Omar Dajani, the Carol Olson Professorship in International Law at the University of the Pacific McGeorge School of Law, was awarded a £1 million grant from the United Kingdom Research and Innovation’s Economic and Social Research Council for a research project on “The Shared Homeland Paradigm: Reimagining Space, Rights and Partnership in Palestine-Israel.”

Dajani will be working on the project with his co-investigator, Professor Haim Yacobi from University College London. The £1 million grant is the largest grant ever awarded to a University of the Pacific faculty member from a foreign country.

“What makes this project so timely is that it offers an alternative to the overwhelming despair so many of us feel as we witness the daily horrors in Gaza and Lebanon. We are developing a vision for a different future — one not only grounded in values we can defend, but also informed by innovative research and sober policy analysis,” Dajani said. “As a collaboration between a Palestinian legal scholar and an Israeli urban planner, the project also brings together perspectives and disciplines that are not in conversation often enough. That is cause for hope too.”

Dajani is a leading expert on legal aspects of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. He traveled to the Middle East several times over the last year for research and to advance the work of A Land for All (ALFA), an Israeli-Palestinian peace movement whose board he co-chairs. ALFA advocates for a vision of “two states, one homeland” and is one of the few popular movements in Palestine-Israel whose leadership and members are drawn from across both societies. The three-year research project will be pursued in collaboration with ALFA.

The project will help develop a new conceptual basis for configuring space and rights in Palestine-Israel and build practical scenarios that chart a path from the current “one-state reality” to a two-state confederation built upon the values of equality, mutual self-determination, liberty of movement, and genuine interethnic partnership.

Dajani gave talks regarding the conflict in Israel-Palestine and his vision for peace at 19 universities during the 2023-24 academic year including Stanford University, Yale University, the University of Pennsylvania, UCLA, Dartmouth College, and Boston College. Dajani’s speaking engagements included a virtual discussion for the University of the Pacific in Oct. 2023 and an event called “Against Hate and For Speech” for the McGeorge School of Law community in April.

In the past year, he appeared in the national media 10 times – including in the New York Times, CNBC, and Foreign Affairs – and he published four op-eds about the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

“Omar is committed to the cause to which he has devoted his entire life. For his faculty colleagues and students, he is a hero, and his groundbreaking research and peace work not only illuminate the complexities of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict but also offer a hopeful vision for the future,” said Dean Michael Hunter Schwartz.

Dajani joined the McGeorge faculty in 2003, where he serves as the co-director of the law school’s Global Center for Business & Development.

Earlier in his career, Dajani served as a legal adviser to the Palestinian negotiating team in peace talks with Israel, ultimately participating in the summits at Camp David and Taba. He served in the office of the United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process (UNSCO), where he worked on peacebuilding and governmental reform initiatives. Much of his scholarly and policy work since then has focused on the Middle East.

Dajani co-edited the book, "Federalism and Decentralization in the Contemporary Middle East and North Africa," which was published by Cambridge University Press in 2023. In addition to editing the book, Dajani authored a chapter entitled, “'Stuck Together:’ Can a Two-State Confederation End the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict?”

Dajani received McGeorge’s 2024 Faculty of the Year award, an accolade bestowed by the Class of 2024. He also received the 2024 Christine Manolakas Extraordinary Contribution Award in recognition of his extraordinary contribution to the law school.