Yair Hirschfeld: IS PEACEFUL COEXISTENCE BETWEEN ISRAELIS AND PALESTINIANS POSSIBLE?

Tessa Szyszkowitz in conversation with Yair Hirschfeld





IS PEACEFUL COEXISTENCE BETWEEN ISRAELIS AND PALESTINIANS
POSSIBLE?
Analysing past & future options for negotiations in
the Middle East


 


How does one of the central figures of the Oslo Peace Process
look back on the attempt to create a Two-State-Solution for
Israelis and Palestinians more than 30 years ago? In his new book
“The Israeli-Palestinian Peace Process” the Israeli historian
Yair Hirschfeld relives his Track-2-negotiations with Palestinian
and Israeli politicians, which resulted in the Oslo Accord in
1993. Hirschfeld does not stop there. From the Holocaust to
October 7th, he analyses causes and impact of continued Jewish
trauma on the Middle East. And Hirschfeld examines the political
setting both Israelis and Palestinians find themselves in today,
with failed political leaderships seemingly unable to break out
of the circle of violence. He then outlines lessons to learn for
future peace negotiations.


Was peace ever possible between Israelis and Palestinians? Yair
Hirschfeld says: “We might need new ways to achieve it. But we
should never give up.”


 


Yair Hirschfeld is a lecturer at the University
of Haifa in the Department of Middle Eastern History. He is the
Director General of the Tel Aviv-based Economic Cooperation
Foundation (ECF). He was a key architect of the Oslo Accords in
1993.


Tessa Szyszkowitz is an Austrian journalist and
author. A UK correspondent for Austrian and German publications
such as Falter or Tagesspiegel, she curates Philoxenia at
Kreiskyforum and she is a Distinguished Fellow of the Royal
United Services Institute in London.