Transcript
MARTIN S. INDYK: This is the first opportunity that the Washington policymaking community—and, in fact, the United States more generally—will have, through the members of the press assembled here, to hear from the negotiators, and so we are very glad to have the opportunity to present them to you.
I want to make clear at the outset that our hosting this event does not mean that the Saban Center of the Brookings Institution endorses everything that is in this agreement, but we do support, consistent with our mandate, the airing of these ideas and the examination of them in the public arena, and we're very glad to host the delegations in that context.
On the podium this morning, we have the leaders of the two delegations:
Yasser Abed Rabbo, the former Minister of Information of the Palestinian Authority, who has been a lead negotiator since the beginning of the Oslo process. I've had the pleasure, and he's had the pain, of many hours of negotiations together during those years, and he has made a signal contribution to the effort to try to achieve a lasting reconciliation between Israelis and Palestinians.
Alongside him, Yossi Beilin, former Minister of Justice in the Barak government, has held a number of other ministerial portfolios before that, was one of the original architects of the Oslo Agreements, and he too has played an instrumental role in the efforts to achieve Israeli-Palestinian peace.
With them today on the podium, Nabil Kasis, who has, from the days of Madrid—even predating Oslo—been an active participant in the formal negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians and has played a number of important roles in the development of the Palestinian Authority over the years.
And next to him, Daniel Levy, who has worked very close with Yossi Beilin through these many years, was a former negotiator at the Taba negotiations and has been an adviser in the prime minister's office, for Barak, on Jerusalem affairs.
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