Abstract:

Prof. Klein will present a portrait of Abbas as PA President including in comparison to his predecessor – Arafat. Klein deals with these two leaders in my forthcoming book Arafat and Abbas: Portraits of Leadership in a State Postponed (C Hurst & Co Publishers, May 2015)

About the speaker:

Prof. Menachem Klein is a faculty member in the Department of Political Science at Bar-Ilan University, Israel. He studied Middle East and Islamic Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and among other posts was also a fellow at St. Antony’s College. Since 1996 he is active in many unofficial negotiations with Palestinian counterparts. In 2000 Prof. Klein was an adviser for Jerusalem Affairs and Israel-PLO Final Status Talks to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Prof. S. Ben-Ami, and a member of advisory team operating in the office of Prime Minister Ehud Barak. In October 2003 Prof. Klein signed together with prominent Israeli and Palestinian negotiators the Geneva Agreement – a detailed proposal for a comprehensive Israeli-Palestinian peace accord. His book Lives in Common – Arabs and Jews in Jerusalem, Jaffa and Hebron, was mentioned by the New Republic as one of the best non-fiction books for 2014. His forthcoming book, Arafat and Abbas: Portraits of Leadership in a State Postponed is to be published in may.