In light of Benjamin Netanyahu’s recent reelection and his pronouncement about Palestinian statehood, many in Washington are reexamining U.S. policy toward Israel and Palestine. President Obama commented, “…we’ve got to evaluate what other options are available to make sure that we don’t see a chaotic situation in the region.”
This panel discussion will try to elucidate what these options might be and assess their short term and long term implications on Washington’s evolving policy in the region. What will be the impact on the U.S.-Israeli “special relationship”? Are profound changes possible? What kinds of pressures on Israel might be effective? How has the regional context changed, and how does it influence U.S. policy objectives? What are the implications for the Palestinians and the Palestinian leadership? What is the role of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement?
Laila El-Haddad is an award-winning writer and social media activist from Gaza City. She is the author of Gaza Mom: Palestine, Politics, Parenting, and Everything In Between and co-author of the critically acclaimed The Gaza Kitchen: A Palestinian Culinary Journey. From 2003 to 2007, El-Haddad was the Gaza correspondent for the Al Jazeera English website and a regular contributor to the BBC andThe Guardian online as well as radio correspondent for Pacifica’s Free Speech Radio News. She has been published in the Baltimore Sun, Washington Post, International Herald Tribune, The New Statesman, The Daily Star, Le monde diplomatique, and has appeared on CNN, NPR, and Al Jazeera. Since November 2004, she has authored a widely recognized blog now known as Gaza Mom. A graduate of Duke and Harvard, she currently makes her home in Columbia, Maryland with her husband and their three children.
William Quandt is Professor Emeritus of Politics at the University of Virginia. Prior to this appointment, he was a Senior Fellow in the Foreign Policy Studies Program at the Brookings Institution, where he conducted research on the Middle East, American policy toward the Arab-Israeli conflict, and energy policy. Dr. Quandt served as a staff member on the National Security Council (1972-1974, 1977-1979) and was actively involved in the negotiations that led to the Camp David Accords and the Egyptian-Israeli Peace Treaty. His selective bibliography includes: Peace Process: American Diplomacy and the Arab-Israeli Conflict since 1967, (Brookings, 2005, third edition), Between Ballots and Bullets: Algeria’s Transition from Authoritarianism, (Brookings, 1998); and The United States and Egypt: An Essay on Policy for the 1990s, (Brookings, 1990) among many others.
Joshua Ruebner is the author of Shattered Hopes: Obama’s Failure to Broker Israeli-Palestinian Peace (Verso Books, 2013). He is the Policy Director of the U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, a national coalition of more than 400 organizations working to end U.S. support for Israel’s illegal 47-year military occupation of the Palestinian West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza Strip, and to change U.S. policy toward Israel and the Palestinians to support human rights, international law, and equality. Ruebner is a former Analyst in Middle East Affairs at Congressional Research Service, a federal government agency providing Members of Congress with policy analysis. He holds a graduate degree in International Affairs from Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, DC. Ruebner’s analysis and commentary on U.S. policy toward the Middle East appear frequently in media such as NBC, ABC Nightline, CSPAN, Al Jazeera, USA Today, Los Angeles Times, The Hill, Detroit Free Press, Huffington Post,Middle East Report, and more.
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