An expert on Arab-Israeli relations and U.S. policies – and an award-winning writer -will speak to Syracuse University students tonight about Middle East peace processes.

Robert Satloff, executive director of The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, will give a presentation entitled ‘The Arab-Israeli Peace Process,’ tonight at 7:30 in Hendricks Chapel.

Satloff is known for his expertise is in U.S. policy, public diplomacy, Arab and Islamic politics, Arab-Israeli relations and Middle Eastern democratization.

His latest book, ‘Among the Righteous: Lost Stories of the Holocaust’s Reach into Arab Lands’ is a collection of stories that reveals the much unexplored history of Arab-Jewish relations during World War II.

He also created and hosts Dakhil Washington, a news program shown weekly on the U.S. government-supported Arabic satellite channel Al-Hurrah. The show is broadcast throughout the Middle East and Europe.

The author of nine books, Satloff has been the recipient of the Daniel Pearl Award from the Anti-Defamation League and the American-Jewish Joint Distribution Committee’s Herbert Katzki Award for his historical writing.

More recently, Satloff was honored with the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Sandra Brand Memorial Book Award and the Touro Synagogue Foundation’s annual Judge George Alexander Teitz Award.

Satloff’s appearance highlights SU’s goal ‘to bring in speakers that wouldn’t expect students to agree with them necessarily, that wouldn’t tell students what or how to think, but would inspire students to have an opinion themselves,’ said Esther Gray, coordinator of The University Lectures.

‘The Arab-Israeli conflict is a very dense and deep conflict that has a lot of competing narratives that all, somewhat oddly enough can somewhat be seen as true,’ said Joshua Stacher, a postdoctoral fellow with the Moynihan Institute. ‘Everybody that experiences that conflict on the ground is someone whose experience is completely accurate.’

Stacher encourages students to be skeptical of Satloff’s message, as he does not have the only opinion.

‘As with any speaker that comes to campus, the community and the Syracuse University students that go to these lectures should remember that nobody has the final word on any topic that they present on,’ Stacher said. ‘So, I think that we should welcome Dr. Satloff, but, you know, be skeptical of the message that he’s bringing, just as we would be skeptical of anybody, and the message they bring.’

Satloff will meet with students in the Hillel Auditorium located in the Winnick Hillel Center at 102 Walnut Place to answer questions at 1:00 p.m.

‘We’re targeting people in Maxwell, in Newhouse, people who have a vested interest on campus in Middle East politics. People that are interested in him can come and interact with Mr. Satloff, as opposed to just hearing him lecture, because the interaction is really special,’ said Brian Small, program and special initiatives coordinator at Hillel.

SU students Mike Long and Tahanie Aboushi said discussing peace between the Arabs and Israelis is worthwhile.

‘The problem is that if you have a news organization paid for by the U.S., it will lack credibility with the Arab world, because since World War II, the Middle East struggled with Western and American imperialism,’ said Mike Long, a junior political science and history major. ‘Such a network could be perceived by the Middle East as a mouth-piece of the U.S. administration.’

‘This has been going on since 1948, and if we can send people to the moon, then by now there should have been a peace agreement,’ said Aboushi, who is studying for a duel degree in law and economics.

[email protected]

Published on March 17, 2008 at 12:00 pm