Charting a Path Out of the Abyss in the Middle East

As Israelis grapple with the shock and trauma of the horrific October 7, 2023 attacks, Palestinians face deepening devastation in Gaza, and a regional war threatens to entangle the United States, basic assumptions of Middle East policy making have been upended. The Biden administration, like its predecessors, sought to shift U.S. foreign policy attention from the Middle East. It now finds itself performing a politically charged juggling act in an election year, balancing its desire to stand by Israel, to limit the human cost and humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip, and to prevent the conflict from widening further. Meanwhile, regional adversaries, backed by Iran, have exacted a high price on the United States, including the killing of three American soldiers in Jordan by Iraqi militants and the throttling of international shipping through the Red Sea by the Houthis in Yemen.

Join Natan Sachs, Director of the Brookings Institution's Center for Middle East Policy, for a discussion about the possible paths forward for U.S. policy, for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the future of Gaza, and the possibility for Israeli-Arab normalization.

Dr. Natan Sachs is the Director of the Brookings Institution's Center for Middle East Policy. His research focuses on Israel's foreign policy, its domestic politics, and on U.S. policy toward the Middle East. Sachs frequently publishes, appears on, and is quoted by such outlets as Foreign Affairs, The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, BBC, PBS and NPR. He has provided Congressional testimony and has taught at Georgetown University as an adjunct professor. Before joining Brookings, Sachs was a Hewlett Fellow at Stanford’s Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law, a Fulbright Fellow in Indonesia, and a Visiting Fellow at Tel Aviv University’s Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies. Sachs holds a B.A. from the Amirim Honors Program at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and an M.A. and Ph.D. in political science from Stanford University.