David Holloway (speaker) is the Raymond A. Spruance Professor of International History, a professor of political science, and an FSI senior fellow. He was co-director of CISAC from 1991 to 1997, and director of FSI from 1998 to 2003. His research focuses on the international history of nuclear weapons, on science and technology in the Soviet Union, and on the relationship between international history and international relations theory. His book Stalin and the Bomb: The Soviet Union and Atomic Energy, 1939-1956 (Yale University Press, 1994) was chosen by the New York Times Book Review as one of the 11 best books of 1994, and it won the Vucinich and Shulman prizes of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies. Since joining the Stanford faculty in 1986 -- first as a professor of political science and later (in 1996) as a professor of history as well -- Holloway has served as chair and co-chair of the International Relations Program (1989-1991), and as associate dean in the School of Humanities and Sciences (1997-1998). Before coming to Stanford, he taught at the University of Lancaster (1967-1970) and the University of Edinburgh (1970-1986). Born in Dublin, Ireland, he received his undergraduate degree in modern languages and literature, and his PhD in social and political sciences, both from Cambridge University.

Michael May (discussant) is Professor Emeritus (Research) in the Stanford University School of Engineering and a senior fellow with the Institute for International Studies at Stanford University. He is the former co-director of Stanford University's Center for International Security and Cooperation, having served seven years in that capacity through January 2000. May is a director emeritus of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, where he worked from 1952 to 1988.  He served as director of the Laboratory from 1965 to 1971. May was a technical adviser to the Threshold Test Ban Treaty negotiating team; a member of the U.S. delegation to the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks; and at various times has been a member of the Defense Science Board, the General Advisory Committee to the AEC, the Secretary of Energy Advisory Board, the RAND Corporation Board of Trustees, and the Committee on International Security and Arms Control of the National Academy of Sciences. May received the Distinguished Public Service and Distinguished Civilian Service Medals from the Department of Defense, and the Ernest Orlando Lawrence Award from the Atomic Energy Commission, as well as other awards. His current research interests are in the area of nuclear and terrorism, energy, security and environment, and the relation of nuclear weapons and foreign policy.

Abstract
We will present our observations from a visit to India’s nuclear facilities and several think tanks during March 2008. We will comment on India’s nuclear research programs, nuclear energy development, and the implications for the proposed U.S.-India nuclear deal and for scientific collaboration between our countries. We visited the Indira Gandhi Center for Atomic Research (IGCAR) in Kalpakkam, the Bhabha Atomic Research Center (BARC) in Trombay, had detailed discussions with the top leadership of the India Department of Atomic Energy (DAE), and also visited several institutes in Bangalore and Chennai to discuss nuclear energy and nuclear nonproliferation.

Chaim Braun is a vice president of Altos Management Partners, Inc., and a CISAC science fellow and affiliate. He is a member of the Near-Term Deployment and the Economic Cross-Cut Working Groups of the Department of Energy (DOE) Generation IV Roadmap study. He conducted several nuclear economics-related studies for the DOE Nuclear Energy Office, the Energy Information Administration, the Electric Power Research Institute, the Nuclear Energy Institute, Non-Proliferation Trust International, and others. Braun has worked as a member of Bechtel Power Corporation's Nuclear Management Group, and led studies on power plant performance and economics used to support maintenance services. Braun has worked on a study of safeguarding the Agreed Framework in North Korea, he was the co-leader of a NATO Study of Terrorist Threats to Nuclear Power Plants, led CISAC's Summer Study on Terrorist Threats to Research Reactors, and most recently co-authored an article with former CISAC Co-Director Chris Chyba on nuclear proliferation rings.

Siegfried Hecker is a professor (research) in the Department of Management Science and Engineering, a senior fellow at FSI, and co-director of CISAC. He is also an emeritus director of Los Alamos National Laboratory. Hecker's research interests include plutonium science, nuclear weapon policy and international security, nuclear security (including nonproliferation and counter terrorism), and cooperative nuclear threat reduction. Over the past 15 years, he has fostered cooperation with the Russian nuclear laboratories to secure and safeguard the vast stockpile of ex-Soviet fissile materials. His current interests include the challenges of nuclear India, Pakistan, North Korea, and the nuclear aspirations of Iran. Hecker works closely with the Russian Academy of Sciences and is actively involved with the U.S. National Academies, serving on the National Academy of Engineering Council and its International Programs Committee, as chair of the Committee on Counterterrorism Challenges for Russia and the United States, and as a member of the National Academies Committee on International Security and Arms Control Nonproliferation Panel.

The National Plant Diagnostic Network (NPDN) was created to enhance the capabilities of existing diagnostic laboratories in the nation to detect and report introduced pathogens, pests and weeds of high consequence to plant agriculture and natural ecosystems.  An important goal of the network is to coordinate diagnostic and scientific expertise at land-grant universities, state departments of agriculture, agencies within the USDA (CSREES and APHIS), and other organizations involved in agricultural production and security.  The program, which is administered through the USDA, was established in 2002 through funding created by the Homeland Security Act in response to concerns that agricultural pests and pathogens could be used as agents of bio-terrorism.  Responsibilities of the NPDN include the compilation and establishment of diagnostic protocols for priority agents, the development of a web-based distributed plant pest diagnostic and reporting system for the nation, the provision of up-to-date information on plant pests for the nation, the development of analytical tools to exploit these data, and the recruitment and training of first detectors.  The national network is organized into 5 regions, with regional centers located at the University of California, Davis (Western Region), Kansas State University (Great Plains Region), Michigan State University (North Central Region), the University of Florida (Southern Region), and Cornell University (Northeastern Region).  A parallel network for veterinary medicine, the National Animal Health Laboratory Network, also has been established with regional centers located at the same institutions as the NPDN regional centers.  The mission and design of the NPDN, its programs, and progress towards meeting network objectives, will be presented and discussed.

Richard Bostock is a professor and former chair (1999-2005) of the Department of Plant Pathology at the University of California, Davis.  In 2002, he was appointed as the founding Director of the Western Region of the National Plant Diagnostic Network (NPDN).  The NPDN is a distributed system comprised of public institutions for the purpose of quickly detecting and identifying high consequence pests and pathogens.  The network links plant health professionals, researchers and diagnostic labs throughout the region, providing a way for them to share information about occurrences of plant diseases and pests that could have an impact on the region's most economically important crops.   This information also is reported to first responders and decision makers. Funding for the network is provided through the United States Department of Agriculture. Dr. Bostock received his Ph.D. in Plant Pathology at the University of Kentucky in 1981, and was appointed to the faculty at UC Davis that year.  His research and teaching interests are the biochemistry and molecular biology of plant-microbe interactions and general plant pathology.  He teaches several courses in the department and in the Science and Society program on various aspects of plant pathology, plant-microbe interactions, and issues related to food production. 

She also served as the Director of the Minerva Center for Human Rights (2000-2001) and the Deputy Dean of the Faculty of Law (2000-2002) and currently serves as a member of Israel's Council of Higher Education (since 2007). She was awarded several prizes, including the Rector's Prize for Excellence in Teaching (twice), the Zeltner Prize, the  Woman of the City Award (by the City of Tel-Aviv) and the Women in Law Award (by the Israeli Bar). She is the author and editor of several books and has many articles published in journals in the United States, Canada, England, and Israel.

Matthias Küntzel, born in 1955, is a political scientist in Hamburg, Germany. He has served as senior advisor for the German Green Party caucus in the the Bundestag and is currently a Research Associate at the Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem as well as a member of the Board of Directors of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East. Küntzel's essays have been published in The New Republic, Policy Review, The Weekly Standard, the Wall Street Journal and Telos. His most recent book, Jihad and Jew-Hatred: Islamism, Nazism and the Roots of 9/11, published by Telos Press,won the 2007 London Book Festival Grand Prize.

In this lecture, Dr. Kuentzel examines an understudied legacy of the Nazi past, the transfer of the ideology of European antisemitism into the Arab world and its role in the formation of contemporary terrorism.

Event Synopsis:

Dr. Kuentzel begins his talk by recounting widespread celebrations within some Palestinian communities after the March 2008 killing of 15 young Jewish students by a Palestinian. He shows a video of a sermon from a mosque in Gaza in 2005 which praises the murders. Kuentzel rejects common arguments that the celebrations represent a desire for revenge on Israel for Palestinian deaths since 1948. Instead, he asserts that the incident shows that Islamists are obsessed by genocidal anti-Semitism, which has been influenced by and can be compared to European and Nazi anti-Semitism, both of which he sees as attempts to answer the success of liberal capitalism.

His talk follows the outline of his recent book, and covers four topics:

1. The birth of Islamism

When the Muslim Brotherhood was established as a mass movement in 1928, it aimed to replace a parliamentary system with a caliphate, emphasizing a return to the roots of Islam. By 1948, the group had 1 million members in Egypt alone. A form of populist Islam, it invoked jihad as a means of establishing Sharia law, and focused its efforts almost entirely against Jews, drawing on both early Islamic thought and Nazism.

1. Jew hatred as related to the hatred of modernity

Kuentzel sees Islamist anti-Semitism as closely tied to a fear of modernity. In this sense Jews are seen as representing the most threatening aspects of modernity including gender equality, freedom of thought, and individualism.

1. Islamism and national socialism

Kuentzel draws ties between Islamism and the ideology of national socialism embodied by the Nazi party. He describes a Nazi radio station which broadcast Arabic language programming between 1945 and 1949. The programs emphasized religious identity of Muslims, utilized popular broadcasters, and were professionally produced with strong transmission signals, making them popular and widely accessible.

1. Present day Islamism and anti-Semitism

Dr. Kuentzel asserts that Nazi ideology persisted in parts of Europe after 1945, and that when the Cold War emerged as the prominent political and economic feature of the era, it obscured/overshadowed the continuation of national socialist thought.

Finally, Dr. Kuentzel offers his views of both Islamism and anti-Semitism today, and concludes that the incidents like the one described at the beginning of his talk represent a revival of Nazi ideology "in new garb." He credits Muslims such as scholar Bassam Tibi who urge tolerance and speak out against anti-Semitism.