Open Forum on Hezbollah

In the wake of the recent conflict in the Middle East, the NYU Law School’s Center on Law and Security is organizing a special open forum on Hezbollah on September 28th 2006 at 6pm in the Vanderbilt Hall at NYU. The open forum is part of a series of events planned this fall by the Center on Law and Security on key subject areas in the war on terrorism.  The open forum will feature:

Peter Bergen, a Fellow at the Center on Law and Security and CNN’s Chief Terrorism Analyst will moderate a discussion held by two leading experts on Hezbollah.

Ambassador Michael A. Sheehan is a Distinguished Fellow at the Center and Law and Security and formerly the NYPD’s Deputy Commissioner for Counter-terrorism (2003-6) and the State Department’s Counter-terrorism Coordinator (1998-2000) a role he took on after a career in the US Army Special Forces.

Hala Jaber is a British-Lebanese foreign correspondent for the Sunday Times (London) who has reported extensively on Hezbollah including sending dispatches from the frontllines of the recent conflict. She has exceptional contacts within the Hezbollah leadership and in 1997 wrote the authoritative book on Hezbollah, Hezbollah: Born with a Vengeance, for which she was given unparalleled access to the organization. She was named Foreign Reporter of the Year in 2005 in the prestigious  British Press Awards.

The panelists will discuss an array of issues raised by the month long conflict in the Middle East, focusing particularly on Hezbollah’s future position within the Lebanese political fabric. Will Hezbollah be emboldened to launch new terrorist attacks or will it in future focus more on the political sphere. How will other Lebanese political actors respond to Hezbollah in the coming months and years?  How will Hezbollah’s relationship develop with Iran and Syria? How can the international community develop a strategy to ensure full sovereignty to the Lebanese State?

The panelists will also focus on the security threat from Hezbollah, a group classified as a terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department. To what degree does Hezbollah’s new capabilities threaten Israeli security?  To what extent does Hezbollah have the capability and appetite to launch attacks of a global reach? Is there a possibility of Hezbollah attacking US facilities if tensions continue to rise between the US and Iran? What is the likelihood of Hezbollah and al Qaeda might cooperating in a global Islamist insurgency?