Beginning in July 2025, Ihab Khatib will serve as Harvard Law School’s Roger D. Fisher Fellow in Negotiation and Conflict Resolution. Khatib will follow previous Fisher Fellows, Dr. Baba Jallow and Lior Frankiensztajn.
Khatib currently works in Palestine, developing programs that cultivate a network of leaders and fostering conditions to promote direct engagement across conflict lines. Khatib says he believes that enabling this engagement is critical to transforming the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Khatib has served in several positions in Palestine working for the office of the president of the Palestine Investment Fund, UNICEF and the World Bank. His work has focused on social and public development projects. In 2001, following the failure of the Camp David summit in 2000, Khatib joined a project, founded by the late Harvard Law School Professor Roger D. Fisher ’43, LL.B. ’48, which aimed to create a network of negotiators from both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict with shared negotiation methodologies and a constructive negotiating culture.
This work inspired the approach Khatib has developed subsequently in his work in the region over the last two decades. “The path to conflict transformation is through strategic direct engagement,” he said.
Khatib has maintained a close working relationship with the Harvard Negotiation Project, serving as a senior affiliate of the HNP Middle East Negotiation Initiatives, working with Harvard Business School Professor James Sebenius, Harvard Medical School Professor Dan Shapiro, founder and director of the Harvard International Negotiation Program, and colleagues from the Harvard negotiation community.
The fellowship presents an exceptional opportunity for the law school community to engage with Khatib and learn from his practical experiences in combining negotiation theory and practice within the context of a complex and quickly evolving negotiation landscape.
“Ihab embodies the hard work and deep thinking that Roger Fisher brought to the world,” said Sheila Heen, the Thaddeus R. Beal Professor of Practice at Harvard Law School and deputy director of the Harvard Negotiation Project. “Ihab is both a realist and an optimist, and brings both theoretical rigor and practical candor to the work. His vision and ability to foster strong working relationships within a diverse Palestinian community, and across diplomatic lines in the region, is something that every world leader should study and learn from him. I am thrilled he is joining us, and very excited about the opportunity for students and faculty to engage more deeply with these many complex issues alongside him.”
Khatib holds a master’s degree from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government and a master’s degree from the Sorbonne University in France.
The Fisher Fellowship program was established thanks to a gift from the family of the late Roger D. Fisher, who served for decades as the Williston Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, co-founded the Harvard Negotiation Project, and co-authored the best-selling 1981 book, “Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In.”
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