"The Middle East Today: Myths and Realities" with Nadim Shehadi

"The Middle East Today: Myths and Realities"

with Nadim Shehadi, director of the Fares Center for Eastern Mediterranean Studies at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University and Associate Fellow of Chatham House in London

in conversation with Joumane Chahine, PhD (McGill), specialist in public diplomacy with a focus on the Middle East.

Join the Canadian International Council in Montreal for an intimate evening with one of the world¹s foremost experts on the Middle East.

Today the Middle East is largely in turmoil, with ISIS occupying portions of Iraq and Syria and establishing a foothold in Libya. The Syrian war continues with 10 million displaced people, over half a million casualties and refugees fleeing to neighbouring states and Europe. The Israel Palestine conflict continues unresolved. Post Arab-Sping, democracy struggles to take root in Iraq and Tunisia, Egypt is sinking back into military dictatorship, while the competition between Iran and Saudi Arabia plays itself out on a myriad of levels.

Nadim Shehadi will address these and other topical issues, including the myths and realities of Sunni-Shia conflict, the confrontation with Radical Islam, and the (il)legitimacy of the BDS movement.

Join us for a fascinating insightful perspective.

Speaker's biography

Nadim Shehadi is director of the Fares Center for Eastern Mediterranean Studies at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University. He is also, an Associate Fellow of Chatham House in London.Until he moved to the US, Nadim was a senior member of St Antony's College Oxford where he was also director of the Centre for Lebanese Studies from 1986 to 2005. He is a member of the executive board of the Centro de Estudios de Oriente Medio of the Fundacion Promocion Social de la Cultura in Madrid. In 2010 he was a visiting fellow at the Aspen Institute in Washington DC and in the summer semester of 2012 he was a visiting scholar at Tufts University. He is also a consultant to several governments and international organizations. Nadim Shehadi trained as an economist with an interest in the history of economic thought. He has produced several publications and contributes regularly to media coverage of Middle Eastern affairs.