Lowy Lecture Series: Israel and the Arab uprisings: New threats and new opportunities - Dr Tal Becker

At this week’s Lowy Lecture, Tal Becker, one of Israel’s leading young international policy thinkers, will discuss the threats and opportunities for Israel from the Arab uprisings. Dr Tal Becker is a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and the Hartman Institute for Contemporary Jewish Thought. He served as senior policy advisor to Israel's Minister of Foreign Affairs from 2006 to 2009 and was a lead negotiator during Israeli-Palestinian negotiations under the Annapolis peace process. In this capacity he also played a lead role in managing Israel's relations with the US, the EU, the UN and numerous Arab states. Representing Israel in a wide variety of bilateral and multilateral negotiations, he has also served as director of the International Law Department at the Israeli Foreign Ministry, as counsel to Israel's UN Mission in New York, and as an international law expert in the Military Advocate General's Corps of the Israel Defense Forces. In 2003, he was elected vice chairman of the UN General Assembly's Legal Committee, the first Israeli to serve in a UN post of this stature in more than forty years. His recent book, Terrorism and the State won the Guggenheim Prize for best international law book. He is lecturing in Australia prior to resuming a senior post at the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Dr Becker, who grew up in Melbourne, holds a doctorate from Columbia University, lectures widely throughout Israel and overseas, and is the recipient of numerous scholarly awards. Listen here to ABC Radio National host Waleed Aly and West Asia Program Director Anthony Bubalo interview Dr Becker on their regular 'West of Asia' segment.