Gilead Sher named Brochstein Fellow in Middle East Peace and Security at Rice’s Baker Institute

Israeli scholar Gilead Sher has been named the Isaac and Mildred Brochstein Fellow in Middle East Peace and Security in Honor of Yitzhak Rabin at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy.

GILEAD SHER

A practicing attorney, Sher heads the Center for Applied Negotiations, which he founded in 2013, and is a senior research fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University. Sher was the chief of staff and policy coordinator for Ehud Barak, Israel’s former prime minister and minister of defense. He served as chief and co-chief negotiator from 1999-2001, a tenure that included negotiations at the 2000 Camp David summit and the 2001 Taba talks as well as the 1999 Sharm El-Sheikh Agreement and extensive rounds of covert negotiations.

Sher is the third scholar to hold this endowed fellowship, which was officially dedicated by Leah Rabin, wife of the late Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, during a visit to the Baker Institute in 1998. The fellowship was created to focus on peace and security issues in the Middle East and the world. It was made possible by the generous donations of Isaac and Mildred Brochstein and other donors.

“I am delighted that Gilead Sher has accepted this prestigious fellowship with the Baker Institute,” said Ambassador Edward Djerejian, director of institute. “His firsthand experience in Arab-Israeli peace negotiations as well as his in-depth knowledge of the dynamics of domestic Israeli politics and its impact on Israeli foreign policy options will be an invaluable resource to our Center for the Middle East.”

Sher will be a nonresident fellow of the Baker Institute’s Center for the Middle East, which provides policymakers, scholars and the general public with comprehensive analyses of issues, events and trends across this critical region with important implications for U.S. policy and global stability. The center encompasses research programs addressing key policy areas including Israeli-Palestinian conflict resolution, the political economy of the Gulf, the role of women in the countries of the region, U.S.-Iranian relations and the role of Islamist movements in the region. The center builds on the Baker Institute’s long engagement with the Middle East and provides support for research, lectures, conferences and affiliations with other experts and organizations confronting policy challenges in the region.