Transcripts of interviews with witnesses and participants in history, of expert observations from retrospective conferences examining key events and concepts in Israel's development, and of CIE webinars and workshop sessions
Nabil Shaath was a close adviser to Arafat particularly in the tumultuous 1998-1993 period when the PLO was buffeted by events and bad choices. Shaath praised Secretary Baker, President Bush and Yitzhak Rabin, and was pleased that Palestinians were participating in the Madrid Conference. He hoped for an end to the conflict with Israel in 1992, based on land for peace but held out for the right of Palestinian return for that to happen. In 2023 he is a foreign policy adviser to Mahmoud Abbas.
To commemorate the 20th anniversary of the 1991 Madrid Middle East Peace Conference, the U.S. Institute of Peace and the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy convened Arab, Israeli, American and European diplomats, policymakers, businesspeople, academics and activists in Washington on November 2, 2011, to discuss the achievements and lessons of the peace conference.
Yossi Ben-Aharon was the director general of Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir’s office from 1988 to 1992. He was intimately involved in Israeli-U.S. negotiations that eventually saw a highly reluctant Israeli prime minister attend the October-November 1991 Madrid Middle East Peace Conference. Ben-Aharon’s evaluations of U.S. Secretary of State Baker, his assistant Dennis Ross, and President George H.W. Bush are insightful.
As a longtime confidant of Menachem Begin involved in the Herut party, Eliyahu Ben-Elissar was Israel’s first ambassador to Egypt. He was a staunch supporter of keeping the area of the West Bank — Judea and Samaria — under Israeli control. Later he became Israel’s ambassador to France and then the United States.
Jordanian Prime Minister Zaid Rifai lucidly explains Jordan’s role (inclusion and exclusion) in regional politics from before the 1973 October war to the late 1980s. His insights into Kissinger’s diplomacy and Arafat’s unfounded fear of being absorbed by Jordan are as worthy as they are insightful.
(November 1, 1995) Interview with Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin by anchorman Ehud Yaari, Kol Yisra’el party affairs correspondent Yaron Dekel, and YEDI’OT AHARONOT political correspondent Shimon Schiffer
Ambassador Bandar Bin Sultan served as Saudi Arabia’s Ambassador to the United States from 1983 to 2006. From 2005 to 2015 he led the country’s National Security Council. He offers a scathing attack on Yasser Arafat’s failure to embrace multiple negotiating overtures proposed by Presidents Carter and Reagan. Additionally, he expresses his anger at the present Palestinian leadership for criticizing the UAE’s recognition of Israel in the 2020 Abraham Accords.
