Underlying Israel’s response is the intention of destroying the military and political capabilities of Hamas to rule Gaza. For CIE’s fifth webinar in this series, Dr. Michael Eisenstadt, an authority on military and strategic matters at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy where he is the Kahn Fellow; Ambassador Itamar Rabinovich, a prolific author and scholar of modern Syria and of American – Israeli relations; and Dr. Asher Susser, a scholar of the modern Middle East, Jordan, and political Islam, participated in the panel discussion moderated by Emory Professor Emeritus and CIE President Ken Stein.