Gershon Baskin shares his views at the The Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Lund University (CMES) in Sweden
Lund University
Gershon Baskin’s presentation was held at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Lund University (CMES).
CMES was founded in 2007 in an effort to support and coordinate research on the region at Lund University. Research on the Middle East has existed in Lund since the university’s founding in 1666. Over the last few decades, an increasing amount of disciplines across all faculties of the university have begun conducting research and teaching courses on the region. CMES will continue to support these efforts by becoming a international hub in Scandinavia for interdisciplinary research on the Middle East.
Before the presentation, Gershon was warned that the center and this university are very anti-Israel and that previous Israeli lecturers were made very unwelcome (to say the least).
Gershon Baskin lectured to a full room (many were siting outside the room with an overflow crowd) of faculty and students. There were Arab and Muslim students along with at least one Jewish Swede and one Israeli Jew in the audience. There was a Swedish Palestinian who described himself as a refugee from Haifa who grew up in Syria.
Gershon Baskin made no attempts to hide my view that the only solution to the Israeli Palestinian conflict is two states for two peoples. There could have been no doubt to anyone in the audience of Gershon Baskin’s position that Israel has every legitimate right to exist in peace next to the Palestinian state. Gershon Baskin found absolutely no aggression to himself or his positions – quite the opposite. The audience was engaging, interested and very positive.
When you speak peace and you are genuine about it – you will find peace – most of the time.
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