EVENTSPAST EVENTS

Israel-Asia Center special briefing – October 26, 2023 – for our Indonesia network on the situation in Israel and the Israel-Gaza conflict. The session also addressed the implications of the current conflict on normalization of relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia and between Israel and Indonesia.

Speakers:
AMB. MARK SOFER
Amb. Mark Sofer is a member of the Israel-Asia Center’s Advisory Council. Most recently, he served as Israel’s ambassador to Australia (2017-20). Prior to this, he served as the Deputy Director General and Head of Asia and the Pacific at the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

From 2007 to 2011, Amb. Sofer was Israel’s ambassador to India and non-resident ambassador to Sri Lanka.

During the course of his distinguished 39-year career in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, other diplomatic posts he has held include Deputy Director General, Head of Central Europe and Eurasia Division at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs; Ambassador of Israel to Ireland; Head of the Division for Middle Eastern Economic Affairs; Deputy Consul General in New York; as well as posts in Norway and Peru. In the early 1990s, he also served as Policy Advisor to then-Foreign Minister Shimon Peres.

EMANUEL SHAHAF
Emanuel Shahaf serves as CEO of Technology Asia Consulting Ltd., is Vice Chairman of the Israel-Indonesia Chamber of Commerce, and is a member of the Council for Peace and Security. He is a member of the Board of the Israel-Asia Chamber of Commerce, and is a program advisor to the Israel-Asia Center’s Israel-Indonesia Futures program.

Between 1979 and 1986, Emanuel served as a staff officer in the Israeli Air Force. He then spent two years in the US, studying for an MBA at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Upstate New York.

In 1989 he returned to Israel and joined the Office of the Prime Minister in Tel Aviv, where he served in various positions, both in Israel and in Southeast Asia, until his retirement in 2003. He then worked to develop Israeli business relations with Indonesia and became politically active in the Israel Labor Party, competing for a place on Labor’s Knesset list in 2012. Emanuel regularly contributes op-ed pieces to The Times of Israel. In 2019, he published his biography, Identity: The Quest for Israel’s Future.