Donna Robinson Divine

Donna Robinson Divine (born 1941) is the Morningstar Family Professor in Jewish Studies and Professor of Government at Smith College. She holds a B.A. from Brandeis University, 1963, and a Ph.D. from Columbia University, 1971, in Political Science. Divine has worked in the fields of Comparative Politics, Middle Eastern Politics, and Political Theory.

Divine is fluent in three of the major languages of the Middle East, Arabic, Hebrew, and Turkish.. She conducts research about the Middle East, studying both historical developments and contemporary trends.

She has written on Zionist immigration to Palestine during the British Mandate, analyzing how exile functioned as a contrast to the society created in Palestine during the period of British rule.

According to Efraim Karsh, Divine sees many common links between Zionist state building and the situation facing the Palestinians, comparing the roles of the Histadrut in Israel with that of Hamas and other voluntary bodies in the Palestinian "entity". She asserts that the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza "have created a more vibrant civil society than at any other time in their history".

Divine said that with their attention directed to explaining the loss of a Palestinian state in 1948, scholars have failed to appreciate Palestine's nineteenth century history as a period of significant development.

Divine is a feminist and has worked to expand women's rights and opportunities in the American academy and in the Middle East through her scholarship. Divine has also written and spoken about the Australian TV series ''A Place to Call Home''. She has co-edited a book about the series that describes the impact of the series on its fans from across the globe.)}} Provided by Wikipedia