Ricardo Cristián Marzuca Butto is a Palestinian-Chilean historian and academic at the Center of Arab Studies of the Faculty of Philosophy and Humanities at the University of Chile since March 2002. He specializes in classical Arab history, the Al-Andalus period, and the Arab migration processes to Latin America.[1] He has also worked as a political commentator.[2]
Marzuca Butto received his bachelor's from University of the Pacific in 1999 and his master's at the University of Chile in 2004. His primary work has been in the department for Palestinian culture and Center for Arab Studies.
Commenting on Palestine's change in status at the United Nations from "non-member observer entity" to "non-member observer state", he stated that the change would allow Palestine to appeal to the International Court of Justice in The Hague.[3] [4] [5] [6]
He promoted reconciliation between former Egyptian vice president Mohamed ElBaradei and the Muslim Brotherhood during the 2013 Egyptian riots. [7] He is also an active speaker against Islamophobia.[8]
In November 2023, he signed a collective declaration with over 160 other academics at the University of Chile which expresses "a profound dismay at the current genocide carried out by the state of Israel on the Gaza Strip, Palestine" and condemns the system of apartheid, open-air prison status, the indiscriminate murder of children, and Gazan survivors being left without basic necessities. [9]