Program Description

The UCLA Center for Middle East Development hosted the event, "An Exhausted Region: What Happens Next for Israel and Palestine?," on June 9, 2021.

 Ehud Yaari, commentator for Israel's Channel 12 TV, and Dr. Mkhaimar Abusada of Al-Azhar University-Gaza, will assess the results of the recent 11-day warfare that has ended in ceasefire. Given the horrors of these events, our panelists will explore the next steps for Israelis and Palestinians. Both speakers will focus on whether conditions can be improved and whether Israeli-Palestinian accommodation is conceivable. Thus, the past and future will be at the forefront of this conversation.  Brief presentations will be followed by audience Q&A.

Panel

PANELIST — Ehud Yaari has been a Middle East commentator for Israel's Channel Two television since 1975. He is also a Lafer International Fellow of The Washington Institute and a former associate editor of Jerusalem Report. Among his numerous awards for journalism are the Israeli Press Editors-in-Chief prize for coverage of the peace process with Egypt, the Sokolov Prize for coverage of the Lebanon War, and the Israel Broadcasting Award for coverage of the Gulf War. Mr. Yaari's articles have appeared in respected newspapers and journals such as the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Foreign Affairs, and Atlantic Monthly. He is also the author of eight books on the Arab-Israeli conflict.

PANELIST — Dr. Mkhaimar Abusada is an associate professor and former chairman of the Department of Political Science at Al-Azhar University-Gaza, Palestine. He received his PhD from the University of Missouri-Columbia in 1996. Professor Abusada also served as chairman of the Department of Sociology and Political Science from 1999 until 2003, and as deputy dean at the Faculty of Arts and Human Sciences from 2007 until 2008. During this time, he authored one book, and many academic articles in local and internationally recognized newspapers and academic journals. He has also written for Project Syndicate, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and The Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

MODERATOR — Dr. Steven Spiegel is Director of the UCLA Center for Middle East Development. He is also a research professor of political science, focusing on international relations and American foreign policy in the Middle East. He has written over 100 books, articles, and papers. He is the author of “The Other Arab-Israeli Conflict: Making America’s Middle East Policy from Truman to Reagan,” and “World Politics in a New Era,” as well as one of the authors of "The Peace Puzzle: America’s Quest for Arab-Israeli Peace, 1989-2011."