|
Keynote Speakers Dr. Gershon Baskin is the founder of IPCRI - the Israel/Palestine Center for Research and Information which he has been co-directing for the past 21 years. Under his leadership IPCRI has moved from being a fringe NGO to becoming one of the leading think tanks in the region. During all of these years, he continued to be an activist in many non-parliamentary movements. Baskin is an accomplished and prize winning journalist with a regular column in the Jerusalem Post called "Encountering Peace". He lectures around the world at conferences on Middle East issues and Israel center focused issues. He is often thought to be a "radical" thinker in that his approach questions "common wisdom" and "sacred cows". Baskin's approach to the issues cuts across Israeli society, Jewish and Arab, European and Eastern Israeli populations Dr. Hussein Ibish is the Executive Director of the Hala Salaam Maksoud Foundation for Arab-American Leadership and Senior Fellow at the American Task Force on Palestine. He has made thousands of radio and television appearances, as well as writing for many newspapers. Dr. Ibish is the editor and principal author of 2 major studies of Hate Crimes and Discrimination against Arab Americans 1998-2000 (ADC, 2001) and Sept. 11, 2001- Oct 11, 2002 (ADC, 2003). He is the author of "At the Constitutions Edge: Arab Americans and Civil Liberties in the United States" in States of Confinement (St. Martin's Press, 2000) From 1998-2204, Ibish served as Communications Director for the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, the largest Arab-American membership organization in the United States. He has a PhD in Comparative Literature from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Gadi Baltiansky is the Director General of "Education for Peace Ltd.," the Geneva Initiative headquarters in Tel Aviv. Between 1999 and 2001, he served as Press Secretary to Prime Minister Ehud Barak. He was an official member of the Israeli negotiating teams opposite Syria and the Palestinians and, as such, participated in numerous summits, meetings and events in the international arena from 1995 to 1998, Baltiansky served as Press Counselor at the Israeli Embassy in Washington DC, prior to which he served as advisor to the Deputy Foreign Minister (1994-5), Vice Consul in Miami, Florida (1991-3) and assistant to the Director General (1990-1). He previously worked as a journalist in Yediot Aharonot. He holds an M.A. in public administration from Harvard University and a B.A. in political science and international relations from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Dr. Sami Adwan Through his work with PRIME, Sami Adwan is pioneering an educational model that enables both Palestinian and Israeli educators to create school history curricula that includes both historical narratives in a single textbook. Sami was born in a village north of Hebron and finished his PhD. in the United States. He has published widely on the role of education in peacebuilding. His encounter with Israeli soldiers while in prison for being a member of Fatah during the first intifada made him realize that denial and avoidance would not help to improve the situtation, but rather discovering the other. Debra DeLee Chair of the Democratic National Committee from 1994 to 1995. She is currently President and CEO of Americans for Peace Now (APN), a national Zionist organization dedicated to enhancing Israel’s security through peace and to supporting the Israeli Peace Now movement. She was born in Chicago, Illinois, is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin, Madison. She was a superdelegate for the 2008 Democratic National Convention and endorsed United States Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York in the primaries.
Debra DeLee
|
