entertainment company: The Arab Spring and Israel?s security

Friday, June 17, 2011

The Arab Spring and Israel?s security

Syrian democracy activists? exposure of the Ba?athist regime?s orchestration of the Nakba protests on Israel?s borders highlights the question of the Arab Spring?s impact on the region?s oldest and most liberal democracy.

As the Henry Jackson Society, a London-based foreign-policy institute for democratic geopolitics, observes:

With the fighting in Libya still raging and Bashar Al-Assad?s Syrian regime?s attempts to quash the rebellion there getting bloodier by the day, the momentous upheaval in the Arab world clearly has yet to run its course. Already the Arab Spring has however exposed the fallacy of simply viewing the region through the Arab-Israeli fault line. Whilst the populations across the region are expressing a universal wish to be free from tyranny, naturally the specific circumstances in each country must be borne in mind. That said, the Arab-Israeli conflict and Israel?s strategic predicament play a key role in the region?s politics and will continue to do so in the wake of the revolutions.

Whilst the West generally has a significant stake in the outcomes of the democratic revolutions sweeping the Middle East, no state has more to gain or lose than the State of Israel. Israel?s strategic predicament ? essentially a hundred years war of attrition over its existence, often explicitly stated ? is shaped significantly by the regional dynamics of each era, be it the Cold War superpower struggle or the era of US hegemony in the region. As such, the Arab spring clearly presents a game-changing reality the significance of which cannot be overstated. But what are the effects of the upheaval on Israel? Is this a renewed opportunity for peace or will the battle lines in the Middle East conflict harden? What can we expect from Israeli policy makers in response to this fundamental reordering to the regional order? Does Israel have a constructive role to play in furthering democracy in the Middle East?

To discuss some of these questions, by kind invitation of Louise Ellman MP, The Henry Jackson Society is pleased to be able to invite you to a discussion with Professor Benny Morris. A leading scholar of the Arab-Israeli conflict and commentator on Israel?s Foreign Policy, Professor Morris is an original member of the group of Israeli academics known as the ?New Historians?, who challenged the traditional history of Israel and the Arab-Israeli Conflict. He is a bestselling author of several books and a highly sought after commentator on current and strategic affairs related to Israel. Professor Morris will be discussing the revolutions of the Arab Spring and their effects on the security of Israel and the Middle East, informed by his near-unparalleled historical insights and experience.

Professor Benny Morris, Professor of History, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel; Kennedy-Leigh Fellow, Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies, Oxford University and Bestselling Author.

6-7pm, Tuesday 21^st June 2011

Committee Room 12, House of Commons, London, SW1A 0AA

To attend please RSVP to: johannes.pelkonen@henryjacksonsociety.org

Biography: Benny Morris is a leading Israeli Historian and Professor of Middle Eastern History at Ben-Gurion University in Israel as well as the Kennedy-Leigh Fellow at the Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies, Oxford University.He has written numerous bestselling books on the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians including Righteous Victims; A History of the Zionist-Arab Conflict 1881-1999 and 1948, A History of the First Arab-Israeli War and frequently publishes commentary on historical, current and strategic affairs as related to Israel, articles which have appeared in The New York Times, The Observer, The Guardian and The Sunday Telegraph.