In this two-part series, host Alan Stoga brings together three voices with deep knowledge and dramatically different perspectives: Francesca Borri, Hossein Mousavian, and Abraham Silver. Together, across two episodes, they explore not only the underpinnings of the recent war but also the fragile prospects for a more peaceful future

PART ONE

PART TWO

Roughly six weeks ago, the two Middle East powers, whom everyone feared might someday go to war, actually did. After 12 days of fighting—marked by deadly exchanges of missiles, drones, and air power—Iran and Israel agreed to a ceasefire on June 24th. But peace is an elusive concept in the Middle East, even more so these days. Will the ceasefire continue to hold? If it does, what are the likely consequences? If it doesn’t, who would break it?

More importantly, was this the first Iranian-Israeli war—or the last?

It is a hallmark of our info-bubble-infected world that we tend to listen only to people with whom we agree rather than risk debating differences. Nowhere is that more true than in the Middle East. In this two-part series, host Alan Stoga brings together three voices with deep knowledge and dramatically different perspectives: Francesca Borri, an Italian journalist who has spent much of the last decade living in Jenin and reporting from the West Bank, Israel, Syria, and other hot spots; Ambassador Hossein Mousavian, a former senior Iranian diplomat who now teaches at Princeton University; and Abraham Silver, a lecturer at the Hebrew University on the Architecture of Jerusalem.

Together, across two episodes, they explore not only the underpinnings of the recent war but also the fragile prospects for a more peaceful future. Listen to Part One and Part Two above.

Francesca Borri was born in Italy in 1980. She holds a Master’s in International Relations, a Master’s in Human Rights, and a Bachelor’s in Philosophy of Law. After a first experience in the Balkans, she worked in the Middle East as a human rights officer. She turned to journalism in February 2012 to cover the war in Syria as captured in her book Syrian Dust. She is also the author of books on Kosovo (2008), Israel and Palestine (2010), and Aleppo (2014). In 2017, she was shortlisted for the European Press Prize for her reporting from the Maldives, the non-Arab country with the highest per capita number of foreign fighters. Destination Paradise, the book based on that reportage, was published in 2018. She now writes for La Repubblica, Italy’s leading newspaper.

Hossein Mousavian is a Middle East Security and Nuclear Policy Specialist at Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. From 1997 to 2005, he was the head of the Foreign Relations Committee of Iran’s National Security Council; from 2003 to 2005, he served as spokesman for Iran in its nuclear negotiations with the European Union. He is author of “The Iranian Nuclear Crisis: A Memoir” published by Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in June 2012.

Abraham Silver, is an architect, lecturer on the Architecture of Jerusalem at the Hebrew University, and tour guide. He lives in Tel Aviv with his wife and two daughters and lived at Kibbutz-Ketura in the Negev desert for nineteen years working as a date farmer.