Hundreds of leading dignitaries set to attend annual Jerusalem Post Diplomatic Conference

100 countries will be represented at Thursday's conference.

By DAVID BRINN
JPost Diplomatic conference 370 (photo credit: The Jerusalem Post)
JPost Diplomatic conference 370
(photo credit: The Jerusalem Post)
A veritable who’s who of the Israeli political and diplomatic community are to convene Thursday morning in Herzliya for the second annual Jerusalem Post Diplomatic Conference.
Over 200 ambassadors, consuls and members of the foreign diplomatic corps are expected to join around 100 senior Israeli officials, leaders of world Jewry, foreign correspondents from the leading global media outlets, and the Post’s editors and management to hear a wide-ranging lineup of speakers, led by President Shimon Peres, Finance Minister Yair Lapid and Justice Minister Tzipi Livni.
Jerusalem Post editor-in-chief Steve Linde said the conference was taking place at an opportune moment.
“This is a critical time for the future of Israel as a Jewish, democratic state in a region suffering massive turmoil,” said Linde, who will emcee the morning conference at the Daniel Herzliya and hold a question- and-answer session with Peres. “Who better to answer questions about the existential challenges facing us than the sterling lineup of guest speakers we have invited?” In addition to Peres, Lapid and Livni, conference attendees will hear talks from British Ambassador Matthew Gould; Post senior contributing editor and columnist Caroline B. Glick; Maj.-Gen. Noam Tibon, the commander of the IDF Northern Corps, who will be providing a security overview of how the army is dealing with threats facing Israel; and Roger Cukierman, president of CRIF (The Representative Council of French Jewish Institutions).
“We’re talking about an event of extreme importance for the public image of Israel,” said Ronit Hasin-Hochman, CEO of The Jerusalem Post Group. “At the same time that Israel’s being presented as being isolated in the world, here are hundreds of ambassadors coming together to meet the leadership of the Israeli government and to hear their views.”
She added that “The Jerusalem Post is a central source of information for the diplomatic community and their staff that are stationed in Israel. Within this framework, we’ve organized this annual event that provides them with a comprehensive diplomatic and security overview.”
The Iranian nuclear drive and the peace talks with the Palestinians will be the focus of the question-and-answer session with Peres and will undoubtedly play a large role in the other sessions.
Both Lapid and Livni expounded on their views of the renewed negotiations with the Palestinian Authority, in interviews with the Post ahead of the conference.
“If this peace process won’t work, we should start again and again,” Lapid told the Post’s political correspondent Gil Hoffman and economic correspondent Niv Elis. “It may be Churchillian, and if not, it should be: Never, never, never give up. As I said in the campaign, we are seeking an honest divorce from the Palestinians, not a wedding. We [in the Yesh Atid party] will push the process forward tirelessly.”
Livni, who is in charge of the government’s negotiations with the PA, also stressed the urgency of the talks for Israel’s future.
“Peace and two states for two peoples is not only an imperative to avoid the statistical demographic issue of Palestinians outnumbering Israelis.
Rather, it is necessary to preserve the Jewishness of Israel’s Jewish and democratic state model,” she told Hoffman and the Post’s legal correspondent, Yonah Jeremy Bob.
She also provided some insight into the Israeli strategy in the negotiation process.
“In the negotiations, both sides are trying to get what they want. For instance, the Palestinians want a border. We want security. There are tactics of negotiations, of give and take.
They can’t concede on one thing if they don’t think they’ll get what they want. These tactics maintain our interests in the negotiating room,” she said.
By the end of the five-hour conference, most of the geopolitical issues facing Israel and the Jewish people today will likely have been raised and discussed.
“Our aim is to address the challenges facing Israel and, in doing so, create news and promote the international brand name and reputation of The Jerusalem Post as the leading source of news from Israel and the Middle East,” said Linde.
The entire event will be streamed live at www.jpost.com beginning from 9:20 a.m.