Abstract:  

Arabs and Israelis: Conflict and Peacemaking in the Middle East is a new, ground-breaking textbook on the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict. It is the first on this hyper-sensitive subject to have been team-written by a Palestinian, an Israeli, and an Egyptian representing a broader Arab perspective: The book presents competing narratives that the different parties have developed and adopted with respect to the conflict's various milestones and provides a toolbox for analyzing past, current and future developments in the conflict and in the efforts to resolve it.

At the CDDRL seminar, two of the book's three authors, Shai Feldman and Khalil Shikaki will address the challenges associated with teaching the Arab-Israeli conflict and the manner in which they suggest overcoming these challenges. In addition, they will share what insights they gain from the historical record of the efforts to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict when assessing the likely prospects of the most recent attempt to end the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, launched and orchestrated by Secretary of State John Kerry. 

Speaker bios:

Shai Feldman is the Judith and Sidney Swartz Director of the Crown Center for Middle East Studies and Professor of Politics at Brandeis University. Prof. Feldman is also a Senior Fellow and a member of the Board of Directors of Harvard University’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs where he serves as Co-Chair of the Middle East Security Project. In 1997-2005, he was Head of the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University and in 2001-2003, he served as a member of the UN Secretary General’s Advisory Board on Disarmament Matters. Educated at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Prof. Feldman was awarded his Ph.D. by the University of California at Berkeley in 1980.

Prof. Feldman is the author of numerous publications. These include five books: Israeli Nuclear Deterrence: A Strategy for the 1980s (New York: Columbia University Press, 1982); The Future of U.S.-Israel Strategic Cooperation (Washington D.C.: The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, 1996); Nuclear Weapons and Arms Control in the Middle East (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1997); Bridging the Gap: A Future Security Architecture for the Middle East (Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield, 1997 – with Abdullah Toukan (Jordan); and, Track-II Diplomacy: Lessons from the Middle East (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2003 – with Hussein Agha, Ahmad Khalidi, and Zeev Schiff).

 

Khalil Shikaki is a professor of political science and director of the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research in Ramallah. Since 2005 he has been a senior fellow at the Crown Center for Middle East Studies at Brandeis University. He earned his PhD in Political Science from Columbia University in 1985, and taught at several Palestinian and American universities. Between 1996-99, Prof. Shikaki served as the dean of scientific research at al Najah University in Nablus. Since 1993 he has conducted more than 200 polls among Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and, since 2000, dozens of joint polls among Palestinians and Israelis.

He is the co-author of the annual report of the Arab Democracy Index. His recent publications include “The future of Israel-Palestine: a one-state reality in the making,” NOREF Report, May 2012; "Coping with the Arab Spring; Palestinian Domestic and Regional Ramifications," Middle East Brief, no. 58, Crown Center for Middle East Studies, Brandeis University, December 2011; Public Opinion in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: The Public Imperative During the Second Intifada, with Yaacov Shamir, Indiana University Press, 2010.

The Mediterranean Studies Forum presents a panel discussion about the popular protests and recent developments in the Middle East.

Co-sponsored by the Sohaib and Sara Abbasi Program in Islamic Studies, the CDDRL Program on Arab Reform and Democracy, and the Stanford Humanities Center Workshop on Ethnic Minorities, Religious Communities and Rights and Democracy in the Modern Middle East and Central Asia.

 

Amr Adly (Stanford University), “Egypt after June 30^th: Between Abortive and Potential Fascism”

Adly is postdoctoral fellow in Stanford CDDRL’s Arab Reform and Democracy Program. He received his Ph.D. in political and social Sciences from the European University. His research focuses on state reform and development in the context of the Middle East. He is currently working on a project about entrepreneurial reforms in Egypt and Tunisia after the Arab Spring.

 

Ayça Alemdaroğlu (Stanford University), “Youth and Politics in Turkey”

Alemdaroglu is a lecturer in Stanford's Introductory Studies Program. She received her Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Cambridge. Her research and teaching interests include social inequality and change, youth experiences, gender and sexuality, experiences of modernity, commercialization of education, nationalism and eugenics. In Winter 2014, she will teach ANTHRO 149A/URBANST144 Tahrir to Taksim: Cities and Citizens in the Middle East.

 

Alexander Key (Stanford University), “Should It Matter What We Call It? Islamic, Democratic, and Spring Politics”

Key is assistant professor of Arabic and comparative literature at Stanford. He received his Ph.D. in Arabic and Islamic Studies from Harvard University. His research focuses on literary and intellectual history of the Arabic and Persian-speaking worlds from the seventh century, together with Western political thought and philosophy. He is currently working on two book projects about the Arabic philosophy of language during the 11th century. Key is founding editor of New Middle Eastern Studies, where he has edited articles on women Iran's nuclear program, Salafi conceptions of citizenship, and art in the Arab Spring. 

 

Kabir Tambar  (Stanford University), “Popular Protest and the Politics of the Present in Turkey”Panelists will discuss the contemporary political situation in the Middle East with special respect to Egypt and Turkey.

Tambar is assistant professor of anthropology at Stanford. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago. As an anthropologist of the Middle East and Muslim world, he has published widely on secular political identities, contemporary appropriations of and challenges to Turkish nationalism, and the politics of devotional affect in Alevi Muslim contexts. His book, The Reckoning of Pluralism: Political Voice and the Demands of History in Turkey, is coming out from Stanford University Press in 2013.

Abstract:

The seminar session will present findings from a new study on the entrepreneurship ecosystem in post-revolutionary Egypt and Tunisia. The discussion will focus on the challenges facing entrepreneurs and would-be entrepreneurs in these countries and the MENA region, and will highlight the importance of reform of the legal and regulatory environment.

Speakers bio:

Lina Khatib is the co-founding Head of the Program on Arab Reform and Democracy at the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law at Stanford University. She joined Stanford University in 2010 from the University of London where she was an Associate Professor. Her research is firmly interdisciplinary and focuses on the intersections of politics, media, and social factors in relation to the politics of the Middle East. She is also a consultant on Middle East politics and media and has published widely on topics such as new media and Islamism, US public diplomacy towards the Middle East, and political media and conflict in the Arab world, as well as on the political dynamics in Lebanon and Iran. She has an active interest in the link between track two dialogue and democratization policy. She is also a Research Associate at SOAS, University of London, and, from 2010-2012, was a Research Fellow at the USC Center on Public Diplomacy at the Annenberg School.

Amr Adly has a Ph.D. from the European University Institute-Florence, Department of political and social sciences (Date of completion: September 2010). His thesis topic was "The political economy of trade and industrialization in the post-liberalization period: Cases of Turkey and Egypt". The thesis was published by Routledge in December 2012 under the title of State Reform and Development in the Middle East: The Cases of Turkey and Egypt.

He has several other academic publications that have appeared in the Journal of Business and Politics, Turkish Studies, and Middle Eastern Studies, in addition to articles in several other periodicals and newspapers in English and Arabic.

Before joining Stanford, he worked as a senior researcher at the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, heading the unit of social and economic rights, and at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as a diplomat.

At Stanford, he is leading a research project on reforming the regulatory environment governing entrepreneurship after the Arab Spring in Egypt and Tunisia, which will result in policy papers as well as conferences in the two countries. 

Greg Simpson is Deputy Regional Director of the Middle East and North Africa division at the Center for International Private Enterprise (CIPE), where in addition to co-managing the division with the regional director, he also directly oversees CIPE’s sizeable Egypt portfolio. A veteran of the nongovernmental sector with eighteen years of experience in strengthening democratic institutions, Simpson came to CIPE from the U.S. online political firm New Media Communications, where he focused on developing and managing the company’s international initiatives. Prior to New Media, Simpson worked at the International Republican Institute (IRI), where he held three successive country director posts in the Balkans. There he directed assistance programs in political party development, political communications, local governance, grassroots organization and mobilization, civil society development, public opinion research, and election observation. During this time, Simpson advised and trained hundreds of political activists and elected officials, and directly advised two of the region’s presidents. Before joining IRI, Simpson held positions at the American Council of Young Political Leaders (ACYPL) and the Center for Civil Society in Southeastern Europe. He holds a B.A. in International Studies from American University in Washington, DC. Simpson currently resides in Alexandria, Virginia with his wife and two children. 

One of the four core institutes of the National Endowment for Democracy and an affiliate of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Center for International Private Enterprise (CIPE) is a U.S. non-profit organization with the mission of strengthening democracy around the globe through private enterprise and market-oriented reform. CIPE has supported more than 1,300 initiatives in over 100 developing countries, involving the private sector in policy advocacy and institutional reform, improving governance, and building understanding of market-based democratic systems. CIPE provides management assistance, practical experience, and financial support to local organizations to strengthen their capacity to implement democratic and economic reforms.

Lina Khatib is the co-founding Head of the Program on Arab Reform and Democracy at the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law at Stanford University. She joined Stanford University in 2010 from the University of London where she was an Associate Professor. Her research is firmly interdisciplinary and focuses on the intersections of politics, media, and social factors in relation to the politics of the Middle East. She is also a consultant on Middle East politics and media and has published widely on topics such as new media and Islamism, US public diplomacy towards the Middle East, and political media and conflict in the Arab world, as well as on the political dynamics in Lebanon and Iran. She has an active interest in the link between track two dialogue and democratization policy. She is also a Research Associate at SOAS, University of London, and, from 2010-2012, was a Research Fellow at the USC Center on Public Diplomacy at the Annenberg School.

Amr Adly has a Ph.D. from the European University Institute-Florence, Department of political and social sciences (Date of completion: September 2010). His thesis topic was "The political economy of trade and industrialization in the post-liberalization period: Cases of Turkey and Egypt". The thesis was published by Routledge in December 2012 under the title of State Reform and Development in the Middle East: The Cases of Turkey and Egypt.

He has several other academic publications that have appeared in the Journal of Business and Politics, Turkish Studies, and Middle Eastern Studies, in addition to articles in several other periodicals and newspapers in English and Arabic.

Before joining Stanford, he worked as a senior researcher at the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, heading the unit of social and economic rights, and at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as a diplomat.

At Stanford, he is leading a research project on reforming the regulatory environment governing entrepreneurship after the Arab Spring in Egypt and Tunisia, which will result in policy papers as well as conferences in the two countries.

Adel Iskandar is a scholar of media and international communication. He is the author and coauthor of several works including Al-Jazerra: The Story of the Network that is Rattling Governments and Redefining Modern Journalism (co-authored with Mohammed el-Naway, Basic Books, 2003). Iskandar's work deals with the intersections of media (pring, electronic, and digital) culture, identity, and politics, and he has lectured extensively on these topics at universateries worldwide. His latest publications include two coedited volumes titled Edward SAid: A Legacy of Emancipation and Representation (co-edited with Hakem Rustom, University of California Press, 2010) and Mediating the Arab Uprisings (Tadween, 2013). His just published title the uthored anthology Egypt In Flux: Essay on an unfinished Revolution (OUP/AUC Press, 2013. Iskandar is a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies at Georgetown University.

Hesham Sallam is a doctoral candidate in government at Georgetown University and co-editor of Jadaliyya ezine. He is former program specialist at the U.S. Institute of Peace. His research focuses on Islamist movements and the politics of economic reform in the Arab World. Sallam’s research has previously received the support of the Social Science Research Council and the U.S. Institute of Peace. Past institutional affiliations include Middle East Institute, Asharq Al-Awsat, and the World Security Institute. He is editor of Egypt's Parliamentary Elections 2011-2012: A Critical Guide to a Changing Political Arena (Tadween Publishing, 2013).