As the international community is about to embark on yet another peace conference in Bahrain in June, many misconceptions are at play at what the true root cause of the state of conflict in the Middle East is. Also being discussed will be the very intense state of animosity between the Sunni and Shiite camps, and what the historic factors are that have led to this animosity.

Dr. Mordechai Kedar is an Israeli scholar of Arabic literature and a lecturer at Bar-Ilan University. He holds the Ph.D. from Bar-Ilan University.  Kedar is an academic expert on the Israeli Arab population. He served for twenty-five years in IDF Military Intelligence, where he specialized in Islamic groups, the political discourse of Arab countries, the Arabic press and mass media, and the Syrian domestic arena.  He is a highly published author who has consulted with both the United States Armed Forces as well as Israeli forces. The Los Angeles Times’ Edmund Sanders described Dr. Kedar as “one of the few Arabic-speaking Israeli pundits seen on Arabic satellite channels defending Israel.”