The Arab Spring (Arabic: الثورات العربية‎ al-Thawrāt al-ʻArabiyyah; literally the Arabic Rebellions or the Arab Revolutions) is a revolutionary wave of demonstrations and protests occurring in the Arab world that began on 18 December 2010. To date, rulers have been forced from power in Tunisia,Egypt,Libya, and Yemen; civil uprisings have erupted in Bahrain and Syria; major protests have broken out in Algeria,Iraq,Jordan,Kuwait, and Morocco; and minor protests have occurred in Lebanon,Mauritania, Oman,Saudi Arabia,Sudan, and Western Sahara, as well as clashes at the borders of Israel in May 2011 and protests by the Arab minority in Iranian Khuzestan. Weapons from the Libyan civil war stoked a simmering rebellion in Mali, and the consequent Malian coup d'état has been described as "fallout". The sectarian clashes in Lebanon were described as a direct result of the Syrian uprising and hence the regional Arab Spring.

The protests have shared techniques of mostly civil resistance in sustained campaigns involving strikes, demonstrations, marches, and rallies, as well as the use of social media to organize, communicate, and raise awareness in the face of state attempts at repression and Internet censorship.

Sayyid Vali Reza Nasr (Persian: ولی‌رضا نصر‎, born 20 December 1960 in Tehran) is a leading expert on the Middle East, a best-selling author, Dean of the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, D.C., Senior Fellow in Foreign Policy at Brookings Institution, and columnist for Bloomberg View.

He taught at the University of San Diego and the Naval Postgraduate School and was a Senior Fellow at the Belfer Center at Harvard University and Professor of International Politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University prior to being appointed dean of the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in March 2012. .

Nasr served as senior advisor to the U.S. special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Ambassador Richard Holbrooke between 2009 and 2011, and is a Life Member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Vali Nasr is one of America’s leading experts on the Islamic world and Middle East policies. He is internationally renowned and has influenced critical public debates and policy decisions in both the U.S. and Europe. His two books, Shia Revival (2006) and Forces of Fortune (2009) correctly foretold of sectarian conflict following the Iraq War and the potential for an Arab Spring. He has testified before the U.S. Senate on issues relating to the Middle East, advised presidents, senior policy makers, and members of the Congress. He has been featured on the front page of the Wall Street Journal, quoted by Senator John Kerry on the floor of the U.S. Senate, and described as a “national resource” by Richard Haass, the President of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Avram Noam Chomsky (/ˈnoʊm ˈtʃɒmski/; born December 7, 1928) is an American linguist, philosopher,cognitive scientist, historian, and activist. He is an Institute Professor and Professor (Emeritus) in the Department of Linguistics & Philosophy at MIT, where he has worked for over 50 years. Chomsky has been described as the "father of modern linguistics" and a major figure of analytic philosophy. His work has influenced fields such as computer science, mathematics, and psychology.

Ideologically identifying with anarcho-syndicalism and libertarian socialism, Chomsky is known for his critiques of U.S. foreign policy and contemporary capitalism, and he has been described as a prominent cultural figure. His media criticism has included Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media (1988), co-written with Edward S. Herman, an analysis articulating the propaganda model theory for examining the media.

According to the Arts and Humanities Citation Index in 1992, Chomsky was cited as a source more often than any other living scholar from 1980 to 1992, and was the eighth most cited source overall. Chomsky is the author of over 100 books. He is credited as the creator or co-creator of the Chomsky hierarchy, the universal grammar theory, and the Chomsky–Schützenberger theorem.

George Galloway (born 16 August 1954) is a British politician, author, journalist, and broadcaster, and the Respect Member of Parliament (MP) for Bradford West. He was previously an MP for the Labour Party, for Glasgow Hillhead and then its successor constituency Glasgow Kelvin from 1987 until 2005. He was expelled from the Labour Party in October 2003 because of his strident public opposition to the Iraq War. He subsequently became a founding member of the left-wing Respect Party, and was elected as the MP for Bethnal Green and Bow in 2005. In 2010, Galloway unsuccessfully contested the seat of Poplar and Limehouse, and in 2011 he unsuccessfully contested the Glasgow list for the Scottish Parliament, before being elected as an MP in the Bradford West by-election, 2012.

Galloway is well known for his campaigns in support of the Palestinians in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. In the late-1980s Hansard records him delivering a ferocious assault on the Ba'ath regime, and Galloway opposed Saddam's regime until the United States-led Gulf War in 1991. Galloway is known for a visit to Iraq where he met Saddam Hussein, and delivered a speech, which ended in English with the statement "Sir, I salute your courage, your strength, your indefatigability." He has always stated that he was addressing the Iraqi people in the speech. Galloway testified to the United States Senate in 2005 over alleged illicit payments from the United Nations' Oil for Food Programme.

Dalia Mogahed (born 1974) is an American Muslim scholar of Egyptian origin. She is the Executive Director of the Gallup Center for Muslim Studies, a non-partisan research center that provides data and analysis to reflect the views of Muslims all over the world. She was selected as an advisor by U.S. President Barack Obama on the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships.

Dalia was born in Cairo, Egypt and immigrated to the United States at the age of 4. She received her undergraduate degree in chemical engineering with a minor in Arabic from the University of Wisconsin and subsequently received her MBA from the Joseph M. Katz Graduate School of Business at the University of Pittsburgh. Upon graduation, Mogahed joined Procter & Gamble as a marketing products researcher.

Dalia Mogahed chairs the Gallup Center for Muslim Studies, which conducts research and statistics on Muslims throughout the world. She was selected as an advisor by U.S. President Barack Obama on the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships.