The UCLA Center for Middle East Development hosted the event, "The Hamas Attack and Its Impact on the Region, Discussion 1," on October 26, 2023.

The CMED Roundtable Series will gather experts weekly to assess the Hamas attack and its impact on the region to make recommendations for the future. In Discussion 1, CMED Director Professor Steven Spiegel meets with Aaron David Miller, senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and Robin Wright, senior fellow at the US Institute of Peace and the Woodrow Wilson Center. Discussion followed by audience Q&A.

MEET OUR GUESTS

Aaron David Miller is a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, focusing on US foreign policy. He has written five books, including his most recent, “The End of Greatness: Why America Can’t Have (and Doesn’t Want) Another Great President” (Palgrave, 2014) and “The Much Too Promised Land: America’s Elusive Search for Arab-Israeli Peace” (Bantam, 2008). Between 1978 and 2003, Miller served at the State Department as a historian, analyst, negotiator, and advisor to Republican and Democratic secretaries of state, where he helped formulate US policy on the Middle East and the Arab-Israel peace process, most recently as the Senior Advisor for Arab-Israeli Negotiations. He also served as the Deputy Special Middle East Coordinator for Arab-Israeli Negotiations, senior member of the State Department’s Policy Planning Staff, in the Bureau of Intelligence and Research, and in the Office of the Historian. He has received the Department’s Distinguished, Superior, and Meritorious Honor Awards. From 2006 to 2019, Miller 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. Miller is also a global affairs analyst for CNN. His articles have appeared in The New York Times, Washington Post, Politico, Foreign Policy, USA Today, and CNN.com. He is a frequent commentator on NPR, BBC, and Sirius XM Radio. 

Robin Wright is a senior fellow at the US Institute of Peace and the Woodrow Wilson Center. She has reported from more than 140 countries for The New Yorker, The Washington Post, TIME, The New York Times Magazine, and the Los Angeles Times, among others. Wright has also been a fellow at the Brookings Institution, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Yale, Duke, Stanford, Dartmouth, and the University of California. She has received numerous awards for her work, including the UN Correspondents Association Gold Medal for international affairs and the National Magazine Award for Iran reportage, and the Overseas Press Club Award for her coverage of African wars. Wright has authored eight books.

MEET OUR HOST

Dr. Steven Spiegel is Director of the UCLA Center for Middle East Development. He is also a research professor of political science, focusing on international relations and American foreign policy in the Middle East. He has written over 100 books, articles, and papers. He is the author of “The Other Arab-Israeli Conflict: Making America’s Middle East Policy from Truman to Reagan,” and “World Politics in a New Era,” as well as one of the authors of "The Peace Puzzle: America’s Quest for Arab-Israeli Peace, 1989-2011.”

 NEXT IN THE SERIES

In Discussion 2, CMED Deputy Director Mani Jad meets with Mohammed Daraghmeh, bureau chief of Asharq News in Palestine, and Smadar Perry, Middle East senior editor at Yediot Aharonot in Israel. Discussion will be followed by audience Q&A. 

In Discussion 3, CMED Distinguished Senior Fellow Steve Zipperstein meets with Dr. Hiba Husseini, managing partner at Husseini and Husseini Law in Palestine, and General (R.) Dr. Ephraim Sneh, former Israeli Minister. Discussion will be followed by audience Q&A.