The David and Lyn Silfen University Forum, established in 2009, was created to foster conversation and debate regarding important contemporary issues. Few issues are as important today—or as discussed or deeply felt—as the ongoing conflict in the Middle East between Israel and Palestine.
“In all the years we’ve been hosting this forum, this one is different,” said Interim Penn President J. Larry Jameson in his opening remarks. “The tragic events that grind on in the Middle East defy easy understanding or prescription. Some of you here, and some of you watching from afar, may feel these repercussions personally, maybe even have lost loved ones or fear for their safety.
“It is a profound and sobering reminder that this year’s [Forum] topic is in no way an abstraction. That is why Penn is the place to have it.”
The 2024 Silfen Forum, co-sponsored by Penn Global, was titled “Waging Peace: Dialogue and Diplomacy in the Middle East.” Panelists included former Israeli Ambassador to the United States Itamar Rabinovich, currently a professor at New York University and a fellow at the Brookings Institution, and former Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, currently a visiting senior scholar at Princeton. Michele Kelemen, a diplomatic correspondent for NPR and an alumna of the College of Arts and Sciences, moderated the 90-minute conversation.
Ezekiel J. Emanuel, vice provost for global initiatives, introduced the speakers, prefacing the evening as a starting point for further exchange and asking the audience to consider questions of global citizenship: “What can we do to make the situation better?” he asked.
“This forum is distinctive because it gives the microphone to two leaders of longstanding and great experience from Palestine and Israel,” Emanuel continued. “They will help us understand the issues, [to] consider what’s possible going forward. … I think it’s very important that we understand and listen to people from the places most directly impacted.”
What ensued was a wide-ranging, substantive, respectful discussion that provided historical contexts for the war in Gaza and conflict in Lebanon, the future of the Palestinian Authority as a political entity, and the desired role of the United States in helping to bring about a ceasefire.
Rabinovich described the current Israeli-Palestinian conflict as difficult, but not hopeless, citing France and Germany as national entities that endured two world wars less than a century ago and today are European allies. But he was also candid about the state of relations, saying that “we’ve entered another period where there is no peace process,” and described Oct. 7 as when the conflict “burst out in the worst of ways,” condemning the actions of Hamas. He added that the conflict must be understood with Iran as a third actor, as well—and not just a regional one, but a global one.
“This is local, regional, and global at the same time,” he said.
Fayyad emphasized that the conflict between Israel and Palestine is “not new, in the sense that it did not start on Oct. 7,” and that the region has seen continuous instability since at least 1967, when a six-day war was fought between Israel and a coalition including Egypt, Syria, and Jordan.
In a nod to Jameson and Emanuel’s expertise as medical doctors, Fayyad conveyed an imperative to push for stability before all else.
“The first order of business before we can talk about [the conflict] as an inflection point is to be serious about getting the ceasefire secured,” said Fayyad. “That’s essential.”
Fayyad also spoke of a need to “reconfigure the Palestinian Authority in a political sense,” to make its governing a “subject of consensus,” and “do what Israelis have been doing a lot of: elections.” He cautioned, however, that the question should not be only about whether it should govern Gaza, but whether it can.
“The question is, ‘Can it do it?’ And I answer my own question by saying no it cannot, for political reasons …” Fayyad said, referring to an essay he penned on the subject for Foreign Affairs.
The key to the Palestinian Authority being a viable governing party for Gaza, he said, is to express “not only willingness but readiness.”
Both statesmen agreed on a need to negotiate a two-state outcome. They also said that the U.S. has an important role it can play in ending the war—though Rabinovich emphasized that no decisions are likely to made by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu before the U.S. presidential election on Nov. 5.
Answering a question from a Penn staff member about how average Americans can support a just peace for both sides of the conflict, Rabinovich spoke of his time in the U.S. as ambassador and offered analysis on perceptions of foreign policy among Americans, referring to the conventional wisdom that Americans “vote their pocketbooks.”
“Americans are not that interested in foreign policy, but they like to know the president has the capacity to conduct foreign policy and to lead the world,” he said. “And they need to voice that. Not just in elections, but in so many ways in this country, for people to, first of all, educate themselves on these issues, and then make their views known to the government. It matters in this country.”
