Between the Arab and non-Arab States: Israel's Place in the Rapidly Changing Middle East

Sponsored by the UCLA Y&S Nazarian Center for Israel Studies. Co-sponsored by the UCLA Center for Middle East Development and the Department of Near Eastern Languages & Cultures.

RSVPs are strongly encouraged to ensure there are sufficient lunchtime refreshments for guests.

ABOUT THE TALK

A major shift in Middle Eastern politics has taken place in the last generation. As the Arab states have continued in steady decline, in some cases poised on the verge of disintegration, Iran has emerged as a regional super-power. The Middle East is no longer synonymous with "the Arab World" in terms of the regional balance of power, as it was for much of the Twentieth Century, as the non-Arab states of the region, Iran, Turkey and Israel, have emerged as the region’s major players. What are the causes of Arab decline? How has the rise of Islamist politics, filling the void of failed Arab nationalism, affected the balance of power between Sunnis and Shi’is and between Iran and the Arabs? For decades Israel was deeply concerned about the power of the Arabs. It must now contend with a new kind of challenge: the fallout of Arab weakness.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Asher Susser is Professor Emeritus of Middle Eastern History at Tel Aviv University (TAU); the Stanley and Ilene Gold Senior Fellow at the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern Studies at TAU; and the Stein Family Professor of Modern Israel Studies at the University of Arizona. He was the Director of the Dayan Center for twelve years and taught for over thirty five years in TAU’s Department of Middle Eastern History. He has been a Fulbright Fellow; a visiting professor at Cornell University, the University of Chicago, Brandeis University, and the University of Arizona. His most recent book is on Israel, Jordan and Palestine; The Two-State Imperative (2012). He also wrote inter alia Jordan: Case Study of a Pivotal State (2000); A Political Biography of Jordan’s Prime Minister Wasfi al-Tall (1994, to be reissued in 2017); and The Rise of Hamas in Palestine and the Crisis of Secularism in the Arab World (2010). His online course on the Emergence of the Modern Middle East has been taken by some 80,000 students in over 160 countries.

Sponsor(s): Younes and Soraya Nazarian Center for Israel Studies, Center for Middle East Development, Near Eastern Languages and Cultures