A George D. Schwab Foreign Policy Briefing
What's Next for U.S. Policy in the Middle East?
Tuesday, January 23 from 10:00-11:15 AM (EST)
Meeting to be held virtually via Zoom
Featuring
Dr. Hussein Ibish
Senior Resident Scholar, Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington
Mr. Aaron David Miller
Senior Fellow, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Ms. Mairav Zonszein
Senior Analyst on Israel and Palestine, International Crisis Group
Moderated by
Ms. Farah Pandith
Adjunct Senior Fellow, Council on Foreign Relations
Welcoming remarks by
Ambassador (ret.) Susan M. Elliott
President & CEO, NCAFP
In the aftermath of the October 7th attack by the terrorist group Hamas that killed approximately 1,200 Israelis and initially took 245 hostages, Israel launched an unprecedented ground and air counteroffensive into the Gaza Strip. In December of 2023, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that the operation would continue for “many more months” and has stated, “Hamas must be destroyed, Gaza must demilitarize, and Palestinian society must deradicalize.” To this day, and despite Palestinian deaths surpassing 23,000 in many reports, Israel has not shown signs of relenting its operations in Hamas-controlled Gaza, and regular strikes on U.S. bases and commercial vessels by Iran-backed Houthis are sparking fears of a full regional outbreak.
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is one of the most contested and unresolved areas in U.S. foreign policy, a wedge issue that spills daily into domestic political debate. The recent visits by Secretary of State Antony Blinken underscore the importance of short-term and long-term strategic commitments; however, can the U.S. broker a path for stability that equally accounts for Palestinian and Israeli interests? Is a two-state solution a viable outcome? Moreover, how should the U.S. avoid escalating or being pulled into a wider conflict in the Middle East?
Joining us to help answer these questions and bring clarification to the issues are: Dr. Hussein Ibish, Senior Resident Scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington; Mr. Aaron David Miller, Senior Fellow at Carnegie Endowment of International Peace; Ms. Mairav Zonszein, Senior Analyst at the International Crisis Group; and moderating the discussion is Ms. Farah Pandith, Adjunct Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and former Director of Middle East initiatives at the National Security Council. Opening and closing remarks will be provided by Ambassador Susan Elliott, President and CEO of the National Committee on American Foreign Policy.
Participants in Alphabetical Order
Dr. Hussein Ibish is a Senior Resident Scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington. He is a weekly columnist for The National (UAE), a former columnist for Bloomberg, a regular contributor to The New York Times and The Daily Beast, and frequent contributor to many other U.S. and Middle Eastern publications. Dr. Ibish has made thousands of radio and television appearances and was the Washington, DC correspondent for the Daily Star (Beirut). Many of Ibish’s articles are archived on his Ibishblog.com website.
Dr. Ibish previously served as a Senior Fellow at the American Task Force on Palestine, Executive Director of the Hala Salaam Maksoud Foundation for Arab-American Leadership, and served as Communications Director for the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. His most recent book is What’s Wrong with the One-State Agenda? Why Ending the Occupation and Peace with Israel is Still the Palestinian National Goal (ATFP, 2009).
Mr. Aaron David Miller is a Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, focusing on US foreign policy. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and formerly served as a resident scholar at the Georgetown Center for Strategic and International Studies. Mr. Miller is also a global affairs analyst for CNN and frequently comments on NPR, BBC, and Sirius XM radio. His articles have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Politico, Foreign Policy, USAToday, and CNN. He has also written five books, including “The Much Too Promised Land: America’s Elusive Search for Arab-Israeli Peace”.
Between 1978 and 2003, Mr. Miller served at the State Department as a historian, analyst, negotiator, and advisor to Republican and Democratic secretaries of state, where he helped formulate the US policy on the Middle East and the Arab-Israel peace process. Between 2003 and 2006, he was the president of Seeds of Peace, a nonprofit organization dedicated to empowering young leaders from conflict regions with the leadership skills required to advance reconciliation and coexistence. From 2006 to 2019, he was a public policy scholar; vice president for new initiatives, and director of the Middle East program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.
Ms. Farah Pandith is an author, foreign policy strategist, and former diplomat. A world-leading expert and pioneer in countering violent extremism, she is the author of the book "How We Win: How Cutting-Edge Entrepreneurs, Political Visionaries, Enlightened Business Leaders, and Social Media Mavens Can Defeat the Extremist Threat. " She is a frequent media commentator and public speaker, and has written for publications including The Economist, The Washington Post and The New York Times. Ms. Pandith served as a political appointee under three presidents – most recently as the first-ever Special Representative to Muslim Communities, serving both Secretary Clinton and Secretary Kerry.
Ms. Pandith has served on the National Security Council, at the U.S. Department of State, and at the U.S. Agency for International Development in various senior roles. She was appointed to the Department of Homeland Security’s Advisory Council, chairing its countering violent extremism task force. She is currently a senior advisor with the Anti-Defamation League, adjunct senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, and adjunct professor at Georgetown University. She serves on several boards including Mercy Corps, We Are Family Foundation, and The Asian American Foundation. In fall 2020, the Muhammad Ali Center named Pandith the first-ever Muhammad Ali Global Peace Laureate for her proven track record of and commitment to promoting diversity, cohesion, and respect. Farah was born in India and raised in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
Ms. Mairav Zonszein is a Senior Analyst on Israel-Palestine at the International Crisis Group, specializing in Israeli domestic politics, relations with the Palestinians, and regional conflict settings and policies. She is also a founding editor of +972 Magazine.
Ms. Zonszein has extensively covered Israeli politics and US foreign policy for 15 years. Her works have been featured in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The New York Review of Books, Foreign Policy, and many more. Ms. Zonszein has an MA in Nationalism Studies from the Central European University in Budapest. She is based in Tel Aviv.