 Media Credit: Clare Sweeney Ambassador Imatar Rabinovich addressed the BC community Tuesday.
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On Tuesday afternoon, professors and students turned off CNN and tuned in to a dose of firsthand experience in the Middle East at a lecture titled "The U.S., Israel, and Syria: On the Path to Settlement or a New Conflict?" Imatar Rabinovich, former Israeli ambassador to the United States, captivated the audience with snippets of history, reflections on his experiences as a negotiator and views on current events in the Middle East. "It is difficult and even dangerous to analyze Syrian politics and to prognosticate about Syrian politics," Rabinovich said.
The talk was part of a series presented jointly by the Jewish Studies and Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies departments titled "Energy, International Security, and the Middle East."
The presentation opened with an introduction by professor Ali Banuazizi of the Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies department. Banuazizi called Rabinovich "the world authority and most distinguished student of the peace process in the Middle East." Rabinovich's lengthy professional and academic résumé includes being chief negotiator with Syria, Israeli ambassador to the United States from 1993-96, and president of Tel Aviv University.
Rabinovich gave a brief history of Israeli-Syrian relations and its importance in the Middle East. Rabinovich said that Syria is an ally of Iran, has influence in Lebanon and Hezbollah, and could potentially start another war in the Middle East. In the 1990s, he explained, Israel's focus was always on resolving the Syrian conflict first and the Palestinian conflict second.
But the death of Syrian President Hafiz al-Assad and former Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon's focus on the Palestinians caused the talks to end without producing any results. Now, the situation has been complicated by the unwillingness of the Bush administration to get involved and the lack of interest from current Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.
To tie everything together, Rabinovich emphasized the importance of diplomacy. He highlighted the advantages of a peace accord between Israel and Syria as it would be a defeat for Iran and a resolution to problems in Lebanon.
Students and professors expressed a wide variety of reactions after the discussion. Professor Nasser Behnegar admitted that he was not an expert on the topic, but that the lecture convinced him of the importance of the Israeli-Syrian relations. "The lecture was a very informative history of the Israeli-Syrian negotiations by a man who participated in it," he said.
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