Prof. Yair Hirschfeld is an Israeli lecturer at the

University of Haifa The University of Haifa ( he, אוניברסיטת חיפה Arabic: جامعة حيفا) is a university located on Mount Carmel in Haifa, Israel. Founded in 1963, the University of Haifa received full academic accreditation in 1972, becoming Is ...

. Prof. Hirschfeld was a key architect of the

Oslo Accords The Oslo Accords are a pair of agreements between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO): the Oslo I Accord, signed in Washington, D.C., in 1993;

in 1993. He was born in Vienna and has been a strong supporter of the

two-state solution The two-state solution to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict envisions an independent State of Palestine alongside the State of Israel, west of the Jordan River. The boundary between the two states is still subject to dispute and negotiation ...

, and has urged the

Palestinian National Authority The Palestinian National Authority (PA or PNA; ar, السلطة الوطنية الفلسطينية '), commonly known as the Palestinian Authority and officially the State of Palestine,

and the Israeli government to accept some form of this solution.

Israeli–PLO negotiations

Benny Morris Benny Morris ( he, בני מוריס; born 8 December 1948) is an Israeli historian. He was a professor of history in the Middle East Studies department of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in the city of Beersheba, Israel. He is a member of t ...

' account, Hanan Ashrawi and Hirschfeld began maintaining back channels to the PLO's

Faisal Husseini Faisal Abdel Qader Al-Husseini ( ar, فيصل عبدالقادر الحسيني) (July 17, 1940 – May 31, 2001) was a Palestinian politician. Al-Husseini was born in Baghdad, Kingdom of Iraq, son of Abd al-Qadir al-Husayni, commander of local ...

in 1989. Hirschfeld, at Ashrawi's suggestion, sought out the PLO finance minister Abu Alaa (

Ahmed Qurei Ahmed Ali Mohammed Qurei (or Qureia; ar, أحمد علي محمد قريع, ), also known by his Arabic ''Kunya (Arabic), kunya'' Abu Alaa (, ) (born 26 March 1937) is a former Prime Minister of the Palestinian National Authority. First appointe ...

). Through the Norwegians—including Norwegian Deputy Foreign Minister

Jan Egeland Jan Egeland (born 12 September 1957) is a Norwegian diplomat, political scientist, humanitarian leader and former Labour Party politician who has been Secretary General of the Norwegian Refugee Council since 2013. He served as State Secretary i ...

and Rod Larsen of the Norwegian Institute of Applied Social Sciences—Hirschfeld had his first meeting with Abu Alaa in London on 4 December 1992. On 19 January 1993 the Israeli

Knesset The Knesset ( he, הַכְּנֶסֶת ; "gathering" or "assembly") is the unicameral legislature of Israel. As the supreme state body, the Knesset is sovereign and thus has complete control of the entirety of the Israeli government (with ...

repealed a law forbidding Israeli–PLO contacts. The next day Hirschfeld met Abu Alaa for the second time outside Oslo, accompanied by Israeli historian

Ron Pundak Ron Pundak ( he, רון פונדק; 14 May 1955 – 11 April 2014) was an Israeli historian and journalist. He played an important role in starting the Oslo peace process in 1993, and was part of the core group behind the Geneva Initiative. Pundak w ...

. With the approval of Peres' deputy Yossi Beilin the three met in secret four more times. After the final meeting in May the agreement was passed to official channels, to become the "Declaration of Principles". The first draft of the DOP laid out three basic terms: "Israel withdrawal from Gaza, gradual devolution of economic power to the Palestinians ... and ... international economic assistance to the nascent Palestinian entity in Gaza". It also included the "Gaza first" principle, according to which all stipulated Israeli concessions would be met in Gaza prior to any final settlement. By the final meeting it included elections, interim autonomy, and a handoff of power to the Palestinians, over the course of a gradual Israeli withdrawal. "Gaza first" also came to include some of the West Bank around Jericho. Amid further indirect negotiations between the Israel and the PLO leadership in Tunis through Egyptian channels with mediation by Norway, the discussions that began between Hirschfeld and Alaa culminated in the beginnings of the Oslo peace process, when on August 20 Peres flew to Oslo—the entire process still unknown to the public—and initialed the DOP.

Scientific work

He currently teaches at the University of Haifa in the Department of Middle Eastern History. He is the Director General of the

Tel Aviv Tel Aviv-Yafo ( he, תֵּל־אָבִיב-יָפוֹ, translit=Tēl-ʾĀvīv-Yāfō ; ar, تَلّ أَبِيب – يَافَا, translit=Tall ʾAbīb-Yāfā, links=no), often referred to as just Tel Aviv, is the most populous city in the G ...

-based Economic Cooperation Foundation (ECF).

Literature

* ''Track Two Diplomacy toward an Israeli-Palestinian Solution, 1978–2014'', Woodrow Wilson Center Press and Johns Hopkins University Press 2014.

References

External links

The Wilson Center – Yair Hirschfeld, PhD

Galilee International Management Institute – Dr. Yair Hirschfeld

The Road to Oslo, Secret Negotiations between Israel and the PLO, 1993, a publication on the website of the Israel State Archives, based on Yair Hirschfeld's papers

Living people University of Haifa faculty Year of birth missing (living people) {{Israel-academic-bio-stub