Expert on Israeli-Palestinian Relations to Speak at Lafayette

Gershon Baskin, founder of the Jerusalem-based Israel/Palestine Center for Research (IPCRI) and Information, will speak at 7:30 p.m. on Monday, Nov. 18 in the Kirby Hall of Civil Rights auditorium at Lafayette College.

The lecture is free and open to the public.

Baskin served as an outside adviser on the peace process to the late Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and on a Jerusalem experts committee under former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak. He also initiated the back channel exchanges between Israel and Hamas that successfully negotiated the release of Israeli abducted soldier Gilead Schalit.

Born and raised in the U.S., Baskin is now the cochair of the IPCRI, a joint Israeli-Palestinian public policy research think-tank located in Jerusalem.

Previously, he founded and directed the Institute for Education for Jewish-Arab Coexistence, which was affiliated with the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office and the Ministry of Education. He served for 20 years in reserves of the IDF College for the Education of Officers where he lectured on Israeli and Palestinian society and politics.

He also writes a regular column in the Jerusalem Post, called “Encountering Peace.”

Baskin holds a Ph.D. in International Affairs from University of Greenwich in London. His dissertation was on Sovereignty and Territory in the Future of Jerusalem, parts of which were published as a book, Jerusalem of Peace.

His talk is sponsored by the departments of government and law, international affairs, history, foreign languages and literatures, and English as well as Hillel, Jewish studies program, and chaplain’s office.

Additional information regarding the event can be obtained by contacting Ilan Peleg, Dana Professor of Government and Law, pelegi@lafayette.edu.

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Kathleen Parrish
Associate Director of Media Relations
Lafayette College
Communications Division
Easton, PA 18042
parrishk@lafayette.edu