On June 28, 2017, the School for Peace held a symposium under the title “Is the Two-State Solution Still Viable?”. The conference was initiated by Prof. Ed Witten of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, USA, who suggested that a symposium on the topic be held at the Strings 2017 Conference which took place in Tel-Aviv this year.

Around seventy people attended the symposium which took place at the Peace Library in Wahat Al-Salam ~ Neve Shalom, including elementary particle physicists, School for Peace graduates, and villagers. The symposium was comprised of two panels, the first focused on analysis of the current situation and the processes that lead to it; the second focused on possible solutions to the current situation and the Israeli- Palestinian conflict.

The symposium was moderated by Prof. Ariela Friedman, Head of the Behavioral Sciences Department at the Academic College of Society and Arts, and featured an impressive list of speakers, both Israelis and Palestinians, including: Prof. Sari Nusseibeh, former president of Al-Quds University; journalist Meron Rappoport, one of the founders of the Two States, One Homeland movement; Prof. Ilan Pappe, historian; former Education Minister Prof. Yuli Tamir; Ameer Fakhoury, a lawyer and doctoral student in political sociology; and Yossi Kuperwasser, former chief of the research division of the IDF intelligence corps / former director general of the Strategic and Intelligence Affairs Ministry.