Amin Muhammad Ali Dabour
Amin Dabour (Amīn Dabbūr)(أمين محمد علي دبور) was a political scientist and beloved instructor, teaching his signature survey course, Palestinian Studies, to generations of students in the Department of Economics and Political Science at the Islamic University of Gaza (IUG). Students appreciated his lucid lecturing style and grounded approach to the material.
In an online chat thread about the course in 2010, prompted by one student’s query on what would be on the final exam, another wrote, “Ustadh Amin—there’s no one like him at the university. So good-humored, and such brilliant political thought.”
Dabour earned a master’s degree in International Studies from Birzeit University in 1999 with a thesis titled Palestinian Refugees and the Search for a Permanent Solution. A historical study of Palestinian refugees and their legal and national rights to repatriation or compensation, the thesis was also keen to address Palestinian negotiators involved in the Oslo process.
Dabour argued against rushing into an arrangement that would abandon the Right of Return or compensation. Noting that Oslo had run its course, he recommended a redirection of energies to building up Palestinian institutions and self-renovation, the better to improve the Palestinian negotiating position.
Among his publications, two that are oft-cited are Dirasat fil Tanmiya al-Siyasiyya (Studies in Political Development, Islamic University of Gaza, 2011) and Nudhum Siyasiyya Muqarna (Comparative Political Systems, Islamic University of Gaza, 2012).
Dabour’s course, POLS 3320 Palestinian Studies, covered the full sweep of Palestine’s political history, from pre-modern times to the 2008-09 assault on Gaza. It encompassed the 1948 war and Nakba; the roots of Palestinian resistance and its multiple factions; the first and second Intifadas; the Oslo process; and the Palestinian and Israeli political systems. His videotaped lectures show a dynamic instructor bantering with his students, and narrating copious amounts of information in an engaging, even riveting style, with hardly a pause in delivery or the aid of lecture notes.
On 3 January 2024, Amin Dabour passed away, though accounts differ as to cause, with some indicating a heart attack and others an Israeli strike. On learning of his death, one former student recalled, “He overwhelmed us with his great humility and spirit that was close to students and distant from the formalities and hierarchies of academia. Ustadh Amin’s wide experiences were reflected in his teaching style. I credit him with lifting us out of the idealist political thought we were immersed in during our first years and taking us into the real world of politics, with its cool realism and wrenching contradictions. May Allah have mercy on him and accept him among the righteous.”
Roger Heacock, history professor at Birzeit University and a member of Dabour’s master’s thesis committee, remembered, “He was among my very favorite students in the MA program, with his fine mind, his truly Gazan sense of humor in joy and adversity. I’m so sorry to hear of his death, which I deeply mourn.”