Ofer Zalzberg, a senior analyst with the International Crisis Group is a leading expert on the Holy Esplanade, the site in Jerusalem that Jews refer to as the Temple Mount and Muslims call the Haram al-Sharif. Ofer analyzes the current crisis and discusses ways in which similar crises may be avoided in the future. 

This episode is a slightly edited recording of Americans for Peace Now's second edition of The Dove, a storytelling event modeled after the well-known storytelling enterprise, The Moth. 

This event took place as violence was spiraling in East Jerusalem and the West Bank. The seven storytellers, however, tried to underscore hope, and we deeply appreciate them for it.

This event was co-sponsored by New Story Leadership, a Washington-based organization that brings together young Palestinians and Israelis to Washington for networking, honing leadership skills, and building bridges of peace and mutual understanding.

Grant Rumley is a research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a Washington think tank, where he focuses on Palestinian politics. Amir Tibon is the newly-appointed bureau chief of Israel's Haaretz newspaper.

Together, they authored a new biography of Mahmoud Abbas, (Abu Mazen) the President of the Palestinian Authority and the Chairman of the PLO.

Their book, The Last Palestinian: The Rise and Reign of Mahmoud Abbas, was launched on July 11 2017, and we interviewed them the next day at APN's office in Washington. This episode is slightly longer than our most recent ones. We hope you agree it's worth it.

Katya Lipovetzky, an Israeli, recently graduated from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Hashem Sayyed, a Palestinian, recently graduated from al-Quds University, the Palestinian university of Jerusalem.

Hashem and Katya are APN's summer interns, working together to produce our second storytelling event, The Dove.

The two are enrolled in New Story Leadership, a summer program in Washington that gives young Israelis and Palestinians a chance to meet each other, to network, to learn how Washington works and to hone their leadership skills.

In this short episode, Ori Nir and Stephanie Breitsman talk with Katya and Hashem about their lives and the conflict. To meet the two of them and four more of the NSL fellows Come to The Dove  on July 20th, at Busboys and Poets in Washington, DC at 8:30 PM. If you can't attend, you'll be able to listen to these young people's stories on a special episode of PeaceCast. 

Carmi Gilon, the former chief of Israel’s secret service, Shin Bet, for years helped run Israel's occupation in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Like many other Israeli former senior security officials,  he became an anti-occupation peace advocate when he finish his service. If you watched the documentary The Gatekeepers, which features Carmi Gilon among six past heads of Israel’s Shin-Bet, you understand why.

Episode 16 of PeaceCast features a conversation with Gilon, who today is the executive chair of Cytegic, an Israeli cyber security company.

Gilon served in the Shin Bet from 1972 just a few years after Israel occupied the West Bank and Gaza Strip, through 1996. He was the head of the service for a year (1995 to 1996), and then served in several public positions including the director of the Peres Center for Peace and Israel’s ambassador to Denmark. 

Stephanie Breitsman and Ori Nir spoke with him at APN’s office in DC on June 29th,  2017, while Gilon was on a Washington visit organized by J Street.