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Michael R. Fischbach |
Randolph-Macon College
History Professor Michael R. Fischbach has been invited to speak at a high-level international conference on Palestinian refugees and the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. The conference, which will be held February 10-11, 2011 in Rabat, Morocco, is being hosted by the Aix Group, a think-tank based in France that since 2004 has produced several economic position papers seeking to promote win-win outcomes for Palestinians and Israelis that can help Israeli and Palestinian negotiators during peace talks.
The conference stems from several of the think-tank’s joint Palestinian-Israeli-international working groups that have been examining issues critical to a lasting peace from a regional perspective, among them the Palestinian refugee problem. Former and current government officials, leading economists, and international representatives will be in attendance at the conference.
The Aix Group was formed in 2002 under the auspices of the Université Paul Cézanne-Aix-Marseille III in France, in partnership with the Peres Center for Peace in Israel and the DATA Center for Studies and Research in the Palestinian Authority. Many Group members are highly experienced Israeli, Palestinian, and international academics, as well as professionals from the fields of trade, economics, finance, urban planning, labor, and manufacturing policies.
The conference is the third international meeting on the Palestinians to which Fischbach, author of three books dealing with refugees and the Arab-Israeli conflict (one of which recently was published in Arabic by a Jordanian university), has been invited during the past year. In the past, Fischbach’s expertise also has been sought by Middle Eastern peace negotiators, NGOs, the Library of Congress, and the U.N. This spring he expects to travel to Lebanon as a consultant on a project related to Palestinian refugees and the peace process.
Fischbach, who joined the faculty at Randolph-Macon College in 1992, earned his B.A. at Northwestern University and his M.A. and Ph.D. at Georgetown University.