More than a year after the Hamas attack on Oct. 7, 2023, Israel’s assault on the Gaza Strip continues, violence in the West Bank mounts, Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon are engaged in escalating confrontation, and Israel and Iran are on the brink of war. This panel will address ongoing dynamics of the Israel/Palestine conflict and its consequences for the broader Middle East. This event is open to Notre Dame faculty, staff and students. Notre Dame IDs will be required for entrance to this event, and backpacks and large bags will be checked.   Panelists: Asher Kaufman, John M. Regan, Jr. director of the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies; professor of history and peace studiesLisa Schirch, Richard G. Starmann, Sr. professor of the practice of peace studies  Atalia Omer, professor of religion, conflict and peace studies  Laurie Nathan, professor of the practice of mediation; Mediation Program director  Banafsheh Keynoush, Kroc Institute visiting research fellowDaniel Bannoura, Ph.D. student in the Department of Theology           Originally published at kroc.nd.edu.

Michael Haneke's most notorious provocation, Funny Games spares no detail in its depiction of the agony of a bourgeois family held captive at their vacation home by a pair of white-gloved young men. In a series of escalating "games," the sadistic duo subject their victims to physical and psychological torture over the course of a night. A home-invasion thriller in which the genre's threat of bloodshed is made stomach-churningly real, the film ratchets up shocks even as its executioners interrupt the action to address the audience, drawing queasy attention to the way that cinema milks pleasure from pain and stokes our appetite for atrocity. With this controversial treatise on violence and entertainment, Haneke issued a summation of his cinematic philosophy, implicating his audience in a spectacle of unbearable cruelty. GET TICKETS!