Moshe Ma'oz is a professor of Islamic and Middle Eastern studies at Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He served as an adviser to Prime Ministers Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres, and is one of the world's foremost experts on Syrian history and politics.

He served as Senior Fellow at the United States Institute of Peace (2004-5), and published a number of papers informing US decision makers and diplomats on Middle East policy. He has authored sixteen books since 1968's Ottoman Reform in Syria and Palestine, 1840-61. They include Palestinian Arab Politics(1975), Palestinian Leadership on the West Bank: The Changing Role of the Mayors under Jordan and Israel (1988), From War to Peace: Arab-Israeli Relations, 1973-1993 (1994), Syria and Israel: From War to Peacemaking  (1995), The PLO and Israel: From Armed Conflict to Political Solution (1997), Jerusalem: Points of Friction--And Beyond (2000), and his most recent works, The Meeting of Civilizations: Muslim, Christian, and Jewish (Jan 30, 2009) and Muslim Attitudes to Jews and Israel: The Ambivalences of Contempt, Antagonism, Tolerance and Cooperation (Sep 24, 2009).