Rice U. experts available to comment on Netanyahu speech

Rice University
Office of Public Affairs/News & Media Relations

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David Ruth
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Amy McCaig
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Rice U. experts available to comment on Netanyahu speech

HOUSTON — (March 2, 2015) — As Congress prepares for a March 3 speech by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Rice University experts Edward Djerejian and Richard Stoll are available to discuss what the speech means for U.S.-Israeli relations.

EDWARD DJEREJIAN

“The muddled manner in which this invitation to speak to Congress has been handled is striking,” said Edward Djerejian, a former ambassador to Israel and the founding director of Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy. “This is an unnecessary irritant in the basic U.S.-Israeli relationship, and it couldn’t come at a more delicate time, where the Middle East region is in such turbulence and there are so many challenges.”

Djerejian’s recent policy paper on the Middle East, “The Middle East Cauldron and United States Policy,” defines the challenges in the region for the U.S. and the international community, including nuclear negotiations with Iran and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

“The real challenge is to determine whether or not there is common ground between the U.S. and Israel on a negotiated nuclear agreement with Iran,” Djerejian said.

Stoll, the Albert Thomas Professor of Political Science, said there are a number of issues swirling around Netanyahu’s address to Congress.

RICHARD STOLL

“The focus of his speech will be the threat of Iran developing nuclear weapons,” he said. “The governments of both Israel and the United States agree that this would be a dangerous development. The Obama administration (along with other countries) is currently engaged in a negotiation to constrain Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for reducing the sanctions that have been imposed on Iran because of its program. Netanyahu believes that any agreement will not effectively constrain Iran. The speech comes at a time when the negotiations with Iran are reportedly reaching a critical point.”

Stoll noted that there are also domestic issues in both Israel and the U.S.

“Netanyahu is running for re-election (the election will be held March 17),” he said. “Polls show he is in a close contest, and he is hoping that his visit to the U.S. will boost his chances. In the U.S., the visit is controversial because Speaker of the House John Boehner invited Netanyahu without consulting the Obama administration. To be clear, Boehner had the right to do this but it is highly unusual not to discuss inviting a foreign leader with the president.”

Djerejian’s career in the U.S. Foreign Service spanned the administrations of eight presidents, from John F. Kennedy to William J. Clinton. He is a leading expert on national security, foreign policy and the complex political, security, economic, religious and ethnic issues of the Middle East and South Asia. He has played key roles in the Arab-Israeli peace process and regional conflict resolution.

Stoll, an accomplished scholar of international conflict, is quoted regularly by the news media about national and international security issues. He has used computer simulation techniques and statistical analysis to study topics such as arms competitions, comparative foreign policy and political realism. Stoll is currently engaged in an effort to create events data from online news sources and to predict the outbreak of serious international conflict.

Rice University has a VideoLink ReadyCam TV interview studio. ReadyCam is capable of transmitting broadcast-quality standard-definition and high-definition video directly to all news media organizations around the world 24/7.

For more information or to schedule an interview, contact David Ruth, director of national media relations at Rice, at 713-348-6327 or david@rice.edu.

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