Words matter. No more so than in legal settings. 
Genocide is the word most associated with Israel's more than one-month-long assault on Gaza. 
In response to the October 7 Hamas attack against Israel, in which at least 1,200, mostly civilian, Israelis were killed. 
Genocide and Holocaust scholars, including those who believe that Israel has and is committing war crimes in its assault are divided about whether Israeli actions amount to genocide. 
Even so, they warn that Israeli actions could lead to genocide, if it not already has. 
What is certain is that optics streaming out of Gaza of the destruction and the plight of innocent Palestinian civilians, including large numbers of children and babies, explain the popular use of the term genocide when discussing the Israeli assault.
To get some proper definitions and put things in perspective. I am joined today by Professor Omar Bartov, a world-renowned genocide and Holocaust scholar at Brown University in Rhode Island.

Israeli And Palestinian War Crimes - A Conversation With Omer Bartov

Might is right.
That sums up US President Donald J. Trump’s vision of a 21st-century world order.
Barely a month in office, Mr. Trump has not wasted time creating building blocks for his worldview. 
Mr. Trump’s efforts to end fighting in Ukraine, coupled with his territorial ambitions in Gaza, Greenland, Panama, and Canada, have put the ‘might is right’ principle on steroids. So has the president’s unilateral renaming of the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America.


Trump puts ‘might is right’ principle on steroids in Gaza and Ukraine

With Arab leaders gathering in Cairo later this month for an emergency summit on Gaza, the United Arab Emirates has emerged as the United States and Israel’s best Arab friend.

UAE emerges as the United States and Israel’s best Arab friend

An Israeli refusal to allow mobile homes and heavy construction equipment into Gaza bodes ill for this week’s second-phase indirect Gaza ceasefire talks with Israel and Hamas hardening their negotiating positions.

Israel and Hamas adopt hard line as they enter second-phase ceasefire talks

This event was the launch of Dr Marouf Cabi's latest book 'Iranian Kurdistan Under the Islamic Republic: Change, Revolution, and Resistance' published by I.B. Tauris. 

Cabi presents a social, political, cultural, and socioeconomic history of Iranian Kurdistan since the 1979 Revolution. In this study, Marouf Cabi shines a spotlight on the modern history of Iranian Kurdistan – an area of Greater Kurdistan understudied in comparison to its regions in Syria and Iraq. The book provides a historical narrative and analysis of Kurdistan since the Revolution. It addresses key changes and events in detail, such as the participation of the Kurds in the Revolution, the reinvigoration of the Kurdish movements and the emergence of the women's movement, the armed struggle of the 1980s, socioeconomic and political change of the 1990s, and the emergence of civil society since 2000. Cabi draws on extensive primary sources, including oral history, various newspapers, journals, and books published during the period.

Meet our speakers and chair

Marouf Cabi is a Visiting Fellow at the LSE Middle East Centre. He received his PhD in History from the University of St Andrews, UK, and is a social and cultural historian of modern Iran. He is author of 'The Formation of Modern Kurdish Society in Iran: Modernity, Modernization, and Social Change 1921-1979' (2022).

Kamran Matin is a Reader in International Relations in the School of Global Studies at the University of Sussex where he teaches international history, international theory, and Middle East politics. He is the author of 'Recasting Iranian Modernity: International Relations and Social Change' (Routledge, 2013) and co-editor of 'Historical Sociology and World History: Uneven and Combined Development over the Longue Durée' (Rowman & Littlefield International, 2016).

Robert Lowe is Deputy Director of the LSE Middle East Centre and Co-editor of the Kurdish Studies Series, published by I.B. Tauris. His main research interest is Kurdish politics, with particular focus on the Kurdish movements in Syria.

Iranian Kurdistan Under the Islamic Republic: Change, Revolution, and Resistance

Second-guessing US President Donald J. Trump is a tricky business.

Trump can only play both sides against the middle so long

US President Donald J. Trump’s shock-and-awe Gaza therapy appears to be working.
Infuriated by Mr. Trump’s assertion that the United States will take ownership of the Strip, resettle its 2.3 million inhabitants in Egypt, Jordan, and elsewhere, and turn it into a high-end beachfront real estate development has forced Arab leaders to come up with an alternative plan.
Mr. Trump has acknowledged as much. 


US President Trump’s Gaza shock therapy rocks Arab boats

The return of Donald Trump to the White House in 2025 comes on the back of extreme violence in the Middle East, led by Israel and with great financial and political investment from the United States. What impact will Trump's second term have on the Middle East region, and what can we learn from his policies in his first term as President of the United States? 

Between 2017- 2021 several major policies helped alter regional dynamics. From the Abraham Accords to the withdrawal from the 2015 Iran Nuclear Agreement; from a strengthening of ties with the Saudi monarchy to both airstrikes and calls for troop withdrawal in Syria. 

What are the current legacies of those policies, and what can the Middle East expect from Trump’s second term? Panellists discussed these questions from the perspective of the region, the United States, and global politics with a view to the impact on both citizens and states.


Meet our speakers and chair

Gilbert Achcar is Emeritus Professor of Development Studies and International Relations at SOAS, University of London. 

Tom Bateman is an international correspondent with BBC News currently covering the US State Department in Washington DC. 

Sharri Plonski is a senior lecturer in international politics at Queen Mary University of London. 

Mezna Qato is Director of the Margaret Anstee Centre for Global Studies at the University of Cambridge. 

Jasmine Gani is Assistant Professor in International Relations Theory at LSE. 


Trumps Second Term and the Middle East

Israeli security demands threaten to upset Syria’s apple cart

Russia is not the only country laughing all the way to the bank after US President Donald J. Trump’s war of words with his visiting Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelensky.
So is Israel. Mr. Trump’s willingness to accommodate Russian President Vladimir Putin serves Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s purpose as he seeks to redraw the Middle East map in his mould.


Israel joins Russia in laughing its way to the bank after Trump-Zelensky spat

There is logic to Donald J. Trump’s madness.
Irrespective of the merits of the US president’s ethics, policies, and style, Mr. Trump’s grenade-throwing shock-and-awe approach has galvanised Arab states into action over Gaza, much like it did with the Europeans regarding their defense and Ukraine policies.
“Love him or hate him, Trump has shaken things up… Before him, Gaza had no real roadmap. Now, the Arab world is singing a new tune: No Hamas, No Arms,” said journalist Amjad Taha. 


The logic in Trump’s madness

Dr. James M. Dorsey is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, co-director of the University of Würzburg’s Institute for Fan Culture, and co-host of the New Books in Middle Eastern Studies podcast. James is the author of The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer blog, a book with the same title as well as Comparative Political Transitions between Southeast Asia and the Middle East and North Africa, co-authored with Dr. Teresita Cruz-Del Rosario and  Shifting Sands, Essays on Sports and Politics in the Middle East and North Africa.

Israeli And Palestinian War Crimes - A Conversation With Omer Bartov

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