Political Science students report daily on twelve Middle East nations
A couple of weeks ago, I mentioned the class on Middle East Politics that I'm teaching this semester at the University of Southern California. Part of the course is to learn about blogging by creating a site and writing for it 5 days a week.
On a number of occasions the students have found stories before the main international media have reported them. That's because they are encouraged to look locally for less familiar perspectives.
Why the historic effort to close peace deal between Israel and the Palestinian Authority foundered
Signing of the Oslo Accords
After the accord was signed in 1993 various obstacles arose to render most of the agreement null. But it did have some positive effects as Israeli negotiator Uri Savir notes in this recent interview.
The bitterlemons Web site devotes its latest report (#36) to a four-way commentary on Oslo, including one from Savir.
I've mentioned Bernard Avishai before. His recent blog piece about a review of Avi Shlaim's new book on King Hussein provides some useful insight into some corners of the publishing world.
East Jerusalem can yet become capital of the Palestinian state
Reuters reported an interview with Ehud Barak aired on Al-Jazeera television. Barak said, "We can find a formula under which certain neighbourhoods, heavily-populated Arab neighbourhoods, could become, in a peace agreement, part of the Palestinian capital that, of course, will include also the neighbouring villages around Jerusalem."
This is, of course, no surprise. It's just that the continuing impasse in public covers up what has already been agreed in principle by various negotiators over the past few years.
Savir speaks about a new approach to the Middle East conflict
Uri Savir
Like many others with classes to teach in the Fall, I have been away from blogging for the Summer. But I did manage to conduct a significant interview with the Israeli career diplomat and Oslo Accords negotiator, Uri Savir.
His new book, Peace First, has just been published. In it he calls for a new approach to diplomacy. He speaks of peace building rather than peacemaking and the creation of an ecology of peace. With contributions by Shimon Peres, Dennis Ross and Ahmad Qurei, Peace First builds on Savir's work since 1993. He presently heads up the Peres Center for Peace in Tel Aviv and the Glocal Forum in Rome.
Career diplomat Uri Savir has a passion for peace in the Middle East. His latest book, Peace First (2008), calls for "a new model" for achieving lasting peace. This interview by publisher and Mideast scholar David Hulme is Savir's second for Vision.
