Dr. Michael Barak is a senior researcher at the Institute for Counterterrorism where he serves as the head of the Global Jihad & Palestinian terrorism desks (ICT). He is a lecturer at the Lauder School of Government Diplomacy and Strategy at Reichman University where he is teaching on Global Jihad, Palestinian terrorist organizations, and Standard and Colloquial Arabic
Dr. Barak holds both a B.A. and an M.A. degree in “Middle Eastern Studies” and “Arabic Language” from Tel Aviv University (TAU). He has finished his Ph.D. at the School of History in Middle Eastern and African Studies, TAU. His Ph.D. dissertation is concerned with “Sufism in Wahhabi and Salafi Polemic Discourse in Egypt and the Mashriq (Arab East) 1967-2001”.
He has participated in several international programs including the “Study of Turkish Language and Culture” at Boğziçi University, Istanbul (2005) and the “Study of the US National Security Policymaking” at the Institute for Training & Development (Amherst), USA (2014).
Dr. Barak has published articles in Hebrew and English on his research topics as following
- Modern Egypt
- Islamic Terrorism (al-Qaeda, ISIS, Hamas)
- Counter-terrorism.
- Political Islam
- Salafi movements in the Arab world
- Sufi movements in the Arab world
- Social media networks in the Arab World.
