Rula Jebreal

Rula Jebreal (Arabic: رولا جبريل, Hebrew: רולא ג'בריל; born April 24, 1973) is a Palestinian foreign policy analyst, journalist, novelist and screenwriter with dual Israeli and Italian citizenship. She was a commentator for MSNBC.
Jebreal was born in Haifa, Israel, to Nigeria-born Sufi imam Othman Jebreal and Zakia, and grew up in Jerusalem. Her father was an imam and groundskeeper at the Al-Aqsa Mosque. Her mother, who suffered from severe abuse in her childhood, committed suicide by walking into the sea and drowning when Jebreal was 5. She and her sister Rania were put into the Dar El-Tifel orphanage by their father, in 1978, until 1991. She was raised in the orphanage, and regards its founder, Hind Husseini, as her teacher and mother, crediting her with saving her life.
In 1993, she received a scholarship from the Italian government to study at the University of Bologna, where she gra…