I’m excited to be writing from Tel Aviv, where I am about to participate in this year’s Meretz USA Israel Symposium, which gets underway tomorrow evening.
This year’s Symposium program will be intense. We’ll be all over the country – in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and Ramallah, up north to the Golan Heights and Galilee, and down south to the Negev. All in one week!
And we’ll be meeting with the a huge array of public figures: Peace activists and members of the human rights community, members of Knesset from across the political spectrum, members of the security establishment, diplomats, journalists, and representatives of Israel’s Palestinian Arab community, and of the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank.
Prof. Naomi Chazan, Tzippi Livni, Mohammad Darawshe, Akiva Eldar, Avraham Burg, Avi Dichter, Danny Ayalon, Amira Hass and Gershon Baskin are just a small sampling of people we’ll be speaking to, not to mention leading figures in the Meretz party, Haim Oron, Nitzan Horowitz, Mossi Raz, Abu Vilan and others.
And we’ll be digging deep into some complex issues: The shape of the peace process, the nature of the Occupation, the dangers confronting Israeli democracy, the difficult status of Israel’s Palestinian-Arab minority, the tensions between secular and religious, and the challenges to Zionism.
In short, it is going to be a whirlwind visit, and – the wonders of technology willing – I plan to blog about it in real time. So please keep visiting the Meretz USA blog to hear the latest about our seminar.
And even though the Israel Symposium hasn’t yet officially begun, you’re invited to click here to read my first, brief, blog on the newest East Jerusalem construction.
Shabbat Shalom,
Ron Skolnik
Executive Director
Meretz USA
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