Rawan Osman

Rawan Osman (, born 1983) is a Syrian-born German political activist and influencer. She is a self-described Arab Zionist

Life Osman was born in Damascus into a secular family. Her father's family were Sunni Muslims from Damascus, first recorded in 1938, while her mother's family were Shiite Muslims from a village near Baalbek, in the Lebanese Beqaa valley. though she returned to Syria after graduating from a French Catholic high school. She also lived in Saudi Arabia and Qatar. There, she claimed to have met Jewish people for the first time while living in the city's Jewish quarter. In her own telling, these encounters prompted her to reckon with the antisemitism she had been taught growing up. She has also attributed this ideological shift to her wine industry training in the German countryside, and started work on her first book, provisionally titled The Israelis, Friends or Foes.

Activism While living in Europe, Osman began advocating for awareness about antisemitic attitudes and education in the Middle East and among the Middle Eastern diaspora. She has also traveled to the United States with Sharaka, participating in community events. She was criticized by Arab social media users in January 2024 after posting videos of herself speaking to an Israel Defense Forces soldier and Avichay Adraee, a spokesman for the IDF.

From September to November 2023, Osman published a blog for The Times of Israel. Apart from her own story of becoming aware of antisemitic indoctrination, she strongly condemned Hamas for the attack on 7 October 2023. Following the attacks, she founded Arabs Ask, an Instagram forum meant for Arabs to ask questions and challenge preconceived notions about Judaism and Israel.

On 4 March 2024, Osman spoke at the United Nations Human Rights Council. In her short speech, she criticized the governments of Qatar, Iran, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria for what she described as failures to support the people in Gaza and to fight against Hamas and Hezbollah.

Osman has claimed that anti-Israel propaganda originates from "a highly organised and dangerous alliance in the Middle East, led by the Islamic Republic of Iran … [that] includes Hezbollah, the Assad regime, the Houthis in Yemen, and, of course, Hamas".

Following the Syrian government offensive against the Democratic Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (DAANES) of January 2026, Osman, now a researcher with the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs, visited Erbil to discuss the situation in Syria with the political, military, and civil society representatives of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, including Mariwan Naqshbandi and Khalid Jamal Alber (the director general of Christian affairs) of the Ministry of Endowments and Religious Affairs, and members of a recent delegation from the Kurdistan Region to Israel. In her account of the visit, she emphasised "the [Iraqi] Kurdish openness toward Israel". Praising "the long-term vision of the Barzani family", she presented the Kurdistan Regional Government's "alignment with the West, integration into global markets, attraction of foreign investment, and political pragmatism over ideological rigidity" as a positive alternative to the DAANES, which she accused of "hostility toward Western systems" and "ties to Iran".

Personal life Osman lives in Germany.

She has been estranged since the October 7 attacks from most of her family and friends who are still in Syria and Lebanon. According to Osman, some cut off ties due to fear, while others due to antisemitism. Between the attacks and November 2025, she made 16 visits to Israel, and stated her intention to move there permanently.