Itamar Rabinovich
Distinguished Global Professor
at NYU and Distinguished Fellow
at the Brookings Institution
Link:
“The Peace Process as a Determinant in U.S. - Israeli Relations”
The thesis of the presentation is that since 1973 the U.S role in sponsoring Arab Israeli peace settlement has served to mitigate tensions in American Arab relations and added an important dimension to the bilateral relationship with Israel. Barack Obama came into office with some preconceived notions about the Middle East whose impact has been exacerbated by the absence of a peace process. Moving on in the peace process is a self standing Israeli interest made more important by the need to mend the relationship with the U.S.
Ambassador Itamar Rabinovich is Israel's former Ambassador to the United States and former Chief Negotiator with Syria in the mid 1990's and the former president of Tel-Aviv University (1999-2007). Currently he is Professor Emeritus of Middle Eastern History of Tel Aviv University, Distinguished Global Professor at NYU and a Distinguished Fellow at the Brookings Institution. Prof. Rabinovich has been a member of Tel Aviv University's faculty since 1971 and served as Ettinger Professor of the Contemporary History of the Middle-East, Chairman of the Department of Middle Eastern Studies, Director of the Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies, Dean of Humanities and Rector.
Professor Rabinovich is the author of six books on the Modern History and Politics of the Middle East and the co-author and co-editor of several other volumes and he is the author of numerous essays and papers. His most recent books are The Brink of Peace, Waging Peace(Princeton University Press), and The View from Damascus (Valentine Mitchell, 2008).
Professor Rabinovich is a member of the American Philosophical Society and a foreign member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He has been awarded the Honorary Grand Golden Cross of the Austrian Republic and has been made by the Government of the French Republic a Commandeur l'ordre des Palmes Académiques. In 2009 he was awarded the Korn-Gerstenman Prize for contribution to peace in the Middle-East.
