Former Palestinian Prime Minister to Visit Duke April 1

Salam Fayyad will also meet with students as part of the Provost’s Initiative on the Middle East

<!-- wp:drupalblock/story-meta-block {"blockId":"story_meta_block"} /--> <!-- Former Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad will speak at Duke University on April 1.

Former Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad will speak at Duke University on April 1.

The event, which is open to the public, is scheduled for 6 p.m. at the Karsh Alumni and Visitor Center. Registration is required.

Fayyad will also meet with students, faculty and representatives of Duke leadership during his visit to campus.

The event is part of the Provost’s Initiative on the Middle East, a year-long effort launched in February to make space in the campus community for rigorous and respectful debate on current and past conflicts in the region.

The initiative is organizing a variety of events, programs and engagement opportunities that strive to model thoughtful and civil engagement, provide a forum for different perspectives on the conflict, and enhance understanding based on expertise and evidence-based scholarship, and supporting others at Duke who are striving to do the same through their own activities.

Fayyad was appointed prime minister of the Palestinian Authority in June 2007, a position he held until stepping down in June 2013. He also twice served as finance minister, from 2002-05 and 2007-12. In 2013, he founded “Future for Palestine,” a nonprofit development foundation.

An economist, Fayyad worked with the International Monetary Fund from 1987-2001. His tenure included serving as IMF resident representative in the West Bank and Gaza Strip from 1996-2001. He has also served as manager of the Arab Bank in Palestine and been elected to the Palestinian Legislative Council, where he served as chairman of the Finance Committee.

Currently, Fayyad is a visiting senior scholar and lecturer in public policy and Daniella Lipper Coules ’95 Distinguished Visitor in Foreign Affairs at the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University. He is also a distinguished statesman with the Atlantic Council’s Brent Scowcroft Center on International Security and a distinguished fellow at the Brookings Institution.

He holds a bachelor’s degree from the American University of Beirut, an MBA from St. Edward's University, and a PhD in economics from the University of Texas at Austin. His son, Khaled, earned his JD from Duke in 2018.

Bruce Jentleson, the William Preston Few Distinguished Professor of Public Policy and Professor of Political Science and an expert on the Middle East as well as international security and U.S. foreign policy broadly, will host the conversation with Fayyad.

From the Provost’s Initiative on the Middle East