On this episode of then & now, Middle East expert Aaron David Miller offers his perspective on the current state of affairs in Israel and Gaza after October 7, 2023 — and on the broader historical context of the explosion of violence in recent months.  Drawing on his decades of service in the U.S. State Department, he also traces the arc of American diplomacy on the Israel-Palestine question, noting the many failures and limited successes in this story. Miller reflects on the importance of balance and strong leadership, qualities that have often been in short supply in efforts to resolve or mitigate tensions between Palestinians and Israelis.  

Aaron David Miller is a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, focusing on U.S. foreign policy. He received his PhD in Middle East and U.S. diplomatic history from the University of Michigan in 1977 and has authored five books including The Much Too Promised Land: America’s Elusive Search for Arab-Israeli Peace (2008).  Miller is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a frequent commentator in print and visual media.  

In our final episode of 2023, we are sharing a recording of an event hosted by the UCLA History Department as part of the Why History Matters series. Labor movements have surged to the attention of the public over the past year, with the historic Writers Guild and SAG-AFTRA strikes at the beginning of the year as well as the United Auto Workers strike later in the year. Moderated by UCLA Professor of History and Labor Studies Toby Higbie, this event featured a panel discussion with Kent Wong (Director of the UCLA Labor Center), Susan Minato (Co-President of UNITE HERE Local 11), and Billy Ray (Screenwriter and Director, and former co-chair of the WGA Negotiating Committee) about the history of labor movements, the power of unions and strikes in America today, and what lies ahead.

For this special episode, we are sharing a recording of a Zoom event hosted on November 21 by the UCLA Luskin Center for History and Policy. Featuring two UCLA history professors, Dr. James L. Gelvin and Dr. David N. Myers, this informational session explores the historical background to the ongoing conflict in Gaza, addressing questions such as:

• What is Hamas?
• What led to Hamas' attack on Israel?
• Why was Israel so ill-prepared?
• What does the future hold for Israel and Palestine, and for the wider region?

Dr. L. Gelvin is a professor of history at UCLA. He is the author of numerous books and articles on Middle Eastern history and contemporary issues, including The Israel-Palestine Conflict: A History, recently updated and released as a fourth edition by Cambridge University Press.

Dr. David N. Myers is a professor of history at UCLA and the director of the Luskin Center for History and Policy. He is the author and editor of numerous books in the field of modern Jewish history including Between Arab and Jew: The Los Voice of Simon Rawidowicz, published by Brandeis University Press in 2009.

This episode of then & now  features a conversation with the Reverend James Lawson, the legendary social justice activist who introduced the practice of non-violent action to the civil rights movement.  The conversation takes up Rev. Lawson’s early years and encounters with racism in Massillon, Ohio; his exposure to the idea of non-violence through his reading of Gandhi and while on mission in India; his tireless efforts to promote non-violence in the United States; and his thoughts about how the practice of non-violence can be spread throughout a world convulsed by violence.  At age ninety-five, Rev. Lawson continues to advocate for the relevance of non-violence with a rare mix of wisdom and humility.  

Rev. James Lawson, Jr. has been one of the most influential and inspirational faith leaders in Los Angeles—and the United States at large—over the past seven decades. After studying, teaching, and serving as a pastor in Tennessee, he arrived in Los Angeles in 1974 to assume the position of pastor at the Holman United Methodist Church.  From that platform, Rev. Lawson immersed himself in many of the major struggles for justice in the city and nation including civil rights, workers’ rights, immigrant rights, and the cause of peace the world over.  He is the recipient of many honors and awards recognizing him as one of the great civil rights leaders of our time.  In 2021, the UCLA Labor Center was renamed the "UCLA James M. Lawson Worker Justice Center."  

On September 15, 2023, workers from the United Auto Workers union went on strike at Ford Motor Company, General Motors, and Stellantis simultaneously, quickly expanding to include tens of thousands of workers at automobile factories throughout the United States. Founded by visionary and then UAW president Walter Reuther, At its founding, the union focused on better wages and conditions for all working-class Americans, not just union members. Current UAW president Shawn Fain has channeled much of founding UAW president Walter Reuther’s rhetoric in championing benefits for all workers and pushing for government support of electric car manufacturing jobs. In what has been a historic year for unions and labor movements throughout the United States, we sit down with Dr. Nelson Lichtenstein to discuss the history of the UAW and what this strike means for the American working class. What does this strike reveal about current relations between the working and elite classes, and how will the UAW strike and demands play into political and labor discourse in the coming years?

Nelson Lichtenstein is a Research Professor in the Department of History at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he also serves as the director of the Center for the Study of Work, Labor, and Democracy.  He is the author of numerous books, including “State of the Union: A Century of American Labor” (published in 2002 and revised in 2013). His most recent book, “A Fabulous Failure: The Clinton Presidency and the Transformation of American Capitalism” which he co-authored with the late Judith Stein, was published in 2023 by Princeton University Press.

More than half the world’s population currently lives in cities, and current estimates suggest that by 2050 nearly 7 out of every 10 people will live in urban spaces. In an increasingly crowded and urbanized world, space has become a precious commodity. As a species, we seem drawn to cities, despite their obvious disadvantages. From the ancient cities of Southeast Asia to the crowded streets of modern Los Angeles, cities offer opportunities for interactions that wouldn’t be possible in urban areas. In this episode, we sit down with Professor Monica Smith, who shares her perspective on the importance of infrastructure and shared spaces in the birth and survival of cities past and present. How do cities affect the way that we interact with the natural environment and with our fellow human beings, and how can we think creatively about shared spaces in crowded urban environments?

Dr. Monica L. Smith is a professor and Navin and Pratima Doshi Chair in Indian Studies at UCLA. She is an ancient economic historian who uses archaeological data to analyze the collective effects of routine activities through the study of food, ordinary goods, and architecture. Her current research focuses on the Indian subcontinent, a region that has produced some of the world’s earliest and most long-lived urban areas. Her most recent book was published by Viking Press in 2019, and is titled “Cities: The First 6000 Years.”

Reports have emerged in recent weeks that a grave humanitarian crisis is unfolding in Nagorno-Karabakh, a contested region in present-day Azerbaijan that contains a large majority of Armenian residents. A prominent international lawyer, Luis Moreno Ocampo, in fact, maintains that “a Genocide is being committed” by Azerbaijani forces against Armenian residents. This episode of “Then & Now” features UCLA historian Sebouh Aslanian, who offers a rich account of the history of the region and the century-long conflict between Armenians and Azerbaijanis. He situates the tension against the backdrop of the rise and fall of empire—and analyzes the two wars that have engulfed the contested region since 1988 and that have led to the current dire crisis in Nagorno-Karabakh. 

Sebouh Aslanian is professor of history and holds the Richard Hovannisian Endowed Chair of Modern Armenian History at the UCLA History Department, and is the inaugural director of the Armenian Studies Center at the Promise Armenian Institute.  He is an acknowledged expert in world history, Armenian history, Indian Ocean history, and early modern social and economic history. He is the author of the award-winning  From the Indian Ocean to the Mediterranean: The Global Trade Networks of Armenian Merchants from New Julfa, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2011), and has published widely on early modern world and Armenian history, including his most recent book, Early Modernity and Mobility Port Cities and Printers across the Armenian Diaspora, 1512-1800 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2023).  

As we transition to our fourth season of "Then & Now", this episode features renowned Israeli human rights lawyer, Michael Sfard.  He offers an analysis of Israel's current crisis of democracy, including the attacks on the judicial system and Supreme Court, and a wide contextual frame that extends back to 1948 and to the founding document of the state of Israel, its Declaration of Independence.  The conversation then moves to Sfard's detailed argument that Israel's control of the West Bank amounts to a legal regime of apartheid.  We also discuss how Sfard understands and contends with criticism of the project of human rights as an instrument of Western colonialism.  Finally, the episode concludes with a discussion of Sfard's grandfather, the Polish-born sociologist Zygumt Bauman, and the ways in which he left an imprint on his grandson.

MIchael Sfard is one of Israel's leading human rights lawyers who has frequently represented Palestinian clients at the Israeli Supreme Court.  He is the author of the 2018 book The Wall and the Gate: Israel, Palestine, and the Legal Battle for Human Rights. He also wrote a legal opinion addressing Israel's control of the West Bank for the NGO Yesh Din, "The Occupation of the West Bank and the Crime of Apartheid." 

Following the recent destruction of the Kakhovka dam in the south of the country, the government of Ukraine accused Russia of the crime of “ecocide.”  This term first surfaced in the 1970s in the context of the U.S. military’s use of Agent Orange in Vietnam.  Since that time, the term has gained currency in international legal circles as a tool to fight against large-scale violations of the environment.  A number of states have already incorporated the concept into their legal codes, and efforts are ongoing to enshrine “ecocide” in international law.

This episode of then & now features Kate Mackintosh, veteran human rights activist, international lawyer, and front-line participant in the efforts to define and promote “ecocide.”  She discusses the historical roots of the concept, its place within the international legal order, and current efforts to advance this legal tool to forestall further damage to the global environment.  The conversation also turns to the question of how effective such a tool of punishment can be in the world today.  

Kate Mackintosh served as the inaugural executive director of the Promise Institute for Human Rights at the UCLA School of Law.  She now serves as executive director of the Promise Institute for Human Rights in Europe. 

On June 29, 2023, the US Supreme Court ruled 6-3 to end affirmative action for college admissions, stating that considering race as a factor was unconstitutional, while preserving ‘legacy’ admissions which often allow students of alumni entrance to prestigious institutions. Yet from the establishment of the first university in the United States, race has been a consistent organizing principle in American higher education. In this episode, we sit down with UCLA historian Eddie Cole to discuss how the origins of affirmative action in the 1960s aimed to rectify a legacy of systemic racism in the United States. In later decades, the discourse around affirmative action shifted from restitution and reparation to admissions and diversity more broadly.  Now that the Supreme Court has struck down affirmative action, what are the repercussions for Black students? And how will the Supreme Court decision on affirmative action affect the generations to come?  Should the conversation shift from the need for diversity to a renewed call for reparations?

Dr. Eddie R. Cole is Associate Professor of Education and History at UCLA. Dr. Cole’s research explores leadership, race, and social movements through the prism of higher education, addressing power and systems of power as well as education’s impact on society. His award-winning book, The Campus Color Line: College Presidents and the Struggle for Black Freedom was published by Princeton University Press in 2020.