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Meeting ID: 871 9982 1900. Please join by 11, the meeting will be closed at 11:10
Perspective on the current situation in Israel, including the protest movement, and the prospects for democracy and peace going forward.
Gershon Baskin, Ph.D., is the Israel/Palestine Director of the Holy Land Bond (www.holylandbond.com). Baskin was the person responsible for the secret direct back channel between Israel and the Hamas that successfully negotiated the release of abducted Israeli soldier Gilead Schalit. From 2012 until 2020 Dr. Baskin served as Country Manager for Palestine in Gigawatt Global working to develop mid- and large-scale commercial solar energy projects Palestine. From 1988 – 2011, Dr. Baskin was the Israeli Co-Director and founder of the Israel/Palestine Center for Research and Information (IPCRI) – a joint Israeli-Palestinian public policy think- and “do”- tank located in Jerusalem. He initiated the founding of IPCRI in 1988 following ten years of work in the field of Jewish-Arab relations within Israel, in Interns for Peace where he lived for two years in the Israeli-Palestinian village of Kufr Qara’, the Ministry of Education and as Executive Director of the Institute for Education for Jewish-Arab Coexistence (established by the Israeli Ministry of Education and the Prime Minister’s Office at Baskin’s initiative). During the Premiership of the late Yitzhak Rabin, he served as a special advisor on the Israeli-Palestinian peace process to a secret team of intelligence officers established by Mr. Rabin.Since February 2005, he has a weekly column in the Jerusalem Post. His weekly column is also published in Arabic in the Palestinian daily newspaper AlQuds and in Hebrew on a news and opinion website D’Yoma.com. Dr. Baskin holds a Ph.D. in International Affairs from University of Greenwich. His dissertation was on Sovereignty and Territory in the Future of Jerusalem, parts of which were published as a book Jerusalem of Peace. In November 2018, Baskin’s book In Pursuit of Peace in Israel and Palestine was published by Vanderbilt University Press. In November 2020 the book came out in Arabic in Jordan and in Portuguese in Brazil. The book was also published in Hebrew in May 2022.