The UCLA and UCSC chapters of SPME, with the support of the American Jewish Congress, organized and sponsored Professor Barry Rubin, Director of the Global Research in International Affairs, Herzliya, Israel, to speak November 13, 2006 at UCLA, and November 14 and November 15 at UCSC. At UCLA, he lectured in the afternoon to approximately 20 faculty as part of the Center for Near Eastern Studies’ fall lecture series called “The New Middle East: Five Years After 9/11.”

In the talk, titled, “Back to the Future in the Middle East,” Barry Rubin discussed what he sees as Middle Eastern countries’ return to policies of Arab nationalism that they had pursued and failed in decades ago. The attempt to unite the Arab world into a single, united state, blaming the lack of economic change and civil rights’ reform on external forces that must be defeated, is now merged with Islamic nationalism. Rubin said that for the last 35 years, in contrast to Europe, for example, there has been relative stability in governments within the Arab world, contradicting the commonly held notion that the region has been in upheaval. The stability has been maintained, Rubin said, because the regimes stay in power by totalitarian means, controlling ideological
(media, education) and institutional systems (military).

In the evening, he spoke at a private SPME dinner party. At UCSC, the following day, in a lecture entitled, “Back to Futility”, the audience numbered about 120, half of whom were students. The day
after, Professor Rubin lectured on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to about 60 additional students in a course in modern Jewish history under the auspices of Jewish Studies. All talks were very
impressive. He was articulate, scholarly and a fine model for students of how governments of the Middle East should—but rarely are—analyzed. The following day he lectured at San Francisco State
University.