Please note the date change: Thursday, August 1st at 12:00 PM ET
On Saturday, Hezbollah launched a rocket killing 12 Israeli Druze children playing on a football field in Majdal Shams, with more than 40 people wounded. Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant called this “a terrible tragedy” and said that Hezbollah “will pay the price.” IDF Chief of Staff Lt. General Herzl Halevi confirmed that it was a Hezbollah rocket, a Falaq rocket with a 53 kilogram warhead, and said that the IDF is increasing its readiness or “the next stage of fighting in the north”.
How inevitable is the war with Lebanon? Will it just be limited to a war with the Iranian proxy, Hezbollah, in the south, or will it involve all of Lebanon? How involved are the Lebanese Armed Forced with Hezbollah? What role does UNIFIL play in this? Will the Radwan forces ever abandon their goal of infiltrating all of Israel? Will the 80,000 Israelis who have had to abandon their homes be able to return to them in safety and security. Who has the upper hand in this war, Hezbollah or Israel?
Will the escalation widen to Syria, and possibly to Iran? And what exactly transpired during the recent Syrian elections? How secure is Bashir Assad’s rule and that of the Baath party? What is behind the reconciliation between Turkey and Syria?
Here to answer these questions and more is David Schenker.
About the Speaker: David Schenker served as Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs in the Trump administration through January of 2021. He is the Taube Senior Fellow at The Washington Institute and director of the Linda and Tony Rubin Program on Arab Politics. In that capacity, he was the principal Middle East advisor to the secretary of state and the senior official overseeing the conduct of U.S. policy and diplomacy in a region stretching from Morocco to Iran to Yemen, with responsibility for eighteen countries, the Palestinian Authority, and Western Sahara. He also supervised more than 9,000 staff and administered an annual budget in excess of $7 billion.
In policy terms, he led the bureau’s efforts to advance American interests abroad and strengthen U.S. partnerships and alliances across the region. Via diplomacy and the effective allocation of resources and assistance—as well as through imposition of sanctions—he worked to promote human rights, deter terrorism, fight corruption, and push back against regional adversaries. In addition to developing and implementing the U.S. strategy on China in the region, he worked to heal the Gulf rift between Qatar and neighboring states, resolve intractable conflicts in Libya and Yemen, consolidate the Abraham Accords, and counter malign Iranian influence in the Middle East.
Prior to joining the State Department, Schenker worked as the Aufzien Fellow and director of the Beth and David Geduld Program on Arab Politics at The Washington Institute from 2006 to 2019. During that period, he authored dozens of op-eds, journal articles, and PolicyWatches about Jordan, Lebanon, Hezbollah, and Egypt, among other topics, and contributed chapters to Institute monographs such as Beyond Islamists and Autocrats: Prospects for Political Reform Post Arab Spring (2017) and No Good Outcome: How Israel Could be Drawn into the Syrian Conflict (2013). He also published a chapter on U.S.-Lebanese relations in Lebanon: Liberation, Conflict, and Crisis (Palgrave, 2009), and authored Egypt’s Enduring Challenges (2011), an Institute monograph focusing on the post-Mubarak situation.
Previously, from 2002 to 2006, Schenker served in the Office of the Secretary of Defense as Levant country director, the Pentagon’s top policy aide on the Arab nations of the Levant. In that capacity, he advised the secretary and other senior Pentagon leadership on the military and political affairs of Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and the Palestinian territories. He was awarded the Office of the Secretary of Defense Medal for Exceptional Civilian Service in 2005.
Prior to joining the government in 2002, Schenker focused on Arab governance issues as a research fellow at The Washington Institute, and worked as a project coordinator for a Bethesda-based contractor responsible for large, centrally funded USAID programs in Egypt and Jordan. He also authored the Institute books Dancing with Saddam: The Strategic Tango of Jordanian-Iraqi Relations (copublished with Lexington Books, 2003) and Palestinian Democracy and Governance: An Appraisal of the Legislative Council (2001). His writings on Arab affairs have appeared in a number of prominent scholarly journals and newspapers, including the Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, and Jerusalem Post.
