Hamas is October 7th attacks on Israel and its response have raised concerns that the ongoing conflict could erupt into a wider regional or even broader war.

I'm Allison Nathan and this is Goldman Sachs exchanges.

Every month I speak with investors, policymakers, and experts about the most pressing macroeconomic issues for our top of my report now available on GS.com.

On this episode, we'll hear from two of those experts from our latest report

that breaks down the risks around the Middle East conflict.

We dig into the conflict and how it could evolve and potentially escalate.

We speak with Edward Gerigian, former U.S. Ambassador to Israel and Syria, and former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs,

and Emil Hokayem, Director of Regional Security and Senior Fellow for Middle East Security at the International

Institute for Strategic Studies.

Gerigian first discusses the significance of the conflict for the region.

He believes it will have important consequences for the political and geopolitical landscape of the Middle East similar to past major Israeli-Palestinian conflicts.

Here's what he said in a recent conversation I had with him.

You have spent so much of your career in the Middle East and

it would just be interesting for us to know how you view the current conflict between Israel and

Hamas in terms of its significance for the region.

I think the incident of October 7th has major geopolitical implications that in my mind are again to the situation in October of 1973,

the Amkipur War.

Hamas's attacks on Israeli targets and citizens

and military on October 7th,

achieved their objectives of killing and taking hostages,

which has had a major impact on the Israeli body politic and on the situation in the region as a whole.

The October 7th attacks are one of these events in Middle East history that cause shifts in the general political landscape

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