[1][2] From 2007 to 2014, Bishara was the editor and host of their flagship programme Empire, which examined global powers and their agendas in a fusion of documentary and debate with politicians, generals, philosophers, academics, novelists, movie directors, and activists from the world over.

His mother was a school teacher and his father a health inspector and trade unionist with connections to the Communist Maki party; his siblings include former Israeli politician Azmi and Rawia Bishara (a chef, cookbook writer and restaurateur).

[6] Bishara earned a PhD in political sociology and strategic studies in 2005 from the École des hautes études en sciences sociales (EHESS) in 2005.

His thesis, undertaken under the supervision of sociologist Alain Joxe, is entitled "Israeli dependency relations with the United States after 1967: transnational relationship of patronage and the globalization of the Israeli-Palestinian deadlock".

[7] During this period, Bishara was a lecturer in International Relations at the American University of Paris and worked as a senior researcher at the Interdisciplinary Research Centre for peace and Strategic Studies (French) Centre interdisciplinaire de recherche sur la paix et d'études stratégiques (CIRPES)[8][9] He also taught at Parsons School of Design in Paris prior to that.

[11] In 2017–18 he joined St Anthony's College, Oxford University, as an academic visitor, working on US Patron-Client relations in the Middle East.

He is also a pacifist[43] and has written extensively on the futility and savagery of war,[44][45] its disingenuous justifications[46][47] and inherent misogyny[48] preferring to press for diplomacy and conflict resolution.

He points out that unlike those groups, Hamas has never carried out an attack outside of historical Palestine and it legitimately won a majority in the most recent Palestinian legislative election.

"[63][6][64] Dr. Bishara has served on a number of boards, including the Jerusalem Fund, previously the Center for Policy Analysis on Palestine in Washington, D.C.,[65] and was a commissioner/advisor to the World Council of Churches.

[66][67] Currently, he serves on the Board of Trustees of The Galilee Foundation, a UK-based charity established in 2007 to promote development and equality of the Palestinian indigenous community in Israel.

"[47] "This definite and paradoxical conclusion – the most instructive, and yet ignored of all lessons of war is categorical: Not one great power possessing superior firepower has won against a weaker, less organised and less professional resistance against occupation.

Unfavorable opinion of the United States in the Arab world does not exist because people are blind to its values, but rather because they see through the Bush administration's arrogant policy towards them.