In commemoration of the 25th anniversary of Yitzhak Rabin’s assassination, American University’s School of International Service (SIS) and AU's Center for Israel Studies (CIS) are hosting an enlightening panel discussion around Israel-US relations. SIS Professor Guy Ziv will moderate a conversation with Ambassador Itamar Rabinovich, Dr. Galia Golan, and Ambassador Dennis Ross. The discussion will focus on Rabin’s legacy in the context of US-Israel relations and discuss what those relations may look like after the US presidential election in November. An audience Q&A will follow the discussion.

*Originally Prime Minister Rabin's daughter, Dalia Rabin, was to join this conversation.

Event attendees should join the Zoom webinar using this link: https://american.zoom.us/j/92903939037

Biographies

Dr. Galia Golan is Professor emerita of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where she was chair of the Political Science Department. She is the author of 10 books, most recently Israeli Peace-making since 1967: Factors Behind the Breakthroughs and Failures. She was a member of the Labor Party (Executive Bureau and the Political Committee) from 1977-1992; a member of the national executive of Meretz 1992-2020; and a member of the editorial board of the Palestine-Israel Journal. She was a founder and leader of Peace Now until 2014, when she joined the leadership of Combatants for Peace. She was a founder-leader of the Jerusalem Link: A Joint Israeli-Palestinian Venture for Peace as well as a leader of the International Women’s Commission for a Just Israeli-Palestinian Peace, and also the founder of Israel’s first women’s studies program and research center at the Hebrew University. She has received numerous awards, including the Gleitsman International Activist Award, the New Israel Fund Women in Leadership Award, the International Studies Association’s Distinguished Scholar Award and also its Scholar/Activist Award, and the Israel Political Science Association Award for Lifetime Contribution.

Ambassador Itamar Rabinovich is Professor Emeritus of Middle Eastern History at Tel Aviv University. He is Israel's former ambassador to the United States and former Chief Negotiator with Syria in the mid-1990s, and the former President of Tel Aviv University (1999-2007). He is President Emeritus and Counselor of the Israel Institute (Washington and Tel Aviv) and a Distinguished Fellow of the Brooking Institution's Foreign Policy Program. Professor Rabinovich is the author of nine books on the Modern History and Politics of the Middle East, including a biography of Yitzhak Rabin; that book was translated into seven languages and is the winner of the 2017 Washington Institute’s Gold Medal.

For more than twelve years, Ambassador Dennis Ross played a leading role in shaping US involvement in the Middle East peace process and dealing directly with the parties in negotiations. Ambassador Ross was US point man on the peace process in both the George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton administrations. He was instrumental in assisting Israelis and Palestinians to reach the 1995 Interim Agreement; he also successfully brokered the 1997 Hebron Accord and facilitated the 1994 Israel-Jordan peace treaty. As a scholar and diplomat with more than two decades of experience in Soviet and Middle East policy, he also served as special assistant to President Obama and special advisor to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. He is currently counselor and William Davidson Distinguished Fellow at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

Professor Guy Ziv teaches a variety of undergraduate and graduate courses on U.S. foreign policy, the Middle East, and international negotiations. His current research focuses on foreign policy decision-making, the influence of think tanks in U.S. foreign policy, and the role of political elites in the Arab-Israeli conflict. Professor Ziv has a background in policy, having worked at the US Department of State, on Capitol Hill, and for leading non-profit organizations that promote American involvement in Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking.

This event is co-sponsored by American University's Center for Israel Studies (CIS).

CIS is one of the nation’s premier centers for educating about Israel. Our approach is multidisciplinary, going beyond the Arab-Israeli conflict to study modern Israel’s history, vibrant society, culture, multiethnic democracy, and complex geopolitical issues. The center’s goal is to enhance scholarship and knowledge about a multifaceted Israel in the university and the wider community.