Biographies
	Sari Nusseibeh In October 2001, Dr. Sari Nusseibeh was appointed to the position of senior Palestinian Liberation Organization representative in Jerusalem, replacing the late Faisal Husseini. Born to a prominent Jerusalem family in 1949, Dr. Nusseibeh received his PhD in Islamic Philosophy from Harvard University in 1978, taught philosophy at Birzeit University from 1978-1990, and, in 1995, became President of al-Quds University, which, with 6,000 students, is the largest Palestinian educational institution in Jerusalem. Dr. Nusseibeh has long been an advocate of peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians. In 1987, he became the first prominent Palestinian to hold talks with a senior Likud politician (Moshe Amirav). He was an organizer in the first Intifada from 1987-1993. In 1991, he became a member of the Palestinian steering committee to the Madrid peace talks. That same year, he co-authored No Trumpets, No Drums, with Tel Aviv University scholar Mark Heller, a book calling for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. With Moshe Maoz of the Hebrew University, he co-edited Jerusalem: Points of Friction-And Beyond (2000), which provides models for resolving conflicts over the holy sites in Jerusalem. Dr. Nusseibeh has gained considerable attention with his public criticisms of the direction of the current Intifada and his call for both sides to make difficult compromises in the pursuit of peace, such as the Palestinian refugees dropping all claims to a right of return to land inside the State of Israel. He also believes that Jerusalem must be a shared, open city with dual sovereignty. Dr. Nusseibeh is one of the most senior Palestinians involved in writing the Joint Declaration for Peace issued in July 2001, an important call from leading Palestinian and Israeli peace advocates for an end to violence and a return to negotiations, and in organizing the Israeli-Palestinian Coalition for Peace. Most recently, he and former Israeli security Shin Bet chief Ami Ayalon devised a statement of basic principles for ending the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The Nusseibeh-Ayalon Agreement provides for an unequivocal recognition of Israel as the Jewish state, a complete relinquishment of the right of refugee return for Palestinians to Israel, and demilitarization for the Palestinian state. The proposed agreement is to be entered into between the Palestinian people and the Jewish people, and each recognizes the other's historic rights to the same land, while accepting the need for a historic compromise, resulting in two states for two peoples. Menahem Brinker Professor Menahem Brinker is the preeminent ideological founder of the Israeli peace movement, a professor of philosophy and literature at the Hebrew University and the University of Chicago, and the author of six books on esthetics, philosophy, and literature. His commitment to peace was born out of his personal experiences serving in the Six Day War, in addition to his service in the IDF from 1953-1955 and during the Yom Kippur War. Following Israel’s victory in the Six Day War, a new right-wing movement emerged in Israel that was committed to holding onto the West Bank and Gaza at any cost. To counteract this development, in 1969, Professor Brinker drafted the Founding Manifesto of the Israeli Movement for Peace and Security—a movement that served as the main pro-peace opposition to the new right-wing until the founding of Peace Now in 1978. His intellectual leadership of the peace camp was further solidified in 1973 when he became the Founding Editor of the monthly journal Emda, a publication that served as a sounding board for pro-peace ideas and whose contributors and readers crossed party lines. In the years that followed, Emda and Brinker had a substantial impact on the peace movement in terms of articulating policy and clarifying values, which in turn contributed to the broader national discourse. In 1978, Professor Brinker decided to devote himself to his academic career. Since that time, he has lectured throughout the world and taught at the university level in Israel and abroad, while remaining a key member of the Peace Now Jerusalem branch. Mark Rosenblum Mark Rosenblum is the Founder and Policy Director of Americans for Peace Now, Professor of History at Queens College and Director of the Michael Harrington Center for Democratic Values and its Middle East Project. He attended the Madrid Peace Conference in October and November 1991 and has directly monitored all subsequent rounds of peace talks in Washington, DC. He has spoken and written extensively as a Middle East political analyst. His radio and television appearances include The Larry King Live Show, CBS and NBC evening news, CNN, and National Public Radio; he is currently a Middle East analyst for MSNBC. His most recent writings have been featured in the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, Boston Globe, Miami Herald, Philadelphia Inquirer, and the Washington Jewish Week. He is completing two forthcoming books: From Oslo to Intifada and Beyond: The Elusive Peace, co-edited with Gidon D. Remba, and Two Jerusalems, One Peace: Capitalizing on Reality. Shibley Telhami Shibley Telhami is Anwar Sadat Professor for Peace and Development at the University of Maryland and senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C., and one of America's most notable Middle East commentators. A frequent contributor to the Washington Post, The New York Times, the Boston Globe and the Los Angeles Times, he also hosts a weekly radio commentary that is broadcast throughout the Middle East. Previously a board member of the United States Institute of Peace, he is currently a member of the board of Human Rights Watch. His new book, The Stakes: America and the Middle East , was recently published by Westview Press and will be available for purchase and signing at the program. Yossi Alpher A former senior official with the Mossad and past Director of the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University, Yossi Alpher is one of the most widely respected strategic analysts on the Middle East and the Arab-Israel conflict. He served as a senior advisor to Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak during the Camp David summit. In collaboration with Ghassan Khatib, Minister of Labor in the Palestinian Authority, he has created an Israeli-Palestinian internet dialogue called www.bitterlemons.org and is currently co-editor.