Prof. Shlomo Ben Ami was educated at Tel Aviv University where he did his B.A and M.A in History and Hebrew Literature, and Oxford University (St. Antony’s College) where he received his D.Phil.
Prof. Shlomo Ben Ami was educated at Tel Aviv University where he did his B.A and M.A in History and Hebrew Literature, and Oxford University (St. Antony’s College) where he received his D.Phil.
He taught at the History Department of Tel Aviv University, where he also headed the Graduate School of History. He was also the incumbent of The Elias Sourasky Chair for Spanish and Latin American Studies.
Professor Ben Ami is the author of studies in the Spanish history and fascism. Among others he wrote The Origins of the Second Republic in Spain, and Fascism from Above, both published by Oxford University Press.
Throughout his academic career Professor Ben Ami taught and conducted research in a number of international academic institutions. He was a Visiting Fellow ay St. Antony’s College in Oxford, and had a similar fellowship at The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, in Washington.
In 1987, he was appointed to be Israel’s Ambassador in Spain, where he served until December 1991. He was a member of Israel’s delegation to the Madrid Peace Conference. In1993, he headed the Israeli delegation at the Multilateral Talks on Refugees in the Middle East held in Ottawa, Canada.
In 1993, Professor Ben Ami created The Curiel Center for International Studies at Tel Aviv University, which he headed until 1996. In the same year he was elected to the Knesset, where he served as a member of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee.
In1999, after Labor’s landslide victory, Professor Ben Ami was appointed as Minister of Public Security. In 2000, he became Foreign Minister. As such he led the peace talks with the Palestinians throughout the last two years of the Clinton administration. He conducted the secret negotiations with Abu Ala in Stockholm [The Swedish Channel], and participated with Prime Minister Barak in the Camp David Summit, after which he led the Israeli team in all the different phases of the negotiations with the Palestinians, including Taba. He was a central actor in the shaping of the so-called Clinton Peace Parameters.
Professor Ben Ami published in France a book [Quel avenir pour Israel?—Presses Universitaires de France, 2001] analyzing the Israeli-Palestinian situation and Israel’s regional and international dilemmas. His thorough account of the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations during the last two years of President Clinton in office (the inside story of Camp David and Taba) was published in Hebrew: A Front Without a Homefront: A Voyage to the Boundaries of the Peace Process ( Yedioth Ahatonoth, Tel-Aviv, 2004). His comprehensive overview of the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict and the quest for peace-Scars of War, Wounds of Peace. The Arab-Israeli Tragedy- was published by Weidenfeld and Nicolson (London, 2005) and Oxford University Press,New York, 2006).
Prof. Ben-Ami served as a member of the international board of The International Crisis Group; he is now a member of the board of senior advisors of ICG. Throughout 2009, Prof. Ben Ami served in the Advisory Board of The International Commission on Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament. He is a signatory to, and active member of, Global Zero, an organization created to promote global nuclear disarmament.
He is also a special advisor to the United States Middle East Project (whose members include among other others Zbigniev Brzezinski , Tom Pickering, and Chuck Hagel )
Prof. Ben Ami is a regular contributor to Project Syndicate on Strategic Affairs.
He has also been serving as an advisor to the Colombian government on the peace process with the FARC guerrilla.
He currently serves as the vice-president of the Toledo International Center for Peace (Citpax ) of which he is a co-founder. Through the Center, Prof. Ben Ami has been involved in conflict resolution processes such as among others, in Colombia, Dominican Republic ( the tensions with Haiti ), Bolivia ( intercultural issues ), Russia-Georgia, Libya; Spanish Sahara, and Israel-the Arab world.
Prof. Ben Ami is now also the co-chair (together with ex-chief of Mossad Efraim Halevi) of an Israeli commission for strategic planning.
Prof. Ben Ami has lectured extensively in international conferences in Europe, Russia, the U.S. and Latin America.