Today’s guest is Dov Waxman, a professor of political science and the director of the Y&S Nazarian Center for Israel Studies at UCLA. This special episode was recorded in two parts; the second part was recorded in late September, just a week and a half before Hamas’ attack on Israel, and the first part was recorded in October, two weeks after the outbreak of war and just before Israel’s ground invasion of Gaza began.

In this episode, Alon and Dov begin with an analysis of Hamas’ attack on Israel, the divide among Palestinian leadership between the Palestinian Authority and Hamas, and what steps all parties, including the international community, can take from here to ultimately usher in a sustainable peace plan. In the second part of the episode, Alon and Dov discuss Alon’s proposal for an Israeli-Palestinian-Jordanian confederation, addressing issues such as Israeli settlements in the West Bank, security arrangements, Jerusalem, the right of return, and the demographics of the region, particularly the interspersed populations of Israelis and Palestinians in the West Bank and Israel proper; and what role the international community can play in bringing about a sustainable peace for the region.

Full bioDov Waxman is the director of the UCLA Y&S Nazarian Center for Israel Studies. He is a Professor of Political Science and The Rosalinde and Arthur Gilbert Foundation Chair of Israel Studies at UCLA.

An award-winning teacher, he previously was professor of political science, international affairs, and Israel studies, and the Stotsky Professor of Jewish Historical and Cultural Studies at Northeastern University. He also co-directed the university’s Middle East Center. In addition, he taught at the City University of New York and Bowdoin College. He has also been a visiting fellow at Tel Aviv University, Bar-Ilan University, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and Oxford University. Professor Waxman received his Ph.D. and M.A. from the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University, and his B.A. degree from Oxford University.

Professor Waxman's research focuses on the conflict over Israel-Palestine, Israeli politics and foreign policy, U.S.-Israel relations, American Jewry’s relationship with Israel, Jewish politics, and anti-Semitism. He is the author of dozens of scholarly articles and four books: The Pursuit of Peace and The Crisis of Israeli Identity: Defending / Defining the Nation (Palgrave, 2006), Israel’s Palestinians: The Conflict Within (Cambridge University Press, 2011), Trouble in the Tribe: The American Jewish Conflict over Israel (Princeton University Press, 2016), and most recently, The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: What Everyone Needs to Know (Oxford University Press, 2019).

He has also been published in the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, the Guardian, the Atlantic Monthly, Salon, Foreign Policy, The Forward, and Ha’aretz, and he is a frequent commentator on television and radio.