Diplomatic Internship in Israel of a "TISBI" Student

Guzel Nurieva, the 4th year student of the Humanities Faculty at the Academy of Management "TISBI", was granted the opportunity to take a diplomatic internship in Israel, organized on July 4-18, 2010 by the Russian Friends of the Hebrew University, aimed at development of cooperation between Russia and Israel in the field of science and education.

Only 10 students from leading Russian universities, such as the Moscow State Institute of International Relations, the Institute of Asian and African Studies of the Moscow State University, the Higher school of Economy, the Pyatigorsk State Linguistics University, the Nizhniy Novgorod State University and the Academy of Management "TISBI", participated in this program in Israel on July 4-18, 2010.

The schedule of the fortnightly internship at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem included lectures and seminars of leading experts in the Middle East and the Arab-Israeli conflict. University teachers and well-known Israeli politicians were among them.

Within the frame of the internship the participants visited the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Israel where they had a meeting with Yaakov Hadas, Deputy Director of the Middle East and Peace Process Department, and Naor Gilon, Deputy Director of European Department.
In the Knesseth there was the meeting with deputies from different parties - Hamad Amar, the representative of the party "Our Home is Israel", and Zeev Elkin, the leader of the coalition.
One of the most interesting meetings took place in the Embassy of the Russian Federation in Israel (Tel Aviv). During the conversation with the Ambassador of the Russian Federation students asked him the questions concerning not only the Middle-Eastern problems, but also daily work in embassy.

The organized meetings with the Israeli politicians and also with representatives of the Palestinian National Administration gave the opportunity to the future diplomats to learn firsthand opinions of the experts and to look at the Middle Eastern conflict and its settlement from positions of two contradictory parties. Such meetings became possible due to the fact that all participants speak (after English) the Arabic or Hebrew languages. According to Guzel Nurieva, therein lies the uniqueness of this diplomatic internship.

Thanks to numerous excursions students got acquainted with the culture, art and traditions of Israel, visited sacred for three religions- Christianity, Islam and a Judaism - places in the most ancient cities of the world - Jerusalem, Akko, Jericho, Haifa, Kejsariya, Nazareth, Bethlehem.

With this diplomatic internship completed Prof. Stephen Kaplan, Director of the Harry S. Truman Research Institute for the Advancement of Peace, delivered diplomas to the future experts in the sphere of international relations, particularly, in the Middle East region.

Office of International Cooperation