Azmi Bishara is a Palestinian public intellectual and theorist who was a member of the Knesset for 10 years, before being forced into exile by the Israeli state. He is a prolific writer, and has authored over twenty-five books on political theory, philosophy, Arab politics and the Palestinian cause. His book Sectarianism without Sects is forthcoming with Hurst Publishers. Dr Bishara is the director of the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies.

Edward W. Said (1935-2003) was University Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia. A member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Royal Society of Literature and of Kings College Cambridge, his celebrated works include Orientalism, The End of the Peace Process, Power, Politics and Culture, and the memoir Out of Place. He is also the editor, with Christopher Hitchens, of Blaming the Victims, published by Verso. New Left Review published an obituary in Nov-Dec 2003: http://www.newleftreview.org/?view=2481

Omar Barghouti is a human rights activist, founding member of the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel and the BDS movement, and author of Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions: The Global Struggle for Palestinian Rights.

Noam Chomsky is Institute Professor Emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Laureate Professor at the University of Arizona, and the author of more than one hundred books.