Since its independence from French colonial rule in 1943, Lebanon has been a perennial bellwether of major geopolitical trends in the modern Middle East. Strategically located, populated by a diverse patchwork of ethnic and religious groups, and often too weak to fend off external interference, Lebanon is the quintessential arena for order contestation in the region. With the weakening of Iran-backed Hezbollah inside Lebanon, the fall of the Assad regime in Syria, and an uneasy ceasefire with Israel, can Lebanon turn the corner towards improved governance, stability, and perhaps even peace? This panel will explore what current dynamics in Lebanon can teach us about the actors and forces shaping the Land of the Cedars, as well as the wider Middle East. 

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS

Hanin Ghaddar is the Friedmann Senior Fellow in The Washington Institute's Linda and Tony Rubin Program on Arab Politics. Her research focuses on Shia politics, Hezbollah, and Lebanon. The longtime managing editor of Lebanon's NOW news website, Ghaddar shed light on a broad range of cutting-edge issues, from the evolution of Hezbollah inside Lebanon's fractured political system to Iran's growing influence throughout the Middle East. Prior to joining NOW in 2007, Ghaddar wrote for the Lebanese newspapers As-Safir, An-Nahar, and Al-Hayat, and also worked as a researcher for the United Nations Development Program regional office. She is the author of the book “Hezbollahland.”

Abbas Milani is the Hamid and Christina Moghadam Director of Iranian Studies at Stanford University, one of the founding co-directors of the Iran Democracy Project and a research fellow at the Hoover Institution. His expertise includes U.S.-Iran relations as well as Iranian cultural, political, and security issues.

Amichai Magen is the Visiting Fellow in Israel Studies at Stanford University's Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. In Israel, he is a Senior Lecturer (US Associate Professor), Head of the MA Program in Diplomacy & Conflict Studies, and Director of the Program on Democratic Resilience and Development (PDRD) at the Lauder School of Government, Diplomacy and Strategy, Reichman University. His research and teaching interests address democracy, the rule of law, liberal orders, risk and political violence.

Join Hillel@Stanford and the Visiting Fellows in Israel Studies program in welcoming Professor Gil Troy to campus on Monday, March 3, at 5:30 pm.

Professor Troy has created a special program for Stanford students titled, “This is Not OK: Resisting the Academic Intifada with a Positive Liberal, American, and Zionist Vision.” After the presentation, he will engage students in an intimate conversation and Q&A session.

A light, kosher dinner will be provided. Advance RSVP via mobile device is required. Please email brandenj@stanford.edu with any questions.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Professor Gil Troy is a Senior Fellow in Zionist Thought at The Jewish People Policy Institute (JPPI)—a global Jewish think tank—and the author of, most recently, "The Essential Guide to October 7th and its Aftermath: Facts, Figures, History," as well as "To Resist the Academic Intifada: Letters to My Students on Defending the Zionist Dream.” He is also a Distinguished Scholar in North American History at McGill University living in Jerusalem, an award-winning American presidential historian, and a leading Zionist thinker.

The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) economies are not catching up with the rest of the world. The region’s average per capita income has increased by just 62 percent over the last 50 years. In comparison, over the same period, the increase was fourfold in emerging market and developing economies (EMDEs) and twofold in advanced ones. Only a few developing MENA economies have avoided diverging further from the richest countries’ living standards (what economists call the frontier), and those where conflicts erupted have accelerated in the wrong direction. In this presentation, Roberta Gatti will discuss the factors that shape MENA’s long-term growth potential, with special attention to the role of the state in the economy, the persistent effects of conflict, and the boost that closing the gender gap in the labor force can deliver in terms of growth.

This event is co-sponsored by the Program on Arab Reform and Development and the Program on Capitalism and Democracy, as well as the Middle Eastern Studies Forum.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Roberta Gatti is the Chief Economist for the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region at the World Bank, where she oversees the analytical agenda of the region and the publication of the semi-annual MENA Economic Updates. She is the founder of the MENA Central Banks Regional Research Network. In her prior capacity as Chief Economist for the Human Development Practice Group, Roberta co-led the conceptualization and launch of the World Bank Human Capital Index and the scale up of the Service Delivery Indicators data initiative.

Roberta joined the World Bank as a Young Professional in the Macro unit of the Development Research Group, and she has since led and overseen both operational and analytical work in her roles of Manager and of Global Lead for Labor Policies.

Roberta’s research, spanning a broad set of topics such as growth, firm productivity, the economics of corruption, gender equity, and labor markets, has been published in lead field journals such as the Journal of Public Economics, the Journal of Economic Growth, and the Journal of Development Economics. She is also the lead author of a number of flagship reports, including Jobs for Shared Prosperity: Time for Action in the Middle East and North Africa; Striving for Better Jobs: The Challenge of Informality in Middle East and North Africa; The Human Capital Index 2020 Update: Human Capital in the Time of COVID-19; and Service Delivery in Education and Health across Africa.

Roberta has taught courses at the undergraduate, masters, and Ph.D. Level at Georgetown and Johns Hopkins Universities. She is a frequent lecturer on development economics, most recently at Dartmouth College, Princeton University, and Cornell University. Roberta holds a B.A. from Università Bocconi and a Ph.D. in Economics from Harvard University.

On Monday, May 12, the Visiting Fellows in Israel Studies program at the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law is pleased to welcome Israeli journalist and writer Amir Tibon to present the 2025 Daniel Pearl Memorial Lecture. Tibon will discuss his latest book, The Gates of Gaza: A Story of Betrayal, Survival, and Home in Israel's Borderlands.

The Daniel Pearl Memorial Lecture honors the life of Daniel Pearl (Class of '85), who was a journalist, musician, and family man dedicated to the ideals of peace and humanity. In 2002, Daniel was kidnapped and killed by terrorists in Pakistan while working as a foreign correspondent for the Wall Street Journal.

The 2025 Daniel Pearl Memorial Lecture is presented by the Visiting Fellows in Israel Studies program in partnership with the Daniel Pearl Foundation, the Taube Center for Jewish Studies, and Hillel at Stanford.
 

About the Book

A gripping first-person account of how one Israeli grandfather helped rescue two generations of his family on October 7, 2023—a saga that reveals the deep tensions and systemic failures behind Hamas's attacks that day.

On the morning of October 7, Amir Tibon and his wife were awakened by mortar rounds exploding near their home in Kibbutz Nahal Oz, a progressive Israeli community less than a mile from Gaza City. Soon, they were holding their two young daughters in the family’s reinforced safe room, urging them not to cry as gunfire echoed just outside the door. With his cell phone battery running low, Amir texted his father: “The girls are behaving really well, but I’m worried they’ll lose patience soon and Hamas will hear us.”

Some 45 miles north, Amir’s parents had just cut short an early morning swim along the shores of Tel Aviv. Now, they jumped in their Jeep and sped toward Nahal Oz, armed only with a pistol but intent on saving their family at all costs.

In The Gates of Gaza, Amir Tibon tells this harrowing story in full for the first time. He describes his family's ordeal—and the bravery that ultimately led to their rescue—alongside the histories of the place they call home and the systems of power that have kept them and their neighbors in Gaza in harm’s way for decades. 

Woven throughout is Tibon's own expertise as a longtime international correspondent, as well as more than thirty original interviews: with residents of his kibbutz, with the Israeli soldiers who helped to wrest it from the hands of Hamas, and with experts on Gaza, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and the failed peace process. More than one family's odyssey, The Gates of Gaza is the intimate story of a tight-knit community and the broader saga of war, occupation, and hostility between two national movements—a conflict that has not yet extinguished the enduring hope for peace.