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The Middle East Institute is pleased to present two very seasoned experts on Lebanon and the Lebanese Hezbollah organization, Mr. Fred Hof and Mr. Mark Perry, to offer their current insights based on their respective professional experiences and face-to-face meetings with Hezbollah officials in Beirut. Both will discuss the motivations and outlook of the Hezbollah senior leaders while commenting on US counterterrorism strategy, approaches to resolving the current crisis and the prospects of an emerging regional conflagration resulting from the current crisis. The Honorable Philip Wilcox, President of the Foundation for Middle East Peace and former Ambassador at Large for Counterterrorism at the State Department, will moderate the discussion.

Frederic Hof is the President and CEO of AALC, Ltd. Since 1993, he has been working closely with corporate clients internationally to solve problems, devise strategies and provide key issue analysis across a broad spectrum of business sectors.

From January through May 2001 he directed the Jerusalem field operations of the Sharm el-Sheikh Fact-Finding Committee headed by former U.S. Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell, and was the lead drafter of the Committee’s April 30, 2001 Report. In 1983, as a U.S. Army officer, he was a principal drafter of the “Long Commission” report, which investigated the October 1983 bombing of the U.S. Marine headquarters at Beirut International Airport. In addition to his work at AALC, Hof has written extensively on Middle Eastern subjects. He is the author of Galilee Divided: The Israel-Lebanon Frontier, 1916-1984, Line of Battle, Border of Peace? The Line of June 4, 1967, and Beyond the Boundary: Lebanon, Israel and the Challenge of Change.

For seventeen years, Mark Perry served as a political advisor to President Yasser Arafat and Fatah. Now he is the co-director of Conflicts Forum, a UK and US non-profit organization that seeks to bring about a new engagement between the West and political Islam. Last year, Perry led a delegation comprised of prominent former senior U.S. foreign policy officials to Beirut to meet with the Hamas and Hizbullah to gauge their future political views.

Perry is the author of six books including A Fire In Zion, Inside the Israeli-Palestinian Peace Process and Four Stars: The Inside Story of the Forty-Year Battle Between the JCS and America's Civilian Leaders. A senior fellow at the Jerusalem Media and Communications Center, he is currently Washington correspondent for The Palestine Report.