The Irvine Dialogue

May 7, 2006
 

Moderator & Featured Panelists

Panelists

Brigadier General Michael Herzog

Michael Herzog, a brigadier general in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), is a visiting military fellow at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy. From 2001 to July 2004, General Herzog served as military secretary to the Israeli minister of defense. In that capacity, he acted as the liaison between the defense minister and the IDF, prime minister's office, intelligence community, and Israeli defense establishment.  The general's tenure in the IDF also included serving as head of the strategic planning division (1998-2001), deputy head of the strategic planning division (1995-1998), member of the Intelligence Corps (1974-1994), and infantry soldier (1973 war). Between 1993 and 2001, General Herzog participated in most of Israel`s peace talks with the Palestinians, Jordanians, and Syrians, including the Wye Plantation Summit, Camp David Summit, and Taba negotiations.

Rabbi Bradley Hirschfield

Bradley Hirschfield is Vice President of CLAL – The National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership. As a leader for religious diversity and openness, Hirschfield has brought his message of respecting and celebrating pluralism to literally thousands of people - as an educator, mentor, and much sought after public speaker and commentator.   In recent years, Hirschfield has been in great demand as a thoughtful, yet powerful voice on issues of faith, doubt and the importance of interfaith dialogue and has been featured on “Nightline UpClose” (ABC-TV), “Frontline,” “Religion & Ethics Newsweekly” (PBS-TV), and Court TV, as well as on NPR radio and in major newspapers across the country.  He is also the co-author of Embracing Life & Facing Death. 

Dr. Sari Nusseibeh

Sari Nusseibeh, president of Al-Quds University, the Arab University of Jerusalem, and professor of philosophy. In the past few years, Al-Quds has grown to include the university’s first medical and health sciences complex, in addition to a wide range of social-oriented academic programs and centers.  In 2004, Nusseibeh became the Rita E. Hauser Fellow of Philosophy at Harvard’s Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study.  In his work at the Radcliffe Institute, Nusseibeh focused on “non-violence as a means of disarming violence” and the moral and functional limitations of the use of force/violence as a means to achieve or oppose political objectives. Nusseibeh has long been an advocate of peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians. In 2003, he co-launched The People’s Voice, a nonpartisan civil initiative to mobilize grassroots support for a two-state solution, with former Israeli security Shin Bet chief Ami Ayalon.  Nusseibeh received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in politics, philosophy, and economics from Oxford University and his doctoral degree in Islamic philosophy from Harvard University. From 1978 through 1990, he taught philosophy and cultural studies at Birzeit University in the West Bank. He has lectured widely in Europe and the United States and has received many prizes and awards for his work, including, most recently, the Premi Internacional Catalunya Award, which honors a person who has made contributions to the development of cultural, scientific, or human values around the world.

Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf

Feisal Abdul Rauf is founder and CEO of the American Society for Muslim Advancement (ASMA), Imam of Masjid Al-Farah, a mosque in New York City twelve blocks from Ground Zero, and chair of the Cordoba Initiative.  He has dedicated his life to building bridges between Muslims and the West and is a leader in the effort to build religious pluralism and integrate Islam into modern American society. By establishing ASMA in 1997, he created the first American organization committed to bringing Muslims and non-Muslims together through programs in culture, art, academia and current affairs.  Imam Feisal is the architect of the Cordoba Initiative, an inter-religious blueprint for improving relations between America and the Muslim world and pursuing Middle East peace.  Imam Feisal is a member of the World Economic Forum’s Council of 100 Leaders and the Board of Trustees of the Islamic Center of New York.  His books include What’s Right With Islam – A New Vision for Muslims and the West, named one of the best 5 books of 2004 by the Christian Science Monitor.  In 2005, the Alliance for International Conflict Prevention and Resolution presented its first annual International Peacemaker Award to Imam Feisal and Rabbi Avraham Soetendorp of the Netherlands.

Dr. Robert Satloff 

Robert Satloff is Executive Director of The Washington Institute for Near East Policy.  An expert on Arab and Islamic politics as well as U.S. Middle East policy, Dr. Satloff has written widely on the Arab-Israeli peace process and the political repercussions of Islamic politics on regional stability. He comments on Middle East issues in major newspapers such as the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times. He also appears regularly on television and radio, including the CBS Evening News, NBC Nightly News, CNN, and National Public Radio's All Things Considered.  Dr. Satloff's current research focuses on U.S. public diplomacy in the Middle East, U.S. policy toward democratization and reform in the Middle East, U.S. policy toward the Arab-Israeli conflict, Islamists, and inter-Arab politics.  He received his Ph.D. from Oxford, an M.A. from Harvard and a B.A. from Duke."

Professor Shibley Telhami

Shibley Telhami is the Anwar Sadat Professor for Peace and Development at the University of Maryland and non-resident senior fellow at the Saban Center at the Brookings Institution. He previously taught at several universities, including Cornell, Ohio State University, the University of Southern California, Princeton, Columbia, Swarthmore, and the University of California at Berkeley, where he received his doctorate in political science.  Professor Telhami has also served as Advisor to the US Mission to the UN (1990-91), as advisor to former Congressman Lee Hamilton, and as a member of the US delegation to the Trilateral US-Israeli-Palestinian Anti-Incitement Committee, which was mandated by the Wye River Agreements. He has contributed to The Washington Post, the New York Times, and the Los Angeles Times and regularly appears on national and international radio and television. He has served on the US Advisory Group on Public Diplomacy for the Arab and Muslim World, which was appointed by the Department of State at the request of Congress, and he co-drafted the report of their findings, “Changing Minds, Winning Peace.” He also co-drafted several Council on Foreign Relations reports on US public diplomacy, on the Arab-Israeli peace process, and on Persian Gulf security.  He’s the author of The Stakes: America and the Middle East, which was selected by Foreign Affairs as one of the top five books on the Middle East in 2003.

Moderator

Renée Montagne

Renée Montagne is host of National Public Radio’s Morning Edition.  She co-hosts the show, America’s most widely heard radio news program, from NPR West in Culver City, California, while Steve Inskeep co-hosts from Washington. A familiar voice on NPR, Montagne has worked for NPR's Science, National, and Foreign desks; and for two years, she co-hosted All Things Considered with Robert Siegel.  In recent years, Montagne traveled throughout Afghanistan, interviewing farmers and mullahs, women and poll workers, President Karzai and an infamous warlord during the buildup to the country's elections. She has produced two series: "Recreating Afghanistan" in 2002 and "Afghanistan Votes" in 2004.  In 1990, Montagne traveled to South Africa to cover Nelson Mandela's release from prison, and continued to report from South Africa through 1992. In 1994, she and a team of NPR reporters covered South Africa's historic presidential and parliamentary elections. That coverage won a prestigious Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Award. In addition to that award, Montagne has received honors from the National Association of Black Journalists and Ohio State University. She also has been the recipient of grants from the National Endowment for the Arts.  Montagne earned a B.A. in English from the University of California, Berkeley and graduated Phi Beta Kappa. Her career includes serving as a fellow at the University of Southern California with the National Arts Journalism Program (currently based at Columbia University) and teaching broadcast writing at New York University's Graduate Department of Journalism.