Bana Abu Zuluf, originally from Beit Sahour, Palestine, is a scholar and activist whose work intersects critical legal studies, decolonial theory, and Palestinian resistance. Growing up under Israeli colonisation has profoundly shaped her academic and advocacy work, which focuses on challenging and exposing the coloniality of international law.

 

Currently a Hume PhD Scholar at Maynooth University, Ireland, Abu Zuluf's research critically examines people-to-people peacebuilding projects in settler colonial contexts. Her work argues that such initiatives often normalise structural violence while obscuring fundamental power asymmetries. She holds an MA in Inter-Asia Political Studies from SongKongHoe University, where her award-winning thesis analysed Christian Zionism in South Korean evangelical churches and its role in legitimising Israeli colonisation.

 

Previously, she was a Research Fellow at Al-Quds University's Human Rights Clinic on a project investigating the humanitarian impact of continued forcible transfer of Bedouin communities living in the Jerusalem periphery in Palestine, and how impunity for violations of international law contributes to the deterioration of humanitarian vulnerabilities of these communities. The project brought together researchers from Queen's University Belfast, Al-Quds University Human Rights Clinic and Community Action Centre, Trinity College Dublin and Liverpool John Moores University.  Bana co-edited a volume published by Hart Publishing in May 2025 titled Ending Impunities for International Law Violations: Palestinian Bedouins and the Risk of Forced Displacement.

 

She is currently the Advocacy Officer for the Good Shepherd Collective (GSC), combining academic research with grassroots advocacy. Together with colleagues at the GSC, she writes frequently on zionism, anti-zionism, meaningful solidarity and the insurgent intellectual tradition within Palestinian activism. 

 

Abu Zuluf's publications span academic and public scholarship, addressing themes from environmental justice to academic complicity in colonial violence. Her creative work includes the "Jerusalem Urban Lexicon," documenting how random words lose their innocence once situated in the violent colonial geography of Jerusalem. 

 

A frequent speaker at international conferences, Abu Zuluf brings critical and decolonial perspectives to discussions of de-zionification, spatial justice, and Palestinian liberation. Based in Ireland, she blends her Palestine activism with the class struggle against the evils of capitalism and the military-industrial complex through educational and direct community engagement.