Gershon Baskin is a well-known peace and social justice activist, former hostage negotiator, and a columnist for the Jerusalem Post. Via Foreign Policy:
Gershon Baskin is more familiar than most with Hamas and its hostage tactics, having helped secure the release of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit from the militant group more than a decade ago in one of the most high-profile negotiations of its kind during the yearslong conflict between Israel and Palestine. Baskin, the co-founder and former co-director of the Israel/Palestine Center for Research and Information, became an unofficial intermediary between Hamas and Israeli representatives, securing key breakthroughs in the negotiation process that ensured its success.
This week’s hostage crisis—in which Hamas abducted dozens of civilians from southern Israel—is unlike anything Baskin has ever seen, and he said the prospects for a negotiation like the one he brokered to bring Shalit home in 2011, five years after the soldier was captured, are slim.
Click here to read the rest of the Foreign Policy interview. Be sure to watch the video interview with the Canadian Broadcasting Company at the top.
