SHULAMIT ALONI is an Israeli lawyer and human rights activist, former Member of the Knesset (1974-96) and former Minister of Education and Culture (1992-93), Member of The National Security Council (1992-96), Minister of Communication, Science and Art (1995-96 Second in the Cabinet). Still a teen, she joined the Hagana (viewed by some as a self-defense force and by others as a terrorist group) - and later fought in the war of 1948.

GILAD ATZMONis a secular Israeli Jew raised in Jerusalem who witnessed and empathised with the daily sufferings of Palestinians and spent 20 years trying to resolve for himself the tensions of his background. Finally disillusioned, he moved away from Israel and went to England to study philosophy but ended up turning to music in which field he has excelled. He now regards himself as a devoted political artist. Gilad's website

NAIM ATEEKRev. Naim Ateek, a Palestinian with Israeli citizenship, is canon of St. George's (Anglican) Cathedral in Jerusalem and is founder of Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center. According to Ateek, Sabeel "strives to develop a spirituality based on justice, peace, nonviolence, and love" among the Christians who make up less than 2 percent of the Palestinian population [ED Christians used to make up 52% of the population in Jerusalem; it has dwindled to about 2.5% due to Israeli policies].

URI AVNERY is an Israeli journalist and controversial peace activist. He was a member of the Knesset 1965 - 1973 and 1979 - 1981. During his first eight years in the Knesset, even his enemies described Avnery as one of Israel's foremost parliamentarians. As a youth, he was a member of the paramilitary group, Irgun. He served for three years, but left the Irgun in protest against its anti-Arab and reactionary social attitudes and terrorist methods. Later he explained his attitude in a booklet entitled "Terrorism, the infantile disease of the Hebrew revolution" (1945). In the 1948 Arab-Israeli War he was a fighter in the Samson's Foxes jeep unit (and also wrote its anthem). Afterwards, he wrote a book about the war, called "In the Fields of the Philistines" which became overnight the biggest bestseller of that time, and is still generally recognized as the outstanding book of that war, in the tradition of Erich Maria Remarque's "All Quiet on the Western Front". However, when he wrote a follow-up, "The Other Side of the Coin", which described the dark side of the war, including atrocities and the expulsion of the Palestinians, it was boycotted. in April 1950, he bought a moribund family magazine and turned it into a unique Israeli institution. For forty years, Haolam Hazeh attracted an unusually large dose of both admiration and hatred, because of its untiring opposition to the official "concensus" on nearly all issues. At the base of the controversy was Avnery's unflinching opposition to the nationalistic, theocratic 'Jewish state" created by Ben-Gurion, and his advocacy of a modern, liberal state, belonging to all its citizens, irrespective of ethnic, national or religious roots. Haolam Hazeh has fought for the separation between state and religion, human rights, the right of the Arab minority, equality between Jews of European and oriental descent, the adoption of a written constitution (still missing), womens rights, civil rights and much more. In 1992 he founded the Gush Shalom ["the Peace Bloc") movement, which he leads up to this day. More about Avnery

RAMZY BAROUD, a veteran Arab American journalist, teaches mass communication at Curtin University of Technology. He is the author of the forthcoming book, Writings on the Second Palestinian Uprising (Pluto Press, London.)

DR. OREN BEN-DOR: Borned in Haifa and raised in Nahariya, Ben-Dor has renounced his Israeli citizenship. He is a Lecturer in the School of Law at Southampton University in the United Kingdom.

DR. AZMI BISHARA: Member of Knesset since 1996, he represents the National Democratic Assembly - a progressive political party of Palestinian citizens of Israel.

URI DAVIS is an anthropologist, philosopher and anti-apartheid, anti-Zionism activist. The son of two Holocaust survivors, he prefers to identify himself as a Palestinian Jew with Israeli citizenship. An expert on Middle Eastern affairs and Islamic history, he is a fellow at the University of Durham and the University of Exeter in the U.K.

Ran HaCohen under construction

Nancy Harb under construction

JEFF HALPER is an anthropologist and the Director of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD). He can be reached at icahd@zahav.net.il.

AHMED JARADATis a human rights activist for the Alternative Information Center in Bethlehem, and a former fieldworker for al-Haq

RAMI GEORGE KHOURI is a Palestinian-Jordanian and US citizen whose family resides in Beirut, Amman, and Nazareth. He is editor-at-large of the Beirut-based Daily Star newspaper, published throughout the Middle East with the International Herald Tribune (international arm of The New York Times). He is an internationally syndicated political columnist and author.

HIND KHOURY is the Palestinian Authority's minister of state for Jerusalem affairs.

NAOMI KLEIN is an award-winning journalist and author of the international best-seller No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies and, most recently Fences and Windows: Dispatches From the Front Lines of the Globalization Debate. She is a frequent media commentator and university guest lecturer. In the fall of 2002, Klein was a Miliband Fellow at the London School of Economics.

Paul Lindley under construction

ERIC MARGOLIS is an American foreign affairs correspondent, defense analyst and commentator. He has covered 14 wars and has 25 years' experience in covering the Middle East His columns appear in the Toronto Sun and Dawn, a major Pakistani daily. He also publishes in ericmargolis.com, foreigncorrespondent.com and bigeye

PILGER John Pilger was born and educated in Sydney, Australia. He has been a war correspondent, film-maker and playwright. Based in London, he has written from many countries and has twice won British journalism's highest award, that of "Journalist of the Year," for his work in Vietnam and Cambodia.

JUSTIN RAIMONDO Raimondo left the Libertarian Party to join the GOP. In 1996, he was the Republican candidate running against Nancy Pelosi (Senator California) championing conservative and libertarian causes in general. Justin was the first to use the meme "chickenhawk".

CHARLEY REESE Charley Reese has been a journalist for 49 years, reporting on everything from sports to politics. From 1969-71, he worked as a campaign staffer for gubernatorial, senatorial and congressional races in several states. He was an editor, assistant to the publisher, and columnist for the Orlando Sentinel from 1971 to 2001. He now writes a syndicated column which is carried on LewRockwell.com. Reese served two years active duty in the U.S. Army as a tank gunner.

ISRAEL SHAMIR is a native of Novosibirsk, Siberia, a grandson of a professor of mathematics and a descendant of a Rabbi from Tiberias, Palestine, he studied at the prestigious School of the Academy of Sciences, and read Math and Law at Novosibirsk University. In 1969, he moved to Israel, served as paratrooper in the army and fought in the 1973 war. After his military service he resumed his study of Law at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, but abandoned the legal profession in pursuit of a career as a journalist and writer. Shamir, along with Edward Said, has become a leading champion of the "One Man, One Vote, One State" solution in all of Palestine/Israel.

RAJI SOURANI is Director of the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, a partner of Christian Aid, and an internationally renowned human rights defender. He has campaigned all his life for the realisation of peace and human rights in Palestine and many other parts of the world.

JOHN SPRITZLER UNDER CONSTRUCTION

MICHAEL WARSCHAWSKI is the former general director of the Alternative Information Center in Jerusalem. The son of a rabbi he pursued rabbinical studies at the Merkaz HaRav, which is considered by some as the spiritual source of the Gush Emunim movement (the major activity of Gush Emunim has been to initiate Jewish settlements in the West Bank and in the Gaza Strip). Slowly at first, Warschawski began to perceive the racism of the Israeli state, going on, eventually, to become one of the best known figures on the radical Israeli Left.

LASSE WILHELMSON was born in 1941 in Sweden. Part of Wilhelmson¹s family fled to Sweden from the Czar¹s pogroms during the 1880s. Some members of the family immigrated further to America and Palestine. Wilhelmson lived in Israel for several years during the early 1960s. He also published the article "Israel Must Choose the Path of Democracy" the 16th of September 2003 and "More Than Traditional Colonialism and Apartheid" the 16th of February 2004 in The Palestine Chronicle.