Ziad Jameel Rasheed Asali, M.D., is the President and founder of the American Task Force on Palestine, a 501(c)3 non-profit, non-partisan organization.
Asali was born in Jerusalem to a renowned nobel Jerusalemite family. He received his B.S. from the American University of Beirut in 1963 and an M.D. from the American University of Beirut Medical School in 1967.
Asali completed his residency in internal medicine and endocrinology at the LDS Hospital in Salt Lake City, Utah. He practiced medicine in Saudi Arabia and Jerusalem before returning to the United States in 1973 to serve as the Medical Director, Laboratory Director, and Chairman of the Board at the Christian County Medical Clinic and St. Vincent Memorial (now Taylorville Memorial) Hospital in Taylorville, Illinois, until he retired in 2000. He remains licensed to practice medicine in Illinois, Virginia, and Washington, D.C. He is a member of several medical societies such as the American Medical Association, the American Society of Internal Medicine and the American Academy of Medical Directors. He is a Diplomat of the Board of Internal Medicine and a Fellow of the American College of Physicians.
Asali is a long-time activist on Middle East issues. He has been a member of the Chairman's Council of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) since 1982, and served as ADC’s President from 2001-03. He served as the President of the Arab-American University Graduates (AAUG) from 1993–95, and was Chairman of the American Committee on Jerusalem (ACJ), which he co-founded, from 1995-2003.
Dr. Asali's leadership extends to other initiatives and non-partisan organizations. He is a member of the Board of Directors of the Middle East Investment Initiative. He is also a member of the Executive Committee of A Different Future as well as a member of the Trustees Advisory Council of OneVoice and a member of the Advisory Board for the Middle East of Search for Common Ground.
Dr. Asali is also founder and Chairman of the American Charities for Palestine (ACP). In August 2008 the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) signed a Memorandum of Understanding with ACP initiating a partnership to help harness the generosity of the American people to help meet Palestinian humanitarian needs.
Asali has written in Al Ahram Weekly, the Washington Times, and in the Forward, and Foreign Policy Magazine. He has written for the Los Angeles Times, Detroit Free Press, Washington Post, Boston Globe, Miami Herald, and The Daily Star. He has provided television commentary and interviews for CNN, CBS, Charlie Rose, MSNBC, Fox News, BBC, C-SPAN, Voice of America and numerous syndicated cable programs. He has also appeared on several Arabic television networks, including Al Jazeera, Al-Arabiya, Al-Hurra, Nile TV, ART, Egyptian television, Abu Dhabi TV, and the Dubai satellite channel. His opinions have appeared in newspapers throughout the Arab world including Al-Hayat, Al-Ahram, Al-Rai, Al Khaleej, Jordan Times and Akhbar Al-Arab.
He is a regular speaker at international conferences, Arab-American conventions and academic groups. He has spoken at Carnegie Mellon, Columbia, Cornell Universities, George Washington University, Georgetown University and Harvard University.
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