Peace Picks| March 29- April 4
Notice: Due to recent public health concerns, upcoming events are only available via live-streaming.
- Live Webcast: Big Brother: Internet Age Surveillance and Censorship in the Middle East| March 30, 2020 | 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM | Middle East Institute | Register Here
Post-9/11, concerns over governmental stability, political extremism, and terrorism drove a surge in security-minded surveillance worldwide. Following the regional diffusion of social media and the Arab Spring a decade later, the pendulum in the Middle East swung back towards individual liberty and privacy. Today, the tension between these two poles is tighter than ever, as cutting-edge and intrusive surveillance programs in China and Singapore have proven effective if not essential to tracking and thwarting the spread of the novel coronavirus pandemic.
MEI is pleased to announce a panel which will seek to address several questions around censorship and surveillance in the Middle East: What purposes do they intend to serve, and are they effective? What are the excesses and human implications of these practices? Can censorship and surveillance play a responsible role in containing disinformation and thwarting disease, or are they doomed to be abused by the powers that be? And what will the future of these technologies look like in the region, as the age of interconnectedness allows governments to learn from one another, for better or worse?
Speakers:
Marc Owen Jones: Assistant professor, Hamad bin Khalifa University
Sahar Khamis: Associate professor, University of Maryland
Raed Labassi: Technologist and researcher, Amnesty International
Mohammad Soliman: Non-resident scholar, MEI
Michael Sexton (Moderator): Fellow and director of the Cybersecurity Initiative, MEI
- Live Webcast: COVID-19 and the Healthcare Systems in Israel/Palestine: The Gaza Strip| March 31, 2020 | 11:00 AM – 12:00 PM | Middle East Institute | Register Here
The Middle East Institute (MEI) and the Foundation for Middle East Peace (FMEP) are pleased to host a webinar series: COVID-19 and the Healthcare Systems in Israel/Palestine. nations around the globe, the COVID-19 crisis is both creating new challenges and exacerbating existing ones. This is especially true in Israel-Palestine, where Israelis and Palestinians live in close proximity, all under overarching Israeli authority but under regimes that afford them separate and grossly unequal access to health services.
In this context, the webinar series, moderated by MEI’s Khaled Elgindy and FMEP’s Lara Friedman, will examine how the COVID-19 crisis is impacting the very different and yet highly interconnected environments in Israel-Palestine, highlighting expert voices on the ground.
Speakers:
Tania Hary: Executive director, Gisha-Legal Center for Freedom of Movement
Dr. Ghada Al Jadba : Chief of Health Programme in the Gaza Strip, UNRWA
Omar Shaban: Founder of director, PalThink for Strategic Studies
Khaled Elgindy (Co-host): Senior fellow and Director of Program on Palestine and Palestinian-Israeli Affairs, MEI
Lara Friedman (Co-host): President, FMEP
- Live Webcast: COVID-19 and the Healthcare Systems in Israel/Palestine: The West Bank and East Jerusalem| April 1, 2020 | 11:00 AM – 12:00 PM | Middle East Institute | Register Here
The Middle East Institute (MEI) and the Foundation for Middle East Peace (FMEP) are pleased to host a webinar series: COVID-19 and the Healthcare Systems in Israel/Palestine. nations around the globe, the COVID-19 crisis is both creating new challenges and exacerbating existing ones. This is especially true in Israel-Palestine, where Israelis and Palestinians live in close proximity, all under overarching Israeli authority but under regimes that afford them separate and grossly unequal access to health services.
In this context, the webinar series, moderated by MEI’s Khaled Elgindy and FMEP’s Lara Friedman, will examine how the COVID-19 crisis is impacting the very different and yet highly interconnected environments in Israel-Palestine, highlighting expert voices on the ground.
Speakers:
Tareq Baconi: Analyst for Israel/Palestine and Economics of Conflict, International Crisis Group
Jessica Montell: Executive director, HaMoked
Khaled Elgindy (Co-host): Senior fellow and Director of Program on Palestine and Palestinian-Israeli Affairs, MEI
Lara Friedman (Co-host): President, FMEP
- Live Webcast: Crisis Upon Crisis: The Geopolitical & Economic Implications of the Pandemic| April 1, 2020 | 11:30 AM – 12:30 PM | Carnegie Middle East Center | Register Here
With over 530,000 infections and 25,000 deaths worldwide, COVID-19, the disease caused by the fast-spreading new coronavirus, has caused global havoc. Beyond the devastating human toll, this pandemic has caused global supply and demand shocks, economic turmoil, and financial market collapse, with the likely onset of a global recession. Oil prices have plummeted as pandemic-related policies, including global travel restrictions, have decreased demand. Measures to contain the pandemic have hurt key sectors such as tourism and disrupted production, manufacturing, and trade, leading to significant job losses. For the Middle East and North Africa—especially fragile and conflict-ridden countries such as Iraq, Syria, Yemen, and Libya—the virus has become a major near-term challenge. Before the virus struck, many countries in the region were already facing significant economic and political challenges, including crumbling healthcare systems. Today, there are those that are incapable of providing necessary stimulus packages to their economies.
In this broader context, what are the prospects for global economic and financial systems in the coming months? What implications will the coronavirus have on the geopolitics and economics of the Middle East and North Africa? Similarly, how are other regions reacting, for instance Latin America? What are the available policy options to address the economic and financial fallout of the pandemic?
Speakers:
Jihad Azour is the director of the Middle East and Central Asia Department at the International Monetary Fund.
Amer Bisat is the managing director at Blackrock and a former senior economist at the International Monetary Fund.
Moisés Naím is a distinguished fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, where his research focuses on international economics and global politics.
Maha Yahya is the director of the Carnegie Middle East Center.
- Live Webcast: Unemployment Insurance during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Reducing the Impact of this Economic Downturn| April 1, 2020 | 3:00 PM – 4:00 PM | Brookings Institution | Register Here
The COVID-19 pandemic, along with the critical public health measures taken to resist it, has already resulted in millions of workers being laid off and families threatened with financial ruin. Fortunately, the unemployment insurance (UI) system serves as the first line of defense for laid off workers. However, as state and federal policymakers continue to move forward with substantial changes to UI to bolster its effectiveness, important policy questions arise: What is different about this crisis that necessitates UI reform? What do time-limited reforms aim to accomplish? What can we reasonably expect the UI system to do for workers and the economy?
Speakers:
Katharine Abraham: Director, Maryland Center for Economics and Policy; Professor, Survey Methodology, Professor, Economics, The University of Maryland
Arindajit Dube: Professor, Department of Economics, University of Massachusetts Amherst
Susan N. Houseman: Vice-President and Director of Research, Upjohn Institute for Employment Research
Ryan Nunn: Policy Director, The Hamilton Project, Fellow, Economics Studies, The Brookings Institution
Jay Shambaugh (Moderator): Director, The Hamilton Project, Senior Fellow, Economic Studies, The Brookings Institution
- Live Webcast: COVID-19 and the Healthcare Systems in Israel/Palestine: Israel| April 2, 2020 | 11:00 AM – 12:00 PM | Middle East Institute | Register Here
The Middle East Institute (MEI) and the Foundation for Middle East Peace (FMEP) are pleased to host a webinar series: COVID-19 and the Healthcare Systems in Israel/Palestine. nations around the globe, the COVID-19 crisis is both creating new challenges and exacerbating existing ones. This is especially true in Israel-Palestine, where Israelis and Palestinians live in close proximity, all under overarching Israeli authority but under regimes that afford them separate and grossly unequal access to health services.
In this context, the webinar series, moderated by MEI’s Khaled Elgindy and FMEP’s Lara Friedman, will examine how the COVID-19 crisis is impacting the very different and yet highly interconnected environments in Israel-Palestine, highlighting expert voices on the ground.
Speakers:
Henriette Chacar: Editor and reporter, +972 Magazine
Ran Goldstein: Executive director, Physicians for Human Rights-Israel
Khaled Elgindy (Co-host): Senior fellow and Director of Program on Palestine and Palestinian-Israeli Affairs, MEI
Lara Friedman (Co-host): President, FMEP
- Live Webcast: Biological Warfare and Pandemics in the Middle East: Confronting a Growing Crisis| April 2, 2020 | 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM | Middle East Institute | Register Here
The global outbreak of COVID-19 has highlighted the necessity for cooperation among governments in the Middle East, creating an opportunity to overcome geopolitical rivalries in an effort to contain the virus. Unfortunately, the damage of COVID-19 in the Middle East has been quick and massive. There is evidence of some information sharing and training exchanges between Israel and the West Bank, but there is a much greater disparity in information sharing between Israel and the rest of the Arab world.
Regional cooperation efforts for containing COVID-19 can be a roadmap for an approach to counter bioterrorism and biological warfare in the region. Although experts have historically agreed that the threat of biological warfare in the region is low, advances in technology drastically reduce the cost and time of developing biological weapons. Groups such as al-Qaeda and the Islamic State have expressed an interest in acquiring biological weapons, creating a looming threat for regional security.
Speakers:
Jessica Bell: Senior program officer, Global Biological Policy and Programs, Nuclear Threat Initiative
Asha George: Executive director, Bipartisan Commission on Biodefense
Chen Kane: Director, Middle East Nonproliferation Program, James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies
Bilal Saab (Moderator): Senior Fellow and Director of the Defense and Security Program Middle East Institute
- Live Webcast: The Effects of the Coronavirus Outbreak on Marinalized Communities | April 2, 2020 | 3:00 PM – 3:45 PM | Brookings Institution | Register Here
As the coronavirus outbreak rapidly spreads, existing social and economic inequalities in society have been exposed and exacerbated. State and local governments across the country, on the advice of public health officials, have shuttered businesses of all types and implemented other social distancing recommendations. Such measures assume a certain basic level of affluence, which many in low-income and vulnerable communities do not have and as a result, millions of people have lost their jobs.
On Thursday, April 2, Governance Studies at Brookings will host a webinar discussion to address how the coronavirus pandemic is impacting low-income and vulnerable communities. Panelists will discuss what measures officials can take to protect marginalized communities as the country continues to fight the virus.
Speakers:
Rashawn Ray (Moderator): David M. Rubenstein Fellow, Governance Studies
Camille Busette: Senior Fellow, Economic Studies, Governance Studies, Metropolitan Policy Program; Director, Race, Prosperity, and Inclusion Initiative
Makada Henry-Nickie: Fellow, Governance Studies
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