.

External links

* [http://www.guardian.co.uk/ "Guardian Unlimited"]
* [http://alternet.org/story/24442/ "'Personal Voices: The Occupation is Not Over,' AlterNet, August 2005."]
* [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/28/AR2005072800517.html "'Disengagement from Justice,' Washington Post, July 2005."]
* [http://electronicintifada.net/cgi-bin/artman/exec/view.cgi/10/3209 "Gaza Families Live in the Shadow of Death, Electronic Intifada, October 2004."]
* [http://www.countercurrents.org/pa-laila040604.htm "'Rafah Counting the Dead,' Al Jazeera, June 2004."]
* [http://www.selvesandothers.org/view2485.html/ "Selves and Others"]