Gershon Baskin revealed the story behind the secret backchannel that took place between Hamas and Israel leading to the prisoner’s exchange and Schalit’s release in October 2011.
Gershon Baskin joined the family of Avraham Abera Mengistu, an Israeli man held by Hamas in Gaza, at a demonstration demanding his release in front of the Prime Minister’s Residence in Jerusalem to mark two years since his disappearance.
Gershon Baskin will speak on the subject: “Peace for Israel and Palestine: Is it Possible?” at the “Making Peace, the obstacles and the ways around them” session at the upcoming Days for Peace Conference in Mexico City.
Gershon Baskin addresses YaLa’s Peace Conference during which political, economic and cultural leaders shared their messages of support and encouragement for the 5th anniversary of the YaLa Young Leaders movement
Gershon Baskin believes that the parties started their discussions prior to the decision to go to elections and continued during the campaign. When the agreement was reached, Abbas wanted to make it public, but Herzog refused. Herzog explained that his campaign managers and PR advisors anticipated a negative effect on his electability.
Gershon Baskin, an Israeli who has acted as an unofficial conduit between Israel and Palestinian leaders, personally delivered three Abbas offers for direct talks to Netanyahu’s office over the past three years.
Gershon Baskin, who has in the past acted as a conduit between the Netanyahu government and Palestinian officials, said that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas offered three times to begin secret, direct negotiations with Netanyahu. Each time, Baskin said, Netanyahu refused.
Gershon Baskin believes that Jerusalem was a microcosm of the entire Arab-Israeli conflict and that conventional wisdom throughout years of the peace process had been to leave Jerusalem “until the end” when, in fact, it should have been the first issue on the agenda.
Gershon Baskin claims that Israel has refused to reconvene the US-led committee on dealing with incitement and when the committee existed after the Wye River Memorandum, they never even agreed on the definition of incitement.
Gershon Baskin believes that if we had an Israeli partner who was willing to play along with the Arab Peace Initiative, we could throw the ball of Gaza over to the Arab League, and say ‘do what you did during the civil war in Lebanon’ – send in a multi-national force to disarm Hamas.