Wednesday, October 28, 20154:00 PM
Faculty Center
Co-sponsored event with the UCLA Alan D. Leve Center for Jewish Studies
How do we understand the impassioned debates around the Iran nuclear deal? What can we learn from a broader historical context? And what might be the aftermath? Israeli Brig. Gen. Relik Shafir, one of eight pilots the Israeli air force selected to raid the Iraqi nuclear reactor at Osirak in 1981, and Dr. Steven Spiegel, Professor of Political Science and Director of the Center for Middle East Development at UCLA, will discuss the strategic interests and perspectives of the Israeli and American governments in regards to the deal's implementation. They will also discuss how the nuclear deal will affect other countries in the region and provide a broader historical framework for analysis.
Israeli Brig. Gen Relik Shafir
Brigadier General Relik Shafir was born in the northern Israeli town of Kiryat Tivon. In 1973, he graduated from the Israel Air Force Academy as a fighter pilot. During his impressive career in the IAF, he logged over 5,000 hours and was part of the first IAF F-16 Squadrons. Brig. Gen. Shafir served on several historic IAF missions, including the 1981 attack on Osirak, Iraq’s nuclear reactor - which destroyed Sadaam Hussein’s nuclear weapons program. Among many of Brig. Gen. Shafir Command posts, he served as Commander of the IAF Flight Academy and Commander of Tel Nof Air Force Base, one of the largest and most complex of Israel’s Air Force bases. Today, Brig. General Shafir is the official IAF foreign press Spokesperson in times of emergency.
Brig. Gen. Shafir holds BA degrees in Mathematics and Philosophy from Bar-Ilan University, and an MBA from the Naval Post Graduate School in Monterey, California. In his civilian life he has worked in the high tech and Energy fields, and currently manages a startup company. Relik lives on a farm in the center of Israel and grows olives and dates.
Steven Spiegel
Steven L. Spiegel serves as Director of the Center for Middle East Development at UCLA. Through the innovative and informal negotiation techniques he has developed, Dr. Spiegel helps produce cutting edge ideas for promoting Middle East regional security and cooperation. For this work, he received the Karpf Peace Prize in 1995, awarded to the UCLA professor considered to have done the most of any faculty member for the cause of world peace in the previous two years.
For Reservations: cjsrsvp@humnet.ucla.edu or (310) 267-5327
Sponsor(s): Burkle Center for International Relations, Younes and Soraya Nazarian Center for Israel Studies, Center for Middle East Development, UCLA Alan D. Leve Center for Jewish Studies, Hillel at UCLA