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Dr. Ron Pundak

Born in Israel 1955
Married with two children

Professional Experience

Since July 2001 Director General of The Peres Center for Peace
1995-2001 Executive Director of the Economic Cooperation Foundation (ECF)
1992-1995 Project Director in the Economic Cooperation Foundation (ECF)
1991-1992 Journalist for Ha'aretz (Daily newspaper in Tel Aviv)
1981-1986 Prime Minister's Office in Tel Aviv

Dr. Ron Pundak currently serves as the Director General of the Peres Center for Peace, a non-profit non-government organization, established in 1996, dedicated to the promotion of peaceful relations between Arabs and Israelis. The Peres Center's mission is to build an infrastructure for peace, by and for the people of the Middle East, which promotes cooperation and mutual understanding

In his current position, Dr. Pundak leads cooperation and coordination activities between Israel and its neighbors - mainly the Palestinians - through civil society dialogue, and people to people endeavors, in a wide range of fields such as economics, agriculture, health, sports, peace education, culture, youth, and city to city relations.

Dr. Pundak played a decisive role in creating the secret track of unofficial negotiations in Oslo in 1993, alongside Dr. Yair Hirschfeld and Palestinian counterparts. He served as a member of the official Israeli negotiating team - guided by Shimon Peres and Yossi Beilin, and later by Yitzhak Rabin - until the historic signing of the Declaration of Principles in Washington on September 13, 1993. Dr. Pundak has continued to be involved in various policy planning frameworks of ongoing and future negotiations on bi and multilateral levels

During 1994 and 1995, Dr. Pundak and Dr. Hirschfeld prepared with a Palestinian team the so-called 'Beilin-Abu Mazen Understanding', which provided a blue-print for negotiations and a detailed framework agreement for all Israeli-Palestinian Final Status issues. This document became the main point of reference during the Permanent Status negotiations in the Camp David Two and Taba negotiations. In recent times, Dr. Pundak has participated as a member of the core team of the Geneva Initiative.

Dr. Pundak formerly held the position of Executive Director of the Economic Cooperation Foundation (a non-profit organization established in 1991 to break the deadlock in Israeli-Palestinian relations.)

Research and Management Activities

1996-present Co-Director of the Executive Committee of PIES (Palestinian-Israeli Environmental Secretariat) a joint Israeli-Palestinian umbrella organization for environmental activities.
1996-present Member of the Israeli core team of the 'Lousiana Process' and the 'Copenhagen Group', a joint Israeli-Palestinian-Egyptian-Jordanian umbrella for the promotion of peace activities in the four partner countries.
1996-2001 Led an Israeli team participating in an Israeli-Palestinian endeavor to identify and promote ways and means for Israeli-Palestinian cooperation in health and medicine issues.
1995-2001 Led the Israeli side of a joint Israeli-Palestinian Research Team regarding the future of Jerusalem.
1995-1998 Member of Israeli research team participating in tri-lateral (Israeli- Palestinian-Jordanian) projects on trilateral industrial and financial cooperation, as well as on taxation.
1992-1999 Member of a joint research team on Israeli-Palestinian future economic cooperation.
1985-1986 Senior Head of Section in the Prime Minister Office - Tel Aviv.

Publications

"The Struggle for Sovereignty: Relations between Great Britain and Jordan (1946-1951), Blackwell, Oxford, 1994.
Contributed a chapter on the development of the Israeli Defense Forces to "The New Encoyclopedia Hebraica", 1995.
Publishes numerous articles on Israeli and Arab affairs, in particular the Israeli-Palestinian paradigm to both scholarly and journalistic publications, in Israel and abroad.
Regularly contributes journalistic articles and OpEds to Ha'aretz (in the past) and Yediot Aharonot (in the present).

Contact

Email: pundak@peres-center.org