Ambassador Itamar Rabinovich is Israel's former Ambassador to the United States and former Chief Negotiator with Syria in the mid-1990s. He is Professor Emeritus of Middle Eastern History of Tel Aviv University (TAU) and Distinguished Global Professor at New York University (NYU). In 2007 he completed an eight-year term as Tel Aviv University's President. Professor Rabinovich has been a member of Tel Aviv University's faculty since 1971 and served as Ettinger Professor of the Contemporary History of the Middle-East, Chairman of the Department of Middle Eastern Studies, Director of the Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies, Dean of Humanities and Rector.

Professor Rabinovich is the author of six books on the Modern History and Politics of the Middle East, and the co-author and co-editor of several other volumes, essays and papers. His most recent books are The Brink of Peace (Princeton University Press), Waging Peace (PUP), and The View from Damascus (Valentine Mitchell, 2008).

Over the years, Professor Rabinovich held several public positions in Israel and in other countries. In addition to his TAU and NYU professorships, he is currently Chairman of the Board of the Dan David Foundation, a member of the Advisory Council of APCO WORLDWIDE, Chairman of the Advisory Board of the Wexner-Israel Program, a member of the Trilateral Commission, a member of the International Advisory Board of the Brookings Institution in Washington, and a member of the International Advisory Board of The American Interest. He is the Vice Chairman of the Israeli Institute for National Security Studies, an external institute of TAU, and a senior research fellow at the Dayan Center for Middle-Eastern studies. He is also co-editor of the Center's new review journal, Bustan.

Professor Rabinovich has held visiting appointments in several academic institutions, including the Institute of Advanced Studies in Princeton, the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Toronto. He was for several years the Andrew White Professor at Large at Cornell University, and has recently served as Visiting Professor at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. He is currently a Distinguished Global Professor at NYU and a non-resident Distinguished Fellow at the Saban Center, part of the Brookings Institution.

Professor Rabinovich is a member of the American Philosophical Society and a foreign member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He has been awarded the Honorary Grand Golden Cross of the Austrian Republic and has been made a Commandeur l'ordre des Palmes Académiques by the Government of the French Republic.

(Current as of Jan 2011.)