Kerry peace effort and mapping an Israeli-Palestinian border

This event with Geoffrey Aronson will be looking at the current status of the US-led peace talks and reviewing the territorial dimensions of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and options for drawing a border. 

Guests

Geoffrey Aronson, Director of Research at the Foundation for Middle East Peace

Daniel Levy, ECFR Middle East and North Africa Programme Director

Chaired by

Mattia Toaldo, ECFR Policy Fellow

With Secretary Kerry still clocking-up DC-Tel Aviv air miles and the nine month deadline for Israeli/Palestinian talks fast approaching, we are hosting a lunchtime discussion and primer looking at where the talks stand, what are the likely next steps and what are the detailed solutions the Americans could suggest. 

The drip of leaks from the talks has now become a steady stream and the parties are more publicly staking out their respective positions – so what can be expected from a potential US framework proposal and what will be the likely fate of the Kerry peace push? Can either the Israeli or Palestinian side afford to say no? Can they afford to say yes and what are the political risks entailed on all sides? Geoffrey Aronson and Daniel Levy will examine the fault lines of the current peace effort and offer a detailed guide on the cartographic conundrum of mapping a two-state border after forty-plus years of settlement building. 

Geoffrey Aronson is the Director of Research and Publications at the Foundation for Middle East Peace in Washington DC. He has consulted for both the World Bank and UN and testified in front of Congress on Israeli settlement activity in the OPTs. Aronson is the author of two books: “From Sideshow to Center Stage: US Policy towards Egypt and Israel, Palestinians”, and “the Occupied Territories: Creating Facts in the West Bank.”

Daniel Levy is the Director of the Middle East and North Africa Programme at ECFR. He is also a Senior Fellow at the New America Foundation and co-editor of foreignpolicy.com’s Middle East channel. Levy was previously an official negotiator for the Israeli government in peace talks with the Palestinians under Prime Ministers Rabin and Barak, and served as the lead Israeli drafter of the Geneva Initiative.

Mattia Toaldo is a Policy Fellow in the Middle East and North Africa Programme at ECFR where he is specialized on Israel and Palestine. He recently co- authored the Two-State Stress Test and “In search of legitimacy: the Palestinian national movement 20 years after Oslo”. He has worked since 2004 on the Middle East Peace Process both as a researcher and as a policy-consultant.