Hanan Daoud Khalil Ashrawi (Arabic: حنان داوود خليل عشراوي ‎, born October 8, 1946) is a Palestinian legislator, activist, and scholar. She was a protégé and later colleague and close friend of Edward Said. Ashrawi was an important leader during the First Intifada, served as the official spokesperson for the Palestinian Delegation to the Middle East peace process, and has been elected numerous times to the Palestinian Legislative Council. Ashrawi is a member of Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad's Third Way party. She is the first woman elected to the Palestinian National Council.

Ashrawi serves on the Advisory Board of several international and local organizations including the World Bank Middle East and North Africa (MENA), United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD) and the International Human Rights Council.

She received her bachelor's and master's degrees in literature in the Department of English at the American University of Beirut. Ashrawi also has a Ph.D. in Medieval and Comparative Literature from the University of Virginia.

Dore Gold (Hebrew: דורי גולד‎, born 1953) is an Israeli statesman who has served in various diplomatic positions under several Israeli governments. He is the current President of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. He also served as an advisor to former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during his first term in office.

Dore Gold was born in 1953 in Hartford, Connecticut, in the United States, and was raised in a Conservative Jewish home. His primary education was spent at the Orthodox Yeshiva of Hartford In the 1970s, Gold attended Northfield Mount Hermon School (Class of 1971) and then enrolled in Columbia University. There Gold earned BA and MA in Political Science, and then a PhD in Political Science and Middle Eastern Studies.

He studied literary Arabic and specialized in International Law, and his doctoral dissertation was about Saudi Arabia. This research later formed the foundation for his 2003 New York Times bestseller, Hatred's Kingdom: How Saudi Arabia Supports the New Global Terrorism. In the book, Gold argues that Saudi Arabia actively funds terrorism by supporting the enemies of the U.S. and attacking its allies. Today, Gold lives in Jerusalem with his wife, Ofra, and his two children, Yael and Ariel.

Zalman Shoval (Hebrew: זלמן שובל‎, born 28 April 1930) is an Israeli politician and diplomat. He was the Israeli ambassador to the United States in the years 1990-1993 and 1998–2000, and an active member of the Knesset in the Rafi party of Ben Gurion, the Statal List, and the Likud party.

Shoval was born in the Free City of Danzig (now Gdańsk, Poland), then home to a large Jewish community, as the son of a Jewish family originating in Eastern Europe. His father was born in Latvia. They immmigrated to Mandate Palestine in 1938. Shoval attended the "Geula" high school in Tel Aviv before studying for a BA at UC Berkeley, an MA at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva and then a PhD (by correspondence) in international studies.

Between 1955 and 1957 he worked in the Ministry Foreign Affairs, after which he became involved in finance, twice serving as chairman of the Bankers Association Council.

Shoval joined David Ben-Gurion when he left to found Rafi in 1965, and then again when Ben-Gurion founded the National List in 1969. In the elections that year he narrowly missed out on being elected to the Knesset - Shoval was placed fifth on the party's list, but it won only four seats. However, when Ben-Gurion resigned from the Knesset in May 1970, Shoval took his place.