Shlomo ben ami biography channel

Shlomo Ben-Ami’s background

Having headed the Graduate School of History at Tel Aviv University from 1982 until 1986, where he became a full professor and assumed The Elias Sourasky Chair for Spanish and Latin American Studies, his great historical knowledge and experience as a diplomat and politician make him one of the most acclaimed experts on the Middle East and international conflict resolution.

In 1987, he was appointed to be Israel’s first Ambassador to Spain, where he served until December 1991. In 1996 he was elected to the legislative branch of the Israeli government, or the Knesset, as a member of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee.

After Labor’s landslide victory in 1999, Professor Ben-Ami became Minister of Public Security before being appointed Foreign Minister the following year.

As well as having been a member of Israel’s delegation to the Madrid Peace Conference, in 1993, he headed the Israeli delegation at the Multilateral Talks on Refuge

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Extended interview: Shlomo Ben Ami

These are clips from an extended interview with former Israeli foreign minister Shlomo Ben Ami, who talks about the campaign against Yasser Arafat and the logic behind Israel’s targeted assassinations.

So I think that this is what one can say of Arafat. As a whole, my impression of the man, I never came to negotiate with Arafat from a sense that I’m talking to a bloodthirsty enemy which some of my colleagues felt. I came to this man from a position of respect. To me, he was an intriguing figure, very intriguing. I’m not sure I understood him fully. The whole process was, for me, a process of discovery of a man very complex, very complicated. Sometimes I think that to write a biography of Arafat, you would need a Talmudic scholar and you had always to interpret what he meant by what he said.

I think it was Lloyd George who said of de Valera, the Irish leader, that negotiating with de Valera is like picking up mercury with a fork. More or less,

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Ben-Ami, Shlomo 1943- (Shlomo Ben Ami)

PERSONAL:

Born July 17, 1943, in Tangier, Morocco; immigrated to Israel, 1955, became citizen, 1959; son of Yaakov (a worker) and Alegria (a homemaker) Ben-Ami; married Ruth Simhony (a teacher), August 7, 1966; children: Ronen, Yotam, Aner. Education: Tel-Aviv University, B.A., 1970, M.A., 1971; Oxford University, D.Phil., 1974.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Kfar-Saba, Israel. Office—School of History, Tel-Aviv University, Ramat-Aviv, Tel-Aviv, Israel.

CAREER:

Tel-Aviv University, Tel-Aviv, Israel, lecturer, 1977-79, senior lecturer, 1979, associate professor, 1979-80, head of school of history, 1982—. Military service: Israeli Defense Forces, 1962-64.

MEMBER:

Society for Spanish and Portuguese Historical Studies.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Research fellowship at St. Antony's College, Oxford, 1980-82.

WRITINGS:

Sefarad ben diktaturah le-demokratyah, 1936-1977 (title means "Spain from Dictatorship to Democracy, 1936-1977"), Am Oved (Tel-Aviv, Isra