Middle East Initiative

Former U.S. Ambassador to Israel Ed Djerejian says Israeli Prime Minister Yitzak Rabin once told him, “There is no military solution to this conflict, only a political one.” Rabin was assassinated a few years later, and today bullets are flying, bombs are falling, and 1,200 Israelis are dead after the Hamas terrorist attacks of October 7 and nearly 30,000 Gazans have been killed in the Israeli response. Yet Djerejain still believes that a breakthrough is possible even in the current moment, as horrible as it is. Djerejian, a senior fellow at Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Relations, says the crisis has shaken the regional status quo to the point where—if the United States pursues diplomacy that includes principled pragmatism, coalition-building, and good old-fashioned backbone—a breakthrough may finally be possible. But in a recent paper he argues that any breakthrough will have to be built around a two-state solution, which he says is the only path to peace and stability not only in Israel and Palestine, but the wider Middle East. Djerejian’s career as a diplomat spanned eight U.S. presidential administrations beginning with John F. Kennedy’s, and he also served as U.S. Ambassador to Syria and Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs.  

“If only we had a partner for peace.”

That’s been the refrain in the Israel-Palestinian conflict for as long as I’ve followed it. But the truth is you don’t need just a partner; you need two partners able to deliver at the same time.

Please listen here for an interview with MEI Senior Fellow, Dr. Salam Fayyad, on 'The Ezra Klein Show' podcast with the New York Times.

Understanding the ongoing conflict in the middle east is complicated. Differences in ideologies have resulted in wars and impact the entire world.  Rami Khouri is a journalist who has spent 50-years working in the middle east.  Burns Hargis sat down with Khouri to get his perspective on the conflicts in that region.

Audio recording of a May 6, seminar with Soha Bayoumi, Assistant Dean of Harvard College (moderator); Sherine Hafez (University of California, Riverside); Hanan Hammad (Texas Christian University); and Valentine Moghadam(Northeastern University).

Audio recording of a May 1, seminar with Hugh Roberts, Edward Keller Professor of North African and Middle Eastern History, Tufts University.

Audio recording of an April 29, seminar with Dr. Randa S. Hamadeh, Director, Primary Healthcare and Social Health department, Ministry of Public Health, Lebanon.

Co-sponsored by the FXB Center for Health and Human Rights at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

Audio recording of an April 9, seminar with Ambassador Husam S. Zomlot, Head of the Palestinian Mission to the United Kingdom; Strategic Affairs Advisor to the President of the Palestinian National Authority and State of Palestine.

Co-sponsored by the CMES/WCFIA Middle East Seminar and the Center for Middle Eastern Studies.

Audio recording of an April 4, seminar with Dr. Akihiro Seita, Director of the Health and WHO Special Representative at UNRWA (UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine refugees in the Near East).

Co-sponsored by the Center for Global Health Delivery-Dubai at Harvard Medical School.

Audio recording of a March 12, 2019 seminar with Soli Özel, Tom and Andi Bernstein Human Rights Fellow, Schell Center, Yale Law School; Lecturer, Political Science Department and International Relations Department, Kadir Has University, Istanbul.

Co-sponsored by the Özyeğin Forum on Modern Turkey, Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies; the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs; and the Center for Middle Eastern Studies.

Audio recording of a March 1, 2019 seminar with Lama Mourad, Research Fellow, Middle East Initiative and Ph.D. Candidate, Department of Political Science, University of Toronto.