Senior Advisors

Shlomo Ben-Ami

Shlomo Ben-Ami is an Oxford trained historian who holds a PHD from that university, a renowned author, and the former Israeli foreign minister. He taught in the history department of Tel Aviv University, was a visiting fellow at Oxford University, and the Woodrow Wilson International Center in Washington. Ben-Ami is the author of many books including Scars of War, Wounds of Peace.

He was appointed as Israel’s first Ambassador to Spain and was a member of Israel’s delegation to the Madrid Peace Conference. In 1996, Ben-Ami was elected to the Knesset, where he served as a member of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee.

Professor Ben-Ami was appointed Minister of Public Security in 1999 and Foreign Minister in 2000. He participated with Prime Minister Barak in the Camp David Summit and led the Israeli negotiating team in all the different phases of the negotiations with the Palestinians, including at Taba. He is currently the Vice President of the Toledo International Center for Peace, of which he is a co-founder.

Throughout 2009, Prof. Ben Ami served in the Advisory Board of The International Commission on Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament.



General Brent Scowcroft, Eric Melby and Henry Siegman

General Brent Scowcroft, Eric Melby and Henry Siegman

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Can Kerry Rescue a Two-State Peace Accord?

If the purpose of President Barack Obama’s visit to Israel was to dispel the view held by most Israelis, and by rightwing American Jewish supporters of AIPAC and the Likud’s annexationist policies, that he is hostile to Israel and to the Zionist enterprise, it must be judged a brilliant success. Not everyone was converted, but his words and personal charm seemed to have worked wonders on most Israelis.
While his visit was not expected to revive prospects for a two-state solution, he spoke far more directly and energetically about the need for an end to Israel’s occupation and about his own continuing efforts to help the parties achieve an agreement than his recent disengagement from the peace process prepared anyone for. But nothing he said in Jerusalem or Ramallah–and, more importantly, that he failed to say–justifies an expectation that his reengagement will be of a kind that has any chance of preventing Benjamin Netanyahu’s new government from finally nailing down the coffin in which they are burying a viable two-state outcome.

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