Beyond discussions of policy and strategy, this roundtable discussion shifts discussion of the current conflict in the Middle East to its impact on local communities there. How do the people most directly affected by the conflict understand these events? What is the cost, qualitatively as much as quantitatively,  of this conflict to people in the region? Join three regional experts in a wide-ranging conversation about war and its impact on the people of the Middle East.

Bios

Firoozeh Kashani-Sabet, is an American-Iranian historian of the Middle East. She currently serves as Walter H. Annenberg Professor of History at the University of Pennsylvania. A former Director of the Middle East Center, her research focuses on boundary disputes, borderland histories, gender, and identity politics in the Middle East.

Samer Abboud is Associate Professor of Global Interdisciplinary Studies at Villanova University and the author of Syria (Polity, 2018), a book that explores the outbreak and trajectory of the Syrian uprising. His research is broadly interested in warfare in Syria and the emergence of an illiberal post-conflict order in the country.

Shay Hazkani is Associate Professor of History and Jewish Studies at the University of Maryland, College Park. He specializes in the social and cultural history of Palestine/Israel. His first book, Dear Palestine: A Social History of the 1948 War (Stanford University Press, 2021), received the Korenblat and Azrieli-Concordia book awards and was longlisted for the Cundill History Prize. Before his academic career, he worked as a journalist in Israel, covering the occupied Palestinian territories and the Israeli military. He is currently the Penn Global Middle East Distinguished Visiting Scholar.

https://mec.sas.upenn.edu/events/2026/03/31/conflict-middle-east-human-experiences-regional-war