On the afternoon of June 8, Raphael George Bouchnik, experts on Israeli international relations and columnist for website and newspaper, visited European Forum and gave a lecture on the situation in the Arabian Peninsula and the anti-terrorism situation after the death of Osama bin Laden in Room B108 of No. 6 Teaching Building. The seminar attracted enthusiastic participation from the post-graduate students of European Research Centre and teachers and students from Faculty of English Language and Culture, Faculty of European Language and Culture and School of Interpreting and Translation Studies.
The lecture is divided into two parts. In the first part, Raphael introduced and analysed the terrorist activities and the anti-terrorism situation after the death of Osama bin Laden. In the second part he made comments and predictions on the recent political turmoil of the Arabian Peninsula.
First of all, Raphael believed that the terrorist attacks of Islamic extremists would not ceased just because of the death of Osama bin Laden, for the conflict was rooted in the ideological and religious differences. On the contrary, the Islamic movement should receive more attention from Israel, European countries and the United States. Then he introduced the structure of the al-Qaeda with chart, and pointed out that although Laden' death hit it deeply, it was still in operation and would be likely to take more extreme actions for revenge. In addition, Raphael also analysed bin Laden's successor.
Then, Raphael highlighted the current domestic situations of countries such as Syria and Libya, as well as the reaction of international community including the United States and Iran on their political turmoils. He also talked about the evaluation of the two leaders of Syria and Libya.
During question and answer session, Raphael answered students' questions. On the paradox that powerful countries attempted to promote Western-style democracy through wars, Raphael regarded it as different values and understandings of democracy between democratic Western society and the seemingly conservative Islamic society, neither was absolute right or wrong. What is important is that the Arab countries and Islamic communities would slowly work out their own model of democracy, rather than entirely accept or refuse the other models. During the communication after the lecture, he also stressed that it was very difficult for a country and nation to keep balance between outside pressure and internal demand when choosing their own path.
