Noura Erakat


Noura Saleh Erakat is a Palestinian-American activist, university professor, legal scholar, and human rights attorney. She is currently a professor at Rutgers University, specializing in international studies. She is the co-founder of the online publication Jadaliyya. Her primary focus is on international law, human rights, and the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. She is a vocal critic of Israel and a prominent public commentator on Palestinian legal and political issues. Erakat has authored academic articles and the book, Justice for Some: Law and the Question of Palestine.
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Education and career

Education

Noura Saleh Erakat was born on January 16, 1980, in Alameda County, California. She attended the University of California, Berkeley and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 2002. She was a member of Phi Beta Kappa, and was named a UC-Berkeley Human Rights Center Summer Fellow in 2003. In 2005, she received her Juris Doctor from the UC Berkeley School of Law and was awarded the Francine Diaz Memorial Scholarship Award. She earned her LL.M. in National Security at Georgetown University Law Center in 2012, and her LL.M. in Legal Education upon completing the Abraham L. Freedman Teaching Fellowship at Temple University, Beasley School of Law.

Early legal and policy work

After law school Erakat received a New Voices Fellowship to serve as the national grassroots organizer and legal advocate with the U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation. From 2007 to 2009 she was Legal Counsel for the Domestic Policy Subcommittee of the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. She later worked as Legal Advocacy Coordinator for the Badil Resource Center for Palestinian Refugee and Residency Rights between 2010-2013, drafting submissions to United Nations human rights treaty bodies and lobbying U.S. and UN officials on refugee and residency issues.

Academic positions and career

Erakat has held teaching positions at several U.S. universities, including International Studies at George Mason University’s New Century College and International Human Rights Law and the Middle East at Georgetown University. She is Professor of Africana Studies and the Program in Criminal Justice at Rutgers University–New Brunswick, where her teaching and research span humanitarian law, human rights law, national security law, and Palestinian Studies. She has also held visiting and fellowship roles, including a non‑resident fellowship with the Religious Literacy Project at Harvard Divinity School and the Mahmoud Darwish Visiting Professorship in Palestinian Studies at Brown University.
In 2010, she co-founded Jadaliyya, an online magazine published in English, Arabic, and French, which is affiliated with the non-profit Arab Studies Institute, operating in Washington, D.C. and Beirut. She currently serves on the board of the Institute for Policy Studies and serves as an associate professor at Rutgers University, is a member of the Board of Directors for the Trans-Arab Research Institute, and is a policy advisor with Al-Shabaka: The Palestinian Policy Network.
Erakat was said to be among three potential Palestinian American running mates for Dr Jill Stein, the left-wing Green Party's nominee for president of the United States in the 2024 election.
Erakat is a frequent media commentator; institutional biographies note appearances on CBS News, CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, BBC, NPR, and other outlets, and she has written opinion pieces for major publications including The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Nation and others. She has provided legal and political commentary during major developments in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, including Israeli annexation proposals, changes in Israeli leadership, and proceedings before the International Criminal Court. She addressed the United Nations at the 77th Commemoration of the Nakba at UN Headquarters on 15 May 2025.

Activism and advocacy

In May 2023, the Canadian MPP Sarah Jama, a 28-year old, black, disability rights activist, came under criticism for retweeting a tweet that Noura Erakat wrote. The tweet, which the lobby group B'nai Brith Canada described as "unacceptable", praised Khader Adnan, a Palestinian activist and prisoner in West Bank who died after an 87-day hunger strike in protest against Israel's use of administrative detention to imprison Palestinians without charge or trial and "to expose the basic injustice in Israel's military justice system and its casual denial of basic freedoms.".
In an October 13, 2023, interview on Democracy Now!, Erakat described Israel's military response in Gaza as a "genocidal campaign" and accused Western leaders of employing Islamophobic and racist tropes in their framing of the conflict. Writing for the Boston Review on the same day, she said that Western demands for Palestinian condemnation of Hamas were being used to silence criticism of Israel's conduct, and said the war was a product of apartheid and settler colonialism.
In a U.S. Committee on Education and the Workforce investigation into Rutgers University's response to antisemitism and its failure to protect Jewish students, Erakat was mentioned by Committee Chair Virginia Foxx as having a "well-documented history of anti-Israel, antisemitic, and pro-terrorism conduct and engaging with terrorists". The committee accused Erakat of justifying kidnapping of civilians as a "military tactic" and accusing President Biden of supporting "Israel's genocidal warfare." It said she Erakat had appeared on a virtual panel alongside Hamas political bureau member Ghazi Hamad in March 2024.
Erakat was also interviewed and featured in the film Seeds for Liberation (2026) by award-winning director Matthew Solomon. The film discusses the Free Palestine movement.

Awards and recognition

Erakat has been recognized with numerous awards for her activity and her writing.
Her book Justice for Some received widespread critical acclaim and was a finalist for the Palestine Book Awards in 2019.
In 2021, she received the Law for the People Award from the National Lawyers Guild for her work in advancing international human rights and justice in the Palestinian context.
In 2022, Erakat was named a Freedom Scholar by the Marguerite Casey Foundation and the Group Health Foundation, an honor recognizing scholars who advance social, economic, and educational justice.
In March 2025 Erakat received the Amnesty International Chair Award from the University of Ghent, Belgium.

Personal life

She is the sister of Yousef Erakat, better known by his YouTube moniker, FouseyTube. She is the cousin of Ahmed Erakat, a Palestinian man who was shot and killed by Israeli police after his vehicle rammed into one of the barriers at a military checkpoint near Abu Dis, a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, on 23 June 2020. Noura has disputed the intentionality of this act.

Publications and selected works

Erakat has published two books, and has appeared in publications such as the Columbia Human Rights Review, the UCLA Law Review, and the Journal of Palestine Studies, as well is in numerous media publications.

Academic books

  • . Co-edited with Mouin Rabbani, 2013.
  • . Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2019.

Academic papers

  • "." Oxford Journal of International Refugee Law, Forthcoming.
  • "." Arizona Law Review, Forthcoming.
  • "." Denver Journal of International Law and Policy 41 Denv. J. Int'l L. & Pol'y 225.
  • "." UCLA Journal of Islamic and Near Eastern Law, Vol. 11, No. 37, 2011–2012.
  • "." 36 Rutgers L. Rec. 164.
  • "." 2 Berkeley Journal of Middle Eastern & Islamic Law 27.

Print media

Interviews

Radio

Video