In June 2025, the United States and Iran entered their most direct confrontation in decades. Join us for a conversation about how Washington and Tehran understand—and misunderstand—each other, and where relations might go next.
Shai Feldman argues that recent protests in Israel, possibly the largest in the country’s history, were the culmination of more than two years of growing polarization, driven by crises that are likely to intensify in the months ahead.
In this Crown Conversation, Eva Bellin argues that the Trump administration’s transactional style is accelerating authoritarian entrenchment and weakening traditional alliances in a region already undergoing a profound reordering of power.
The Crown Center for Middle East Studies is committed to conducting balanced and dispassionate research of the modern Middle East that meets the highest academic standards. The Center seeks to help make decision- and opinion-makers better informed about the region. The scope of the center's research includes the 22 members of the Arab League as well as Turkey, Iran and Israel. The Crown Center's approach is multidisciplinary in its study of the politics, economics, history, security, sociology and anthropology of the region's states and societies.
On August 17, 2025, nearly a million Israelis took to the streets in what may have been the largest protest in the country’s history. In our latest Middle East Brief, Shai Feldman argues that this unrest was the culmination of more than two years of growing polarization, driven by four converging crises: government efforts to weaken the judiciary and other democratic gatekeepers, the shock and fallout of Hamas’s October 7 attack, competing objectives in the Gaza War, and intensifying debates over unequal military service, especially ultra-Orthodox exemptions. Feldman contends that together these pressures have created Israel’s domestic “perfect storm” and are likely to intensify in the months ahead, with mounting costs and deeper polarization.
The Crown Center is dedicated to sharing balanced and dispassionate research on the Middle East. Please see the Crown Center analyses which delve into the roots and evolution of the conflict between Hamas and Israel.
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Counter/Argument: A Middle East Podcast is produced by the Crown Center for Middle East Studies at Brandeis University. Through conversations with scholars and practitioners encompassing a variety of disciplines and perspectives, each episode will debunk key misconceptions about the contemporary Middle East. "Counter/Argument" is committed to a balanced and dispassionate approach to the region and to making scholarship more widely accessible. Available wherever you get your podcasts.
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