A Secretive Conference About The Middle East’s Future Featured No Palestinians

WASHINGTON — As Monday night brought news of another devastating episode in Israel’s U.S.-backed offensive in Gaza — a strike on a tent camp sheltering desperate Palestinians — key players in Middle East policy in Washington and beyond were sipping cocktails at the Waldorf Astoria, toasting the end of a secretive conference about the region’s future.

The evening marked the conclusion of the inaugural Middle East-America Dialogue summit — a first-of-its-kind event that some participants say almost totally ignored the Palestinian perspective despite the community’s central relevance to developments in the region.

One attendee noted that only three Arab voices were featured on the conference’s stage: Those of the ambassadors to the U.S. from Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Morocco. There were no Palestinians.

Nor did anyone meaningfully address their concerns. While MEAD says it “aims to solidify the United States’ critical role in promoting stability across the Middle East,” the gathering did not include a speaker who highlighted the experience of the community living through its deadliest war in decades, and, said one attendee, had “very few words about the plight of the Palestinians.”

The multiday confab was invite-only, and the content of the discussions was largely kept private (HuffPost was not invited). But by obtaining MEAD’s agenda, marked “confidential,” and discussing it with several participants, HuffPost got a view into a gathering that focused heavily on closer U.S.-Israel ties and conflict with Iran while being dominated by longtime foreign policy hawks.

The conference agenda “runs the gamut of views from conservative to settler — the whole point is to erase the Palestinians,” said Matt Duss, the executive