The Middle East in the Wake of the Arab Spring – Assessing the Shi’a-Sunni Divide

SILK ROAD FORUM with Dr. Meir Litvak and Mr. Halil M. Karaveli

The Middle East in the Wake of the Arab Spring
– Assessing the Shi’a-Sunni Divide

Monday May 6, 2013, 11:30 – 13:00

A light lunch will be served from 11:30

In the aftermath of the upheavals and revolutions that have characterized the Arab Spring, it is possible to discern new dividing lines. The Shi’a-Sunni divide has received a lot of attention and is currently seen to be playing out, more or less violently, across a number of countries – Syria, Lebanon, Iran, Egypt, Bahrain, and Turkey, to mention a few. Yet many questions remain as to how this development should be assessed – is the picture painted by the media an accurate one? Is the core of the conflict religious or political? And how will the frictions evolve as the region undergoes fundamental political change?

Dr. Meir Litvak is an Associate Professor at the Department of Middle Eastern History and Director of the Alliance Center for Iranian Studies at Tel Aviv University. Litvak received his Ph.D from Harvard University and his research has focused on modern Shi’i history, Palestinian politics and modern Islamic movements. He has also written extensively on the role of anti-Semitism in the Arab world as well as in Iran.

Mr. Halil M. Karaveli is a Senior Fellow with the Institute for Security and Development Policy’s Silk Road Studies Program and managing editor of its bi-weekly publication, The Turkey Analyst (www.turkeyanalyst.org). Karaveli’s recent research has been focused on the historical legacy of Turkish state tradition, secularism, on Turkey’s Kurdish issue and on Turkish foreign policy in the Middle East.

To attend, RSVP by May 2, 2013 to Ms. Silvia Pastorelli at spastorelli@isdp.eu