UCI hosts daylong event about Middle East

Wondering whether Israeli, Lebanese and Palestinian regimes will ever be able to make lasting peace? Where is that explosive region headed?

Those are some of the themes explored in “Whither the Levant?: The Crisis of the Nation-State,” a day-long program of films, panels and a symposium at the UCI Student Center on Jan. 31. The event will feature authors As’ad Abukhalil, Mark LeVine, Lina Haddad Kreidie, Chuck O’Connell and more. Also attending will be Daniel Levy, senior fellow and director of the Middle East Initiative at the New America Foundation.

The event will also screen documentary “Lebanon Summer 2006” and premiere feature film “Under the Bombs.”

The event is presented by the Levantine Cultural Center and UCI’s Middle East Studies Student Initiative. The conference is free for students, but $40 for the public. Admission to a single panel will cost $20. For more information, go to levantinecenter.org.

— Michael Alexander