US President Donald Trump & the Prime Minister of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud.
Join us on June 5th for a webinar discussion on the rapidly shifting US–Middle East relations.
Thursday, June 5, 202510:00 AM - 11:30 AM (Pacific Time)Webinar
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Organized by the UCLA Y&S Nazarian Center for Israel Studies and the UCLA Center for Middle East Development. Co-sponsored by the Principles for Peace Foundation – Geneva, Switzerland and the UCLA Burkle Center for International Relations.
About the Talk
Trump’s recent Middle East trip reveals rapidly changing alliances and shifts in foreign policy between the US, Israel, Syria and the Gulf States. What do these developments portend for each of the players, and the region as a whole? How could the war in Gaza be brought to a close, and what happens next to the territory? Where does Iran and a potential “new” Iranian nuclear deal fit into the picture? These and more key questions and latest developments will be discussed by a panel of experts from the US and the region.
About the Speakers
Micky Rozin-Aharonson is a director at an international foundation, and a research fellow in the Dayan Center for Middle Eastern studies at Tel Aviv University. She served as the Chief of staff and foreign policy adviser to the Minister of Transport. Previously, she was a senior research fellow at the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security (JISS), specializing in national security, international relations and diplomacy. Prior to joining JISS, she concluded nearly a decade of service at the National Security Council in the Israeli Prime Minister's Office as Senior Director of the Diplomatic Secretariat. Micky frequently appears in the media as a commentator on international relations and the Middle East.
David Makovsky is the Ziegler Distinguished Fellow at The Washington Institute and director of the Koret Project on Arab-Israel Relations. He is also an adjunct professor in Middle East studies at Johns Hopkins University's Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) and president of the board for the National Library of Israel's U.S. affiliate (NLI-USA). In 2013-2014, he worked in the Office of the U.S. Secretary of State, serving as a senior advisor to the Special Envoy for Israeli-Palestinian Negotiations.
Ambassador Hesham Youssef joined the European Institute of Peace as a senior advisor in 2024. Previously, he was a career diplomat with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Egypt and a Senior Fellow at the United States Institute of Peace (2019-2024), focusing on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and other Middle Eastern conflicts. In 2014, Mr. Youssef joined the Organization of Islamic Cooperation as an Assistant Secretary General for Humanitarian, Cultural and Social Affairs, and before that he was a senior official at the Arab League (2001-2014). He has written extensively on conflicts in the Middle East, Arab world reform and US Arab relations.
Professor Steve E. Zipperstein (moderator) is Associate Director of the UCLA Center for Middle East Development. He is also an adjunct assistant professor at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs. Zipperstein is a former US federal prosecutor and the former chief legal officer of Verizon Wireless and BlackBerry Ltd. He is the author of The Legal Case for Palestine: A Critical Assessment (Routledge 2025); Zionism, Palestinian Nationalism and the Law: 1939-1948 (Routledge 2022); Law and the Arab-Israeli Conflict: The Trials of Palestine (Routledge 2020).
DISCLAIMER: The views or opinions of our guest speakers and the content of their presentations do not necessarily reflect the views of the UCLA Younes and Soraya Nazarian Center for Israel Studies. Hosting speakers does not constitute an endorsement of the speaker's views or opinions.
Sponsor(s): Center for Middle East Development, Burkle Center for International Relations, The Principles for Peace Foundation – Geneva, Switzerland