The course will address some of the key issues of regional security in the Middle East. Thus, we will be able to better understand some of the major opportunities and challenges faced by Israel and its neighbors in their regional security environment. In the first meetings, the class will address some of the conceptual foundations of regional security and their relationships with war and peace. In the next stage we’ll study the historical foundations of the regional conflicts in the Middle East, with a focus on the Israeli-Palestinian and Arab-Israeli conflict—both on the wars and on the peace process. We’ll also pay attention to the role of the great powers in the region while posing the question: are they stabilizers or de-stabilizers? We’ll address the major factors which affect war and peace in the region and their implications for regional security: realist factors related to the regional balance of power, and also questions of state and nationalism. Finally, we’ll discuss the likelihood and the implications of possible democratization. The class will evaluate its effects on rising or declining militant challenges related to ethno-nationalism and Islamic Fundamentalism and what their implications are for Israel’s standing in the region.

This course is open to students who have had at least a year of university study. 

Discipline: POL, HIST