This event will take an in-depth look at the state of Israeli domestic politics since October 7 2023.

Panellists will analyse how Benjamin Netanyahu and the Likud Party have held onto power over the years, the role of coalition building, as well as Israeli decision-making domestically and in the war on Gaza.

By bringing together a panel of experts across academia, policymaking and journalism, this event will provide critical analysis of Israel today, understanding both state and society.

Meet our speakers and chair

Alona Ferber is senior editor at Prospect Magazine, the monthly current affairs title. She specialises in coverage of Israel and Palestine, and was formerly a senior news editor and reporter for the Haaretz newspaper. She writes on politics and policy, including her specialist coverage of the Middle East, and interviews major public figures. Her Substack newsletter, The Backlash, covers the struggle for gender equality.

Yossi Mekelberg is a senior consulting fellow with the Middle East and North Africa Programme at Chatham House. He was previously professor of international relations at Regent’s University, where he was head of the international relations and social sciences programme, and the faculty lead on outreach projects. He had taught at Regent’s University since 1996, and before that at King’s College, London. His fields of expertise include the politics of the Middle East, Israeli politics, the Middle East peace process, international relations theory and US foreign policy towards the MENA region. For four years he wrote a weekly column for the Al-Arabiya network before moving to write twice a week for Arab News. He is also a member of the Human Rights Watch London Committee. In addition Yossi is a regular contributor to international media on a variety of international affairs issues.

Yair Wallach is Reader in Israeli Studies and Departmental Director of Doctoral Studies at SOAS. Yair is a social and cultural historian of modern Palestine/Israel, studying the entangled and relational histories of Jews and Palestinians. His work has focussed primarily on visual and material culture and on the urban fabric as sites and vehicles of contestation and transformation in late Ottoman and British Mandate Palestine. Before coming to SOAS, Yair was a post-doctoral research associate at Cambridge University, as part of the "Conflict in Cities" project. Yair is author of A City in Fragments: Urban Text in Modern Jerusalem (Stanford University Press, 2020). In addition to scholarly writing, Yair has also written on Israel/Palestine and on Antisemitism for the Guardian, Haaretz, 972+, and other publications.

Katerina Dalacoura is Director of the LSE Middle East Centre and Associate Professor in International Relations at LSE. Her work has centered on the intersection of Islamism and international human rights norms. She has worked on human rights, democracy and democracy promotion, in the Middle East, particularly in the context of Western policies in the region.