Stanford, California
Thursday, November 12, 2026 · 4:00 PM – 6:30 PM
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Join us for a two-part panel discussion with IsraAID and partners exploring the future of humanitarian assistance in an increasingly contested and conflict-ridden world. The first panel will examine how aid organizations deliver relief when access, neutrality, and safety are absent or precarious, drawing on IsraAID's experience responding to crises across the globe. The second panel will turn to the Middle East, focusing on the promise and practical challenges of Arab-Israeli cooperation in delivering humanitarian assistance to communities in need around the region.
AGENDA
3:30 - 4:00 PM: GATHERING AND REGISTRATION
4:00 - 4:10 PM: INTRODUCTION
Speaker: Larry Diamond (Mosbacher Senior Fellow in Global Democracy, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Stanford University)
4:10 - 4:50 PM: PANEL ONE — Delivering Humanitarian Assistance in 2026: Challenges and Opportunities
Moderator: David Cornfield (Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Professor of Pediatric Pulmonary Medicine, Stanford University)
4:55 - 6:00 PM: PANEL TWO — Lessons from the Middle East: Arab-Israeli Cooperation in Humanitarian Aid
Moderator: Paul Wise (Richard E. Behrman Professor of Child Health and Society, Stanford University)
6:00 - 6:30 PM: Please join us for a light reception in the Coit D. Blacker Lobby of Encina Hall.
ABOUT IsraAID
Founded in 2001 as a coalition of Israeli organizations working in disaster relief and international development, IsraAID has grown into an independent NGO and the largest humanitarian aid organization in Israel. From earthquakes and hurricanes to epidemics and forced displacement, IsraAID has been at the forefront of responding to major humanitarian crises around the globe. They have worked in more than 60 countries and at any one time have around 300 staff members worldwide.
About the Speakers
Dr. Yaroup Ajlouni is a physician and humanitarian leader with more than 20 years of experience in emergency response, health systems, and regional cooperation across the Middle East and North Africa, and currently serves as President of Jordan Health Aid Society International. His work spans humanitarian diplomacy, cross-border partnerships, and locally led response models, with emergency and development programs in Jordan, Gaza, Syria, Yemen, and Sudan.
A physician scientist, Dr. David Cornfield is actively engaged in clinical medicine, teaching and research. In clinical arena, Dr. Cornfield is a Pediatrician with an active practice in both Pediatric Pulmonary Medicine and Pediatric Critical Care Medicine. In the research arena, Dr. Cornfield's lab addresses several large thematic issues. There is an active translational research component.
Larry Diamond is the William L. Clayton Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, the Mosbacher Senior Fellow in Global Democracy at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI), a Bass University Fellow in Undergraduate Education, and a professor by courtesy of Political Science and Sociology at Stanford University. At the Hoover Institution, he co-leads the Project on Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific Region. At FSI, he is among the core faculty of the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL), which he directed for six and a half years. He is the Faculty Chair of CDDRL's Jan Koum Israel Studies Program and is a member of the Program on Arab Reform and Development. He also co-leads the Global Digital Policy Incubator, based at FSI’s Cyber Policy Center.
Sonali Korde is a Senior Advisor at All Hands and Hearts and the MD Anderson Visiting Fellow at Rice University's Baker Institute for Public Policy, specializing in humanitarian affairs, international development, global health, and foreign policy. She previously served as Assistant to the Administrator leading USAID's Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance, and on the National Security Council staff as Director of Global Health and Development.
Raphael Marcus is the Deputy CEO of IsraAID, with more than 15 years of humanitarian leadership across fragile and conflict-affected contexts. He previously served as Chief Programs Officer at HIAS, overseeing operations across 25 country offices and creating the agency's Emergency Response Department, and before that led international operations for the German medical relief organization Humedica, directing responses to Typhoon Haiyan, the Ebola outbreak in Liberia, and the Nepal earthquake.
Yotam Polizer is the Global CEO of IsraAID, Israel's largest humanitarian NGO, currently active in 15 countries with a 25-year record of responding to crises in over 65 — from the 2011 Japan tsunami to the post-October 7th recovery effort in Israel, and today the earthquakes in Venezuela and Colombia and the flash floods in Nepal. He personally directed the 2021 evacuation of more than 200 at-risk Afghans fleeing the Taliban, and is the 2023 recipient of the Charles Bronfman Prize.
Dr. Khaula Sawah is President of the Union of Medical Care and Relief Organizations-USA (UOSSM USA), which she co-founded, and has devoted most of her time since 2011 to medical relief missions for Syrians affected by the crisis in Syria and Turkey. As UOSSM's first Executive Director in Turkey she directed medical operations inside Syria and supervised the establishment of Bab Al-Hawa Hospital, now the major emergency and specialty referral hospital in northern Syria.
Diana Shehade-Nama is Director of Fundraising, Marketing and Communications at Rozana, which she joined in 2019, spending her first years designing and coordinating the organization's cross-border health initiatives with institutional partners and healthcare professionals across Israel and Palestine before taking on fundraising and strategic communications. Her commitment to Israeli–Palestinian engagement also includes teaching at the Hand in Hand bilingual school for Jewish-Arab education in Jerusalem and teaching Palestinian Anglophone literature at Tel Aviv University.
Dr. Paul Wise is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and has been working as the Juvenile Care Monitor for the U.S. Federal Court overseeing the treatment of migrant children in U.S. border detention facilities. Wise’s most recent U.S.-focused work has addressed disparities in birth outcomes, regionalized specialty care for children, and Medicaid. His international work has focused on women’s and child health in violent and politically complex environments, including Ukraine, Gaza, Central America, Venezuela, and children in detention on the U.S.-Mexico border. Wise is the Richard E. Behrman Professor of Child Health and Society and Professor of Pediatrics, Division of Neonatology and Developmental Medicine, and Health Policy at Stanford University. He is also co-director of the Stanford Center for Prematurity Research and a Senior Fellow at both the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law and the Center for International Security and Cooperation, within the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Stanford University.
Encina Hall 616 Jane Stanford Way, Stanford, CA 94305 Room Bechtel Conference Center
Thursday, November 12, 2026 · 4:00 PM – 6:30 PM
Encina Hall · Room Bechtel Conference Center