Hussein Yusuf Kamal Ibish (; born 1963) is a senior resident scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington. He is a weekly columnist for The National (UAE), former columnist for Bloomberg, regular contributor to The Atlantic and The Daily Beast, and frequent contributor to many other U.S. and Middle Eastern publications. He has made thousands of radio and television appearances and was the Washington, DC correspondent for The Daily Star (Beirut). Many of Ibish's articles are archived on his Ibishblog website.
His most recent book is What's Wrong with the One-State Agenda? Why Ending the Occupation and Peace with Israel is Still the Palestinian National Goal (ATFP, 2009). Ibish was included in all three years (2011, 2012, and 2013) of Foreign Policy's âÂÂTwitterati 100,â the magazine's list of 100 âÂÂmust-followâ Twitter feeds on foreign policy.
Ibish is the editor and principal author of three major studies of Hate Crimes and Discrimination against Arab Americans 1998-2000 (ADC, 2001), Sept. 11, 2001-Oct. 11, 2002 (ADC, 2003), and 2003-2007 (ADC, 2008). He is also the author of âÂÂAt the ConstitutionâÂÂs Edge: Arab Americans and Civil Liberties in the United Statesâ in States of Confinement (St. Martin's Press, 2000), âÂÂAnti-Arab Bias in American Policy and Discourseâ in Race in 21st Century America (Michigan State University Press, 2001), âÂÂRace and the War on Terror,â in Race and Human Rights (Michigan State University Press, 2005) and âÂÂSymptoms of Alienation: How Arab and American Media View Each Otherâ in Arab Media in the Information Age (ECSSR, 2005). He wrote, along with Ali Abunimah, âÂÂThe Palestinian Right of Returnâ (ADC, 2001) and âÂÂThe Media and the New Intifadaâ in The New Intifada (Verso, 2001). He is the editor, along with Saliba Sarsar, of Principles and Pragmatism (ATFP, 2006).
Ibish previously served as a senior fellow at the American Task Force on Palestine, and executive director of the Hala Salaam Maksoud Foundation for Arab-American Leadership from 2004 to 2009. From 1998 to 2004, Ibish served as communications director for the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee.
Ibish was born in Beirut, Lebanon. He comes from an academic background: his father, Yusuf Ibish, was a Lebanese/Syrian who 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. His father and mother were a devout Sunni Muslim and Anglican Christian, respectively, although he never embraced either religion, despite being a founding member of the Progressive Muslim Union. Ibish attended Emerson College, earning a Bachelor of Science degree in mass communications in 1986. He has a PhD in comparative literature from the University of Massachusetts Amherst.