Personal Info
- Country of residence: Jordan
Information
Mohammad Makram Omar Al-Balawi was born in Irbid, Jordan, on August 2, 1969, to a Palestinian family originally from the village of Bal'a in the Tulkarm Governorate. He is married and has seven children. He completed his primary education in Islamic schools in Irbid and in schools run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA). He attended secondary school at Prince Hassan bin Talal School, graduating in 1986. He earned his bachelor's and master's degrees from Nagpur University in India in 1993, and his doctorate in English Literature (Postcolonial Studies) from the International Islamic University in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in 2014. He worked in the field of relief work and taught in Jordanian public schools until 2001. He then lectured at the College of Health Sciences in Saudi Arabia before joining the staff of Dammam University, where he became responsible for the university's newspaper and information center.
Al-Balawi joined the Islamic movement in Jordan, and part of his activity was focused on charitable work. He became involved in serving the Palestinian cause, contributing to the establishment of the Jerusalem-Malaysia Foundation. He became the director of the Association of Academics for Jerusalem in 2020, and the acting president of the Union of Palestinian Academics since 2021. He also founded the Asia and Middle East Forum, which aims to provide knowledge and understanding between the Asian continent and the Middle East.
Al-Balawi writes stories for children, and forty-one of his stories have been published. He has two collections of children's literature that he is working on preparing for publication. He has also published a number of research papers and articles specializing in international relations, in addition to the Palestinian issue and the Zionist issue, which have been translated into more than thirteen languages, including: Asia to the Right: The Beginning of a New Era (2017), A Reading of India's Decision to Revoke the Special Status of Kashmir, The American Withdrawal from Afghanistan: A Gateway to Peace or War?, The Indian Elections and Their Implications for the Palestinian Cause (2019), The Future of US-China Relations in Light of Corona (2020), Chinese-Israeli Relations Under the American Microscope (2021), After the 2021 Myanmar Coup: The Limits of Military Democracy, and China and the Middle East: A Real Strategy or Malicious Competition? (2021).
Among the books he co-authored are: Islamization of Knowledge and Studies of English Literature in the Age of Islamophobia and Westernophobia (2016), Jerusalem: History, Religion and Politics (2019), Deconstructing the Pro-Israel Discourse: India as a Model (2019), The 2019 Indian Elections: Results and Repercussions (2019), and Neo-Oriental Narrative: A Study of the Representation of Muslim Communities in Selected Literary Works After the Events of September 11.
Al-Balawi believes that the settlement process reflects a state of psychological helplessness and surrender to the status quo. This process emerged after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Palestinian feeling that he was powerless and lacked tools. He emphasized that the Oslo Accords brought the Palestinians nothing but division, internal disputes, and deviation from the right path. According to Al-Balawi, the refusal to resort to the ballot box came from the faction that caused the division, which is the faction that is trying to impose its will on the Palestinian people completely. If the democratic situation had continued in Palestine, the division would not have occurred.
Balawi believes that national partnership within the PLO is theoretically sound, but practical experience over the years has proven that attempting to reform the PLO is futile and unattainable. He argues that the Arab regimes do not want any democratic structure within the PLO's institutions and seek to maintain it as a tool to achieve their own objectives. Balawi views the Palestinian political system as a one-man rule system lacking democracy.
He considers resistance by all means the optimal solution to the Palestinian question, believing that the Palestinian people themselves should determine the most appropriate form and method of resistance based on the realities on the ground to achieve their goals. He also believes that the complete liberation of the land is inevitable and that the Zionist movement will be defeated, if not by the Palestinians, then by internal factors. He maintains that, until then, talk of the refugees' return while the Zionist project persists is an illusion, as the Zionist movement will always work to displace and expel Palestinians from their land.
Therefore, talk of return is impossible until the Zionist movement leaves Palestine. Balawi believes that the Arab situation in recent years has been a natural reaction to oppression, the monopolization of power, and human rights violations.
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