The Arab world has recently undergone a series of upheavals which may or may not amount to a giant revolution. Israel is still mired in conflict with the Palestinians and in a less obvious conflict with the Arab and Islamic world. The question is whether what is happening in the Arab world has affected, andor will in the foreseeable future, affect Israel’s strategic position.
Professor Benny Morris focussed on the possible effects of the Arab Spring on Israel’s security. He will look at Israel’s geopolitical situation since its establishment (1948) and at the change wrought in Israel’s situation by the peace treaties with Egypt (1979) and Jordan (1994). He will also look at the revival of Israel’s existential security concerns with the empowerment of Iran in the past decade or two – its nuclear programme and the emergence of proxies in Lebanon and Gaza and at what the recent upheavals in the Arab world, particularly in Egypt, bode for Israel’s situation in the coming years.
Historian Benny Morris was born in Israel in 1948 and raised in Jerusalem and New York. After army service, he did a BA (Hebrew University, Jerusalem) and Ph.D. (Cambridge) in modern European history and then worked as a journalist at The Jerusalem Post (1978-1991). Since 1997 he has taught at Ben-Gurion University, Beersheba. He has written 9-10 books, mostly on the history of the Zionist-Arab conflict, including The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, 1947-1949 (1988); Righteous Victims (1999); and 1948, the First Arab-Israeli War (2008).
