Gaza, the Key to War and Peace in the Middle East

 

Part of the series “Scholars in dialogue: six conversations on the modern Middle East", co-presented by the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy,  IE University Madrid, and Sciences Po - Paris School of International Affairs.

 

 

Gaza has been since Antiquity a prosperous oasis and a commercial hub that served as a springboard for any Middle Eastern empire to conquer Egypt and for any Nile Valley-based power to attack the Levant. This imperial pendulum went back and forth for centuries until Allenby-led British army entered Gaza in 1917, on the very day that the Balfour declaration was made public in London. But the worst was to come in 1948, with Gaza turning into the enclave of a geographical “strip”, and one quarter of the Arab population of Palestine now cornered on only 1% of their historical homeland. Since then, Israel has waged no less than fifteen wars on Gaza, all won militarily, but lost politically, except the first intifada that paved the way for the first Israeli-Palestinian peace process. Any attempt to revive such a process should start from Gaza that remains the key to war and peace in the Middle East.   

 

 

 

Jean-Pierre Filiu is professor of Middle East Studies at Sciences Po, Paris. A historian and an Arabist, he has also held visiting professorships at the universities of Columbia and Georgetown. Hurst and Oxford University Press published his “Arab Revolution” in 2011, “Gaza, a History” in 2014 (MEMO Book Award) and “From Deep State to Islamic State” in 2015, after University of California Press had published in 2011 his award-winning “Apocalypse in Islam.” His “Middle East, a political history, from 395 to the present” has just been out with Polity. His books have been translated in more than fifteen languages, including Arabic and Turkish.

 

 

 

Cristina Gallach, international official and journalist, served as United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Communications and Public Information (2015-17), and as a member of the Spanish government for six years (2018-2024) in multiple roles, including State Secretary for Foreign Affairs and Iberoamérica and the Caribbean. As UN Under-Secretary-General, she directed global, regional, and local communications of the UN system on major current affairs and strategic agendas, with special emphasis on the 2030 sustainable development agenda, climate action, and peace and security issues.  As a senior EU Official and communication director for the EU High Representative for Foreign Policy (1999-2009), she participated in all EU plans, activities and joint international initiatives related to the Middle East, including the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. Prior to that, she worked for NATO as communications advisor to the Secretary General.   Her long career in journalism includes international reporting in Central and Eastern Europe, Brussels, and as a correspondent in the former Soviet Union, based in Moscow. She graduated from the Journalism and Communications faculty in the Universitat Autónoma de Barcelona, holds an MIA from Columbia University (New York), and an Honorary Doctorate degree from Universitat Autónoma de Barcelona.