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Sami Awad is a Palestinian Christian and founder of the Holy Land Trust who works as a political activist supporting non-violent resistance by Palestinians against Israeli occupation of the West Bank.

Family Life and Education
Sami Awad was born in 1971 in the United States. His parents were both Palestinian-Americans who were part of the Palestinian Christian community. Awad's family came from the Greek Orthodox Church but had been greatly influenced by Mennonite missionaries in Palestine.

His father, Bishara Awad, was born in what is now West Jerusalem where he lived until 1948 Arab Israeli War when his family fled to the West Bank and became refugees. Sami's grandfather was killed in the 1948 Arab Israeli War. Bishara Awad is currently the President of the Bethlehem Bible College, an evangelical college, in Bethlehem. Awad’s mother is from the Gaza Strip.

Sami Awad was influenced by his uncle Mubarak Awad, who in 1984 established the Palestinian Centre for the Study of Nonviolence. In 1988 during the First Intifada, Mubarak Awad was arrested and deported from Israel because Israel considered his work in non-violent resistance to be a security threat. The United States government unsuccessfully urged the Israeli Government to stop his deportation.

Awad earned a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science from the University of Kansas and a Masters Degree in International Relations from the American University in Washington D.C.

Awad returned to Bethlehem and founded the Holy Land Trust and travels extensively to participate in conferences, retreats, political activism, and speaking engagements. Awad is married and has two daughters.

Holy Land Trust
Awad is the founder and Executive Director of Holy Land Trust (HLT), a Palestinian nonprofit organization. HLT was founded in 1998 in Bethlehem by Awad through the combination of the Palestinian Centre for the Study of Nonviolence and the Journey of the Magi program. The Journey of the Magi, which was completed in 2000 during the First Intifada with the participation of the HLT, was a procession on foot and camel back of foreign activists through Iran, Iraq, Syria, Jordan, and the West Bank along the same route as the Magi ending in Bethlehem.

The Holy Land Trust's sees its purpose as to work with the Palestinian community at both the grassroots and leadership levels in developing nonviolent approaches that aim to end the Israeli occupation and build a future founded on the principles of nonviolence, equality, justice, and peaceful coexistence. The HLT participates in planning non-violent demonstrations, providing education and training in non-violent tactics for community leaders and local teachers, providing tours for international visitors to educate them about Palestinian culture and history, and housing the Palestinian News Network (PNN) which is a non-partisan news source that provides news from a Palestinian prospective in Arabic and English.

Political career
In 2006, Awad ran as an independent candidate in the Palestinian Legislative Council elections.

Media Appearances
Awad regularly writes a blog for the Huffington Post an on-line internet newspaper and news blog site. He blogs about peace work in the Middle East and the possibility of resolving the Israel Palestine Conflict through non-violent resistance.

Awad has been featured in a documentary, Little Town of Bethlehem, by Ethno Graphic Media about non-violent resistance in the Israel Palestine conflict. The documentary follows Muslim, Christian, and Jewish men through their personal experiences of the Israel Palestine conflict and how they choose to see each other as humans apart from the conflict and work together in the non-violent resistance movement in the West Bank.

Awad has also appeared on the Fox News program Spirited Debate where he discussed the effects of the Arab Spring on Christianity in Egypt.

Awad has been featured in the American Christian Sojourners Magazine where he discussed Palestinian leadership and the work that HLT is doing among Palestinian schools.