On the eve of the American invasion of Iraq in 2003, he left Egypt in protest of its position on the invasion. Between 2003 and 2004 he worked as a columnist at The Daily Star in Lebanon, writing on Arab culture, history, and identity. He has then worked for the United Nations at the Division for Palestinian Rights, the Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs, and in 2005 and 2006 at the UN Mission in Sudan.