Press Release

Contact:
Doug Stone or Barbara Laskin
651-696-6203

A Mideast Summit: Challenges to Peace” with Palestinian Hanan Ashrawi,
Israeli Yossi Beilin and Former Vice President Walter F. Mondale

St. Paul, Minn. – Two Mideast peace advocates, Palestinian Hanan Ashrawi and Israeli Yossi Beilin, will discuss possible solutions to conflicts that divide the Middle East in a panel discussion titled “A Mideast Summit: Challenges to Peace,”  Mon., Sept. 17, 2007, Alexander G. Hill Ballroom, Kagin Commons, 1600 Grand Avenue, St. Paul, Minn. 4:30 p.m.  The panel is free but tickets are required and available in a limited amount beginning Sept. 13 at the Macalester College Campus Center.  Former Vice President Walter F. Mondale will moderate.

From 1991-93, Ashrawi was the Official Spokesperson for the Palestin­ian Authority delegation for the U.S.-Israel-Palestinian Peace Talks and a member of the leadership team, which resulted ultimately in the Oslo Accords. Ashrawi is credited with being one of the main architects of the 1991 Madrid Peace Talks so-called two-stage framework. She has served the Palestinian Authority in numerous lead­ership roles. She is currently an elected member of the Palestinian Legislative Council for Jerusalem. Ashrawi is Gen­eral Secretary and Founder of Miftah: The Palestinian Initiative for the Promo­tion of Global Dialogue and Democracy. She is the author of several books including Contemporary Palestinian Poetry and Fiction and her autobiography This Side of Peace: A Personal Account.

Currently Chairman of the Meretz-Yachad Party and a member of the Israeli Knesset, Beilin has had a long diplomatic and political career starting in 1984. Con­sidered by many to be “the father of the Oslo agreements,” he initiated secret negotiations with the Palestinian Author­ity early in 1992 which led to the Oslo Accords and the famous handshake on the White House lawn a year later. In 2003 Beilin developed the Geneva Accords. The principles of both Oslo and Geneva are used as guidelines by most parties still working on peace initiatives. His many books include Israel, A Concise Political History, Touching Peace, His Brother’s Keeper and Manual for a Wounded Dove.

Mondale ’50 was Vice President of the United States from 1977 to 1981, under President Jimmy Carter. He was a key participant in the delicate negotia­tions between Egypt’s Anwar Sadat and Israel’s Menachem Begin that led to the Camp David Accords in 1978. He served as U.S. Ambassador to Japan from 1993 to 1996. He was a U.S. Senator from Minnesota from 1964 to 1976, where his work focused on children, education, civil rights and intel­ligence issues. He is currently a partner in the Minneapolis law firm of Dorsey & Whitney LLP.
 
Macalester College, founded in 1874, is a national liberal arts college with a full-time enrollment of 1,884 students. Macalester is nationally recognized for its long-standing commitment to academic excellence, internationalism, multiculturalism and civic engagement.