Israel Matzav

Third annual President's conference

The third annual President's conference opened on Tuesday at the Jerusalem Convention Center. I have managed to wrangle myself a blogger's pass and will be reporting from the conference on Wednesday and Thursday - work obligations prevented me from attending on Tuesday.

It sounds like I didn't miss many of the people I really want to hear - the speakers on Tuesday included Shimon Peres (who is the sponsor), Amos Oz and Tony Blair.

The speakers at this year’s President’s Conference will include Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, opposition head Tzipi Livni, Quartet envoy Tony Blair, former Shas chairman Arye Deri, British Ambassador Matthew Gould, US Ambassador Dan Kurtzer, French intellectual Bernard- Henri Lévy, author Amos Oz, US diplomat Dennis Ross, hitech entrepreneur Yossi Vardi – and, of course, President Shimon Peres.

Plenary sessions will deal with nations, ethics, trends, challenges, decisions, global perspectives for tomorrow and future media.

The panel discussions promise to be more interesting but will in many cases leave audiences frustrated because there will be too many people addressing each topic, which means that few if any participants will have time to develop a theme and audiences will not be much wiser, if any wiser, at the end.
The topics of some of these discussions are: Thin Ice – Criticism vs. Loyalty in Israel-Diaspora relations; The Israel Economy – A Small, Leading Market; Israel and America: Has the Love Cooled?; The Future of European Jewry; The Israeli- Palestinian Peace Process; Delegitimization; Conversion: Who Keeps the Gate for the Jewish Nation; Jewish Identity; Israel and the Diaspora: Relationship among Equals?; Cutting Edge Medicine; Will We Miss the Old Middle East?; New Energy for Tomorrow; The Jewish Dimension of a Peace Agreement; Where is Jewish Philanthropy Headed?; The Drama of Brain Research; and Stopping Nuclear Proliferation.

The plenary session tickets for bloggers are limited. I may not get into all of them. But I should be able to choose one panel discussion for each session.

I will try to keep things interesting for you.

Labels: Amos Oz, President's Conference, Shimon Peres, Tony Blair

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 9:30 PM