Faculty at Home: Avner Cohen

Please join Avner Cohen, Professor of Nonproliferation and Terrorism Studies, for a talk entitled “The October 7 War: The Worst Year in the History of the Unresolved Israeli-Palestinian Conflict”

The talk will look into the October 7 war—the longest and most devastating war in the history of the century-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict—in broad historical terms and from a personal perspective of a liberal Israeli-American. It starts with a historical assessment of the significance of the catastrophe of October 7 itself, then moves on to explore the origins and causes that made such a catastrophe possible, and ends with personal reflections on the profound impact of October 7 on both sides of the conflict—Palestinians and Israelis—and whether this tragic conflict can be resolved in our lifetime.   

Avner Cohen is a professor in the Nonproliferation and Terrorism Studies (NPTS) program at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in Monterey. Trained as a philosopher and historian of ideas, Dr. Cohen turned early on in his career to nuclear history. He is widely known for his pioneering work on Israel’s nuclear history. Among his books are The Nuclear Age as Moral History (1987), Israel and the Bomb (1998), and The Worst-Kept Secret: Israel Bargain with the Bomb (2010). He is a two-time winner of the MacArthur Foundation research and writing awards. He has been a professor at the Middlebury Institute since 2011.

Register here. 

Learn more about the Faculty at Home series here.