MEF Fall 2024 Speaker Series: Navigating Middle East Flashpoints
As the United States faces pivotal challenges in the Middle East, MEF's Fall 2024 Speaker Series offers you direct access to leading experts on the region's most pressing issues. With the Israel-Hamas war's one-year mark approaching and Iran's influence expanding, our speakers will provide insights on what lies ahead. Join us to gain a deeper understanding of these developments and their global implications.
"Beyond the War: Israel's Strategic Outlook and U.S. Relations"
As the one-year anniversary of the Israel-Hamas war nears, join MEF Director Gregg Roman for insights into Israel's current security challenges and U.S. policy implications for 2025. Roman, who recently engaged with Israeli leaders, will discuss threats from Iran, Hezbollah, and other regional tensions, as well as the impact of U.S. elections on U.S.-Israel relations.
"How Will the Islamic Republic of Iran's Collapse Change the Middle East?"
MEF Director of Policy Analysis Michael Rubin, explores the potential consequences of Iran's 45-year-old Islamic Revolution facing internal strife and succession issues. What might follow the potential collapse of Iran's theocracy? Will it lead to a civil war, affect Iran's terror proxies, or reshape its nuclear ambitions?
Far-left activists have proven to be some of the most effective advocates for an Islamist world view in Western democracies. They portray the West, its institutions, its leaders, and its very legacy as worthy of contempt and overthrow creating a vacuum of legitimacy into which Islamist leaders have proven increasingly adept at occupying. What can be done to counter this phenomenon? Focus on Western Islamism’s editor Dexter Van Zile will address these and other topics.
Gregg Roman is the director and chief operations officer of the Middle East Forum. Prior to joining MEF in 2015, he was the director of the Community Relations Council of the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh. In 2014, he was named one of the ten most inspiring global Jewish leaders by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. He previously served as the political advisor to the deputy foreign minister of Israel and worked for the Israeli Ministry of Defense. Mr. Roman speaks at venues around the world about the Middle East and is frequently interviewed on international television channels, including Fox News, i24NEWS, Al-Jazeera, BBC World News, and Israel’s channel 12 and 13. He is a guest opinion contributor at The Hill and has been published in Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, the Miami Herald, and the Jerusalem Post. He attended American University in Washington, D.C., and the Interdisciplinary Center (IDC) in Herzliya, Israel, where he studied national security studies and political communications.
If you are interested in scheduling a private meeting with Mr. Roman, please let us know at EA@meforum.org.
Jim Hanson is Chief Editor for the Middle East Forum. He previously served in U.S. Army Special Forces and conducted counterterrorism, counterinsurgency and foreign internal defense operations in more than two dozen countries. He is the author of several books including Winning the Second Civil War - Without Firing a Shot and Cut Down the Black Flag - A Plan to Defeat ISIS.
Michael Rubin a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, where he specializes in Middle Eastern countries, particularly Iran and Turkey. His career includes time as a Pentagon official, with field experiences in Iran, Yemen, and Iraq, as well as engagements with the Taliban prior to 9/11. Mr. Rubin has also contributed to military education, teaching U.S. Navy and Marine units about regional conflicts and terrorism. His scholarly work includes several key publications, such as Dancing with the Devil and Eternal Iran. Rubin earned his Ph.D. and M.A. in history and a B.S. in biology from Yale University.
Dexter Van Zile is managing editor of the Middle East Forum publication Focus on Western Islamism (FWI). Prior to his current position, Van Zile worked at the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis (CAMERA) for sixteen years, where he played a major role in countering misinformation broadcast into Christian churches by Palestinian Christians and refuting anti-Semitic propaganda broadcast by white nationalists and their allies in the U.S. During his tenure at FWI, Van Zile has worked to highlight the voices of Muslims who oppose Islamism.
All lunches will take place from 12:00pm to 1:30pm. Business attire is required.
Donors who contribute between $250-$999 annually are invited to attend one event per year. $125 is requested for each additional event.
Donors who contribute between $1,000-$4,999 annually are invited to attend three events per year. $125 is requested for each additional event.
Donors who contribute more than $5,000 annually are invited to attend all MEF events throughout the year, gratis
The Middle East Forum, an activist think tank, deals with the Middle East, Islamism, U.S. foreign policy, and related topics, urging bold measures to protect Americans and their allies. Pursuing its goals via intellectual, operational, and philanthropic means, the Forum recurrently has policy ideas adopted by the U.S. government.
