On June 22, 2020, the SETA Foundation convened a webinar examining the implications of potential/impending annexation by Israel of West Bank territory.

The webinar featured expert views from: Geoffrey Aronson, Chairman & Co-Founder, The Mortons Group; Khaled Elgindy, Director, Program on Palestine and Palestinian-Israeli Affairs, Middle East Institute; and FMEP’s Lara Friedman (bios below). The webinar was moderated by SETA’s Kadir Ustun.

Bios 

Geoffrey Aronson is chairman and co-founder of The Mortons Group. For more than four decades, Mr. Aronson has been engaged as a commentator and participant in key political, economic and security challenges across the Middle East and North Africa. In particular, his work has focused on political and strategic issues throughout the Levant and Egypt. As the Research Director of the Foundation for Middle East Peace from 1992-2014, Mr. Aronson originated and edited the Foundation’s bimonthly Report on Israeli Settlement in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

Khaled Elgindy is a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute where he also directs MEI’s Program on Palestine and Israeli-Palestinian Affairs. He is the author of the newly-released book, Blind Spot: America and the Palestinians, from Balfour to Trump, published by Brookings Institution Press in April 2019. Elgindy previously served as a fellow in the Foreign Policy program at the Brookings Institution from 2010 through 2018. Prior to arriving at Brookings, he served as an adviser to the Palestinian leadership in Ramallah on permanent status negotiations with Israel from 2004 to 2009, and was a key participant in the Annapolis negotiations of 2007-08.

Lara Friedman is the President of the Foundation for Middle East Peace (FMEP). With more than 25 years working in the Middle East foreign policy arena, Lara is a leading authority on U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East, with particular expertise on the Israeli-Arab conflict, Israeli settlements, Jerusalem, and the role of the U.S. Congress. She is published widely in the U.S. and international press and is regularly consulted by members of Congress and their staffs, by Washington-based diplomats, by policy-makers in capitals around the world, and by journalists in the U.S. and abroad.