PASSIA: The Palestinian Academic Society for the Study of International Affairs

PASSIA

The PASSIA office (2015)

PASSIA is an independent, nonprofit, scholarly institution in East Jerusalem, founded in 1987 by Dr. Mahdi Abdul Hadi and other Palestinian intellectuals. Its goal is “to present the Palestinian question in its national, Arab and international contexts through academic research, dialogue and publication.”

PASSIA has an active program of research and publication, with over 100 titles currently in print in English or Arabic. These include monographs, collections of documents, research studies, reports, articles, and bulletins. One of the organization’s most popular publications is the PASSIA Diary, which contains a day planner, a directory of organizations and institutions in Palestine, and significant facts and statistics about Palestinian politics and society. Also of special importance are PASSIA’s multi-volume collections Documents on Palestine and Documents on Jerusalem.

Many products of PASSIA’s research are freely available on the web. These include facts and figures concerning Palestinian society and politics, a biographic directory of Palestinian personalities, a historical chronology of events related to Palestine, maps of Palestine and Jerusalem, and an archive of photographs dating from the 1890s to the 1950s.

In addition to research and publishing, PASSIA provides a variety of educational programs. Through its Dialogue Program PASSIA hosts guest speakers, offers briefing sessions, and organizes roundtable discussions and debates on the issues confronting Palestine. In its seminars PASSIA prepares Palestinian graduates for engagement in international affairs and civil society.

PASSIA has a small research library which is open to the public. The collections there are mostly materials in print such as books, journals, documents, and papers. A special focus of the library is the history of Jerusalem.