IPF to Provide Instant Analysis of Obama-Netanyahu Meeting

On Monday, May 18^th at 3:30pm EST, IPF National Scholar Dr. Steven L. Spiegel will interview Ambassadors Sam Lewis and Oded Eran.

Sam Lewis is the former U.S. Ambassador to Israel and Oded Eran is the former Israeli Ambassador to Jordan and the EU. They will provide an analysis of the critical first meeting of Obama and Netanyahu that day.

This call will be open to Subscribers to IPF's publications. To receive an invitation to the conference call, please subscribe here.

_________________________________________________________________________

Ambassador Samuel W. Lewis spent 31 years as a career diplomat prior to his most recent government service as Director of the Department of State's Policy Planning Staff in 1993 and 1994. He formerly served as first President and CEO of the United States Institute of Peace.  He has held such senior posts as Ambassador to Israel for eight years from 1977 to 1985, a period which spanned negotiation of the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty and the 1982 Lebanon War, Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs, Senior Staff Member for Latin America at the National Security Council, Special Assistant to the Deputy Secretary of State, Deputy Director of the Policy Planning Staff under Secretary Kissinger and Charge d'affaires in Afghanistan.  He serves on IPF's US Advisory Council as a senior policy advisor.

Ambassador Oded Eran served as Israel's ambassador to Jordan from 1997-2000. During that time he headed Israel's negotiations team with the Palestinians. From 2002-2007, he served as Israel's ambassador to the European Union, where he also covered NATO. Prior to assuming the position of Director of the Institute for National Security Studies in July 2008, he served as the World Jewish Congress (WJC) Representative in Israel and the Secretary General of the WJC Israel Branch. Earlier in his career, he held the post of Deputy Director General of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and was Deputy Chief of the Israeli Embassy in Washington. Ambassador Eran serves as an advisor to the Knesset Subcommittee on Foreign Affairs. He holds a Ph.D. from the London School of Economics.

Dr. Steven L. Spiegel, Professor of Political Science at UCLA and National Scholar at IPF, is among the world's foremost experts on American foreign policy in the Middle East. He is the director of the Center for Middle East Development at UCLA and of Track II Middle East programs at the University of California's Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation. He provides policy direction and expertise, and also writes frequent analyses of the latest developments in Arab-Israeli relations. Dr. Spiegel received the Karpf Peace Prize in 1995, and has advised several presidential campaigns and Members of Congress on Arab-Israeli diplomacy. He currently resides in Los Angeles.