This was recorded on May 6, 2024
A discussion of the conflicts, politics and narratives of formative decades of Palestinian and Israeli history
Speakers:
Bernard Avishai, Visiting Professor of Government, Dartmouth College
Ezzedine Fishere, Senior Lecturer of Middle East Politics, Dartmouth College
Moderator:
Emily Bazelon, staff writer, New York Times Magazine; Truman Capote Fellow for Creative Writing and Law, Yale Law School
Episode 2 transcript
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Speakers
Bernard Avishai is Visiting Professor at Dartmouth during the summer and fall quarters. He is former Adjunct Professor of Business at the Hebrew University and taught also at MIT and Duke. He splits his time between Jerusalem and New Hampshire. He is a past strategy editor of Harvard Business Review and former International Director of Intellectual Capital at KPMG. For the past ten years, he has contributed regularly to The New Yorker about Israeli affairs and global business; and has written for Harper’s, The New York Times Magazine, The Nation, and many other publications.
A Guggenheim fellow, he is the author of four books, including The Tragedy of Zionism: Revolution and Democracy in the Land of Israel, The Hebrew Republic: How Secular Democracy and Global Enterprise Will Bring Israel Peace at Last, and Promiscuous: Portnoy’s Complaint and Our Doomed Pursuit of Happiness. His doctorate, in political economy, is from the University of Toronto.
Ezzedine Fishere is a Senior Lecturer at Dartmouth College, a novelist, and a diplomat. He taught at the American University in Cairo (2008-2016), worked for International Crisis Group (2007 - 2008); advised the Egyptian foreign minister (2005 – 2007); was a senior political adviser to multiple UN missions in the Middle East (2001- 2004). He also worked at the Egyptian Embassy in Tel Aviv (1999 -2001), served as rapporteur for the "Independent Commission on Reforming the Arab League" and was a speech writer for the League's Secretary-General (2011-2013). Fishere published nine novels, depicting social and political conditions in Egypt as well as the questions of identity construction and transformation.
Many of these were translated to English, French and Italian. Fishere was part of Egypt’s attempted democratic transition. He advised pro-democracy groupings and presidential candidates. He briefly served as an independent on a government committee monitoring democratic transition in the Fall of 2013, then denounced the return of authoritarianism at the hand of its military. Fishere studied political science at Cairo University (B.Sc.1987), the University of Ottawa, (M.A, 1995) and l’Université de Montréal (Ph.D., 1998). He also studied public administration at the École nationale d’administration (ENA, Paris 1992).
Moderator
Emily Bazelon is a staff writer at the New York Times Magazine, the Truman Capote Fellow for Creative Writing and Law at Yale Law School, and a co-host of Slate’s Political Gabfest, a popular weekly podcast. She is the author of two national bestsellers published by Penguin Random House: Charged, about the power of prosecutors, and Sticks and Stones, about how to prevent bullying.
Charged won a Los Angeles Times Book Prize. Emily was also a finalist for a National Magazine Award in 2023. Before joining the New York Times Magazine in 2014, Emily was a writer and editor for nine years a Slate. She is a graduate of Yale College and Yale Law School.