Shlomo Avineri, a professor at Hebrew University of Jersualem in the political sciences department, visited campus Wednesday, April 21 to lecture on the Israeli-Palestinian issue.

Avineri served as the Director-General of Foreign Affairs in the Israeli ministry from 1975 to 1977 as a member of the Labour Party. He also worked in an international team of observers during the first post-Communist elections in Estonia, Hungary and Czechoslovakia.

Avineri is noted for his specialization in the works of Hegel and Marx. He is a widely published author with articles and books discussing Middle Eastern and international affairs and political theory.

His lecture, “Is a Two State Solution Possible?” drew a wide audience, including community members, students, professors and chaplains. His thesis was that the only true solution to peace was the existence of both a Palestinian and Israel state with recognition of legitimacy from both sides.

“A two-state solution is the only possible solution in the long-run,” he said.

The lecture discussed the attitudes and mindsets of both the Israelis and Palestinians. In it, he traced the history of the founding of Israel from the British commissions in 1937 to the construction of the security barrier in the past few months.

Avineri especially focused on the 1947 founding of the Israeli and Palestinian partitions and the peace talks during the administrations of Carter and Clinton.

“The great hope of the Israel central left in 1993,” Avineri said. “It was a beginning of a Palestinian shift from a non-acceptance of Israel to a willingness to start something which was a historical compromise between the two movements.”

He praised Bush’s proposals for to peace, but said it was “more of a wish list than a road map.”

Avineri referred to the Camp David talks of 2000, in which Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak conceded all Palestinian territories and some Israeli territories to Arafat but was refused. The existence of Israel, he argued, was unacceptable to Palestinians entirely and to create peace, this position is unacceptable. To have peace, he said, the two sides would have to compromise and accept each other. Palestine, he said, was not accepting the existence of Israeli.

Later Avineri defended Sharon’s construction of the security wall around Palestinian territories. He described the Palestinians as a hostile population to the Israelis. Drawing parallels to other hostile neighboring countries, he said that when there is a hostile enemy a physical barrier is sometimes necessary to save the lives of citizens on both sides of the wall.

After the lecture, Avineri fielded questions from the audience.