Gaza, The Key to War and Peace in the Middle East
Gaza has been since Antiquity a prosperous oasis and a commercial hub that served as a springboard for any Middle Eastern empire to conquer Egypt and for any Nile Valley-based power to attack the Levant. This imperial pendulum went back and forth for centuries until Allenby-led British army entered Gaza in 1917, on the very day that the Balfour declaration was made public in London. But the worst was to come in 1948, with Gaza turning into the enclave of a geographical “strip”, and one quarter of the Arab population of Palestine now cornered on only 1% of their historical homeland. Since then, Israel has waged no less than fifteen wars on Gaza, all won militarily, but lost politically, except the first intifada that paved the way for the first Israeli-Palestinian peace process. Any attempt to revive such a process should start from Gaza that remains the key to war and peace in the Middle East.
This lecture will be a hybrid event. The speaker will talk online in front of a live and virtual audience. If you would like to attend the event, in person, please register your attendance by emailing Claire Halliday no later than Monday 11th December at 5.00 pm (new extended deadline).
To register for the online event, please click here.
Participants are invited to submit questions in advance of the Lecture and should do so by 4.00 pm on Wednesday 13 December to Claire Halliday.
About the speaker:
Jean-Pierre Filiu is Professor of Middle East Studies at Sciences Po, Paris. A historian and an Arabist, he has also held visiting professorships at the universities of Columbia and Georgetown. Hurst and Oxford University Press published his “Arab Revolution” in 2011, “Gaza, a History” in 2014 (MEMO Book Award) and “From Deep State to Islamic State” in 2015, after the University of California Press had published in 2011 his award-winning “Apocalypse in Islam”. His “Middle East, a political history, from 395 to the present” has just been out with Polity. His books have been translated in more than fifteen languages, including Arabic and Turkish.