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The War in Gaza and the International Context

Thu, April 18th, 2024
4:30 pm
- 6:00 pm

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Williams College is pleased to welcome Ilana Feldman and Dana El-Kurd–two leading experts on Gaza, Palestinian politics, and the Arab-Israeli dispute–for an in-depth discussion of the ongoing war in the Middle East. The panelists will sit down with Professor Galen Jackson to discuss Gaza, humanitarian aid, international law, how Palestinians view Hamas and the Palestinian Authority, past peace negotiations, the prospects for a two-state solution, and how events since October 7 are shaping public opinion among both Palestinians and within the broader Arab world.

Dr. Dana El Kurd is an assistant professor of Political Science at the University of Richmond and a senior nonresident fellow at the Arab Center Washington. She is the author of “Polarized and Demobilized: Legacies of Authoritarianism in Palestine” (Oxford University Press, 2020). Dr. El Kurd’s work focuses on authoritarian regimes in the Arab world, state-society relations in these countries, and the impact of international intervention. She earned a Ph.D. in Government with concentrations in Comparative Politics and International Relations from the University of Texas at Austin.

Dr. Ilana Feldman is a professor of Anthropology, History, and International Affairs at The George Washington University. A cultural and historical anthropologist who works in the Middle East, her research has focused on the Palestinian experience, both inside and outside of historic Palestine, examining practices of government, humanitarianism, policing, displacement, and citizenship. She has conducted ethnographic and archival research in Gaza, the West Bank, Jordan, Lebanon, and Egypt. Feldman’s first two books explored dynamics of governance in the unsettled space of the Gaza Strip. She has also done extensive research on the more than seventy years of Palestinian displacement, investigating the dynamics of refugees living with, and against, humanitarian assistance over this long period and across many spaces in the Middle East. This research has resulted in numerous articles and a book, Life Lived in Relief: Humanitarian Predicaments and Palestinian Refugee Politics. In addition to continuing work on humanitarianism, Professor Feldman is researching the central place of Palestine—and efforts to solve the Palestine “problem”—in shaping international institutions and discourse. Dr. Feldman earned her Ph.D. from the University of Michigan.

Galen Jackson ’09 received his Ph.D. in from the University of California, Los Angeles in 2016. Jackson teaches courses in international relations, international security, American foreign policy, nuclear weapons, cybersecurity, the international relations of the Middle East, and the Arab-Israeli conflict. He has published articles on the Arab-Israeli dispute in a number of scholarly journals, including International Security, Security Studies, the Journal of Cold War Studies, Middle East Journal, and Diplomacy & Statecraft. He is the author of A Lost Peace Great Power Politics and the Arab-Israeli Dispute, 1967–1979 (Cornell University Press, 2023) and editor of The 1973 Arab-Israeli War ( Rowman & Littlefield Publishers (2023).

Please note: Leila Farsakh had to cancel.

Roundtable Three: Stephen Walt and and Aaron David Miller on April 25. MainStage, ’62 Center @ 7:oo p.m (new time)

These events are sponsored be the Class of ’71 Public Affairs Forum, the Cohan Family Forum Fund, and the Lecture Committee.

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