Among the many academic research institutes and universities in which former Israeli Ambassador Itamar Rabinovich is active, the Israel Institute that he has headed since it was founded in Washington a year ago is the youngest. It is also the most challenging. The new institution’s goal is to present modern-day Israel to the United States and the world at large.
The Israel Institute is located close to the administrative power hubs in the US capital. In its statement of intent, Rabinovich writes: “For good or bad, Israel is a country that evokes powerful emotions. It has always been difficult to study, teach and research it with the equanimity that other countries and regions have enjoyed as an academic issue.”
Rabinovich served as Israel’s ambassador to the United States from 1993 to 1996 and headed the Israeli delegation to the diplomatic talks with Syria in 1996. In his most recent publications, he expresses deep frustration that Israel has not yet succeeded in reaching diplomatic arrangements with its neighbors.
His research books The Brink of Peace, Waging Peace and The Lingering Conflict: Israel, the Arabs, and the Middle East, 1948-2011 offer a realistic analysis of Israel’s status in the turbulent mire that is the Middle East. In an interview with Al-Monitor, Rabinovich says that Russia’s emergence as an influential player in the region is not to Israel’s benefit.
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