As alliances shift across the Middle East and rival powers compete to shape its future, a packed audience filled the newly renovated lecture hall of the LAU New York Debbane Campus to hear one of the field’s leading scholars make sense of it all. The evening of September 29, 2026, marked the launch of the Cedar Dialogues: Lebanon • The Levant • The World.

LAU President Chaouki T. Abdallah officially launched the series, and he and LAU New York Executive Director Barbar Akle welcomed Dr. Bernard Haykel, professor of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University and a leading scholar of the Gulf states and Islamist political movements, who delivered the inaugural Debbane Lecture at the Midtown Manhattan campus. Special guests included Chair of the Board of Trustees Mike Ahmar, former Board Chair Philip Stoltzfus, and Carla Debbane, representing the Debbane family.

The Cedar Dialogues is LAU New York’s new flagship forum for intellectual and cultural exchange, bringing Lebanese scholars, artists, and leaders from academia, diplomacy, business, and public life to the global stage for critical conversations on the issues shaping the region and the world. The series was made possible by the generous support of the Raymond Debbane Family Foundation, as part of a landmark gift to transform the LAU New York Debbane Campus into a hub that connects the LAU community in Lebanon and New York with the wider world.

Dr. Abdallah reflected on the university’s dual identity as a Lebanese and an American institution, noting that LAU’s “identity is a dialogue.” He described LAU New York as a bridge between the two countries, which makes it a valuable forum for urgent and timely discussions. Because Lebanese and other regional voices are sometimes left out of conversations about the issues that affect them, he said, the Cedar Dialogues offers “a place where the Middle East does some of the talking.”

Dr. Haykel opened the series with his lecture, “The Future of the Middle East Between Revisionist and Status Quo States and Ideologies.” He examined the regional contest between powers seeking to redraw the order and those working to preserve it, outlining the conflicts and trends shaping the region and the role the United States plays in them. His analysis gave the audience a nuanced view of a region in a consequential period of change, one in which, he noted, “alliances are shifting, and strategies are recalibrating.”

The Debbane Lecture will serve as the Cedar Dialogues’ flagship annual keynote, opening each season’s program of conversations. LAU New York will build on this inaugural event with upcoming discussions on subjects ranging from history and fine arts to fashion, gender, civil society, and entrepreneurship.