The International Studies Public Forum (ISPF) presents

"The Arab Spring and Its Implications on The Peace Process"
with David Makovsky,The Washington Institute’s Project on the Middle East Peace Process
and Ghaith Al Omari, Executive Director at the American Task Force in Palestine

Thursday, May 26, 2011
3:30-5:00 p.m.
Social Science Plaza A, Room 1100

David Makovsky is the Ziegler distinguished fellow and director of The Washington Institute for Near East Policy's Project on the Middle East Peace Process. He is also an adjunct lecturer in Middle Eastern studies at Johns Hopkins University’s Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). Before joining The Washington Institute, Makovsky was an award-winning journalist who covered the peace process from 1989 to 2000. He is the former executive editor of the Jerusalem Post and was diplomatic correspondent for Israel’s leading daily Haaretz. Now a contributing editor to U.S. News and World Report, he served for eleven years as the magazine’s special Jerusalem correspondent. He was awarded the National Press Club’s 1994 Edwin M. Hood Award for Diplomatic Correspondence for a cover story on PLO finances that he cowrote for the magazine. In July 1994, with the personal intervention of then Secretary of State Warren Christopher, Makovsky became the first journalist writing for an Israeli publication to visit Damascus. In total, he has made five trips to Syria, the latest in December 1999 as he accompanied then Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. In March 1995, with assistance from U.S. officials, Makovsky was given unprecedented permission to file reports from Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, for an Israeli publication.

Ghaith Al-Omari is executive director of the American Task Force in Palestine (ATFP). Prior to that, he served in various positions within the Palestinian Authority, including director of the International Relations Department in the Office of the Palestinian President, and advisor to former Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas. In these capacities, he provided advice on foreign policy -- especially vis-à-vis the United States and Israel -- and security. He has extensive experience in the Palestinian-Israeli peace process, having been an advisor to the Palestinian negotiating team throughout the permanent status negotiations (1999–2001). In that capacity, he participated in various negotiating rounds, most notably the Camp David summit and the Taba talks. After the breakdown of the Palestinian-Israeli negotiations, he was the lead Palestinian drafter of the Geneva Initiative, an unofficial model peace agreement negotiated between leading Palestinian and Israeli public figures. Al-Omari is a lawyer by training and a graduate of Georgetown and Oxford universities. Prior to his involvement in the Middle East peace process, he taught international law in Jordan and was active in human rights advocacy.

For further information, please visit http://internationalstudies.ss.uci.edu/is_public_forum.