Harry & Blanche Posen Memorial Lecture
Professor Gabriel Ben Dor, Director in the National Security Studies Center, University of Haifa
The global political scene has witnessed several major transformations and developments in recent months. Among these we should count the volatile and unpredictable policies of the Trump administration in Washington, the pursuit of imperial ambitions by the Putin regime in Moscow, the British exit from the European Union and the newly confident expansion of Chinese influence around the world.
Some of these have had a major impact on the Middle Eastern political game, which has witnessed at the same time the virtual partition of Syria, the loss of the territorial base held by ISIS, the continued violence of radical movements and the attempts to modernize Saudi Arabia and make it a regional power capable of checking the pursuit of regional hegemony by Iran. Finally, Israel has attempted to revise and update its fundamental security concepts, in the light of both domestic and regional changes.