About Rachel Avraham
Rachel Avraham—author of the revolutionary book, Women and Jihad: Debating Palestinian Female Suicide Bombings in the American, Israeli and Arab Media—served as a senior media research analyst for the Center for Near East Policy Research, a correspondent for the Israel Resource News Agency, and as a news editor and political analyst at JerusalemOnline, the English language website of Channel 2 News. She also spent one year working as a content manager and writer for United with Israel, a hasbara website with over three million followers.
In addition to a vast body of published works at JerusalemOnline, Rachel’s articles have been featured in the Jewish Press, United With Israel, the Foreign Policy Association, the Washington Times, the Jerusalem Post, Israel National News (Arutz Sheva), the Clarion Project, Foreign Policy blogs, and other places across the world. She holds a masters degree in Middle Eastern Studies from Ben-Gurion University with a BA in Government and Politics and a minor in Middle Eastern Studies and Jewish Studies from the University of Maryland at College Park.
Rachel began her career exposing anti-Israel sentiment at Ben-Gurion University and rose to prominence after exposing what daily life was like for residents of Southern Israel living under rocket attack, other instances of anti-Israel bias, and various investigative journalism pieces. Her book, Women and Jihad: Debating Palestinian Female Suicide Bombings in the American, Israeli and Arab Media, explores how Israeli, American and Arabic language media covered the phenomenon of Palestinian female suicide bombing during the Second Intifada period in a way that entertained the publicity objectives of Hamas, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, and other Palestinian terror groups.
Rachel’s book was endorsed by Israeli Communications Minister Ayoob Kara, former Israel Consul General Yitzchak Ben Gad, Dr. Mordechai Kedar, Dr. Nancy Kobrin, David Bedein, Lebanese writer Fred Maroun, Iranian political dissident Shabnam Assadollahi, Iranian political theorist Reza Parchizadeh, Palestinian dissident Mudar Zahran, and other prominent individuals.
Presently, Rachel works to expose violations of human, women’s, and minority rights in the Islamic world, as well as speaks about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, international relations, women’s rights, and other issues of significance.