Israel/Palestine Center for Research and Information

IPCRI combined a joint public-policy structure with research and organized dialogue. Founded in Jerusalem in 1988, it worked across conflict-resolution policy, environmental cooperation, strategic planning, and textbook analysis.[1][4] The Institute for National Security Studies later listed it among prominent Israeli think tanks.[2]

IPCRI was established in Jerusalem in March 1988, during the First Intifada.[1] Gershon Baskin has described himself in different accounts as the organization's founder and co-founder. He said he co-directed IPCRI from 1988 through the end of 2011.[5][6] By 2004, Baskin was identified as IPCRI's head, and the organization was classified both among research institutes studying Jerusalem's future and relations between its ethnic communities and among groups fostering broader Israeli-Palestinian engagement.[7]

IPCRI's foundational purpose was to develop practical solutions for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through a joint Palestinian-Israeli public-policy organization.[1] It was also listed among Israeli NGOs with institutionalized Palestinian partnerships, with its fields of activity classified as environmental cooperation, strategic planning and policy development, and political dialogue.[4]

In retrospective accounts, Baskin described IPCRI as providing a safe space for mainstream Israelis and Palestinians — including senior government figures, academics, and professionals — to meet and address the conflict directly.[5] He wrote that IPCRI ran more than 2,000 joint Israeli-Palestinian working groups addressing Palestinian statehood and sovereignty, borders, security, economic cooperation, tourism, health, water, the environment, Jerusalem, and refugees.[5] He described the organization's framework as beginning with agreement on a two-state outcome based on the June 4, 1967 lines and then addressing how to realize that outcome.[6]

In December 2002, IPCRI published Yes, PM — Years of Experience in Strategies for Peace Making: Looking at Israeli-Palestinian People-to-People Activities 1993–2002, a joint Israeli-Palestinian evaluation focused on people-to-people projects from the Oslo era.[4] A separate evaluation of IPCRI was conducted by Swedish group international consultants in February 2004. IPCRI also conducted a donor-requested evaluation supported by the British government, although the available source does not establish which evaluation or project that support concerned.[4]

The Second Intifada significantly disrupted joint programming across the civil-society sector. Organizations unable to continue bi-national activities sometimes shifted to uni-national work, and some IPCRI activities adapted in this way.[7] Baskin also argued that the Oslo process relied on a "top-down" model in which leaders assumed that a political agreement would quickly transform conditions on the ground; only with Oslo B, he said, did the framework call for people-to-people projects to support the emerging peace.[7]

At a December 2009 Knesset conference on foreign government funding for NGO political activity in Israel, Baskin, identified as IPCRI's CEO, stated that the organization was "at present" funded only by Japan.[8] A separate funding table records a €215,647 Spanish government grant to IPCRI in 2009 for an AECID-funded project titled "Creating a trilateral coalition: European, Palestinian and Israeli." The sources do not clarify the timing or scope of these arrangements relative to Baskin's statement.[9]

Beginning in 2003, IPCRI undertook a series of policy papers on Palestinian textbook reform, supported in part by USAID's Middle East Regional Cooperation Program (MERC).[1] Since 2002, the U.S. government had funded IPCRI to evaluate new Palestinian elementary- and high-school textbooks, develop teaching materials, and train teachers — with the stated aims of fostering tolerance and removing antisemitic and prejudicial content from Palestinian classrooms.[3]

The series produced multiple reports. The first, titled Analysis and Evaluation of the New Palestinian Curriculum – Reviewing Palestinian Textbooks and Tolerance Education Program, appeared in March 2003.[10][11] It examined books for grades 1–3 and 6–8.[12] A second report followed in June 2004, covering grades 4 and 9, and a further study was published in July 2006 covering grades 5 and 10.[12] The 2004 publication was titled Report II: Analysis and Evaluation of the New Palestinian Curriculum.[1]

In the Congressional Research Service summary of IPCRI's findings, the results were mixed. Textbooks included multiple references to Judaism, Jews, Israel, and Zionism that IPCRI characterized as neutral; at the same time, Israelis and Jews were also presented as occupiers, invaders, and usurpers, and coverage of history remained selective and exclusive.[1] Maps generally emphasized regional categories such as the Middle East or Arab World, with no reference to Israel, while jihad and martyrdom appeared in religious contexts in ways that could allow pupils to infer connections to Jews and Israel.[1] Textbooks contained examples valuing peace, pluralism, forgiveness, and tolerance, but did not apply those values to Jews, Judaism, or Israel.[1] IPCRI also observed that Israeli textbooks omitted substantial sections addressing Palestinian experiences and perspectives.[1]

An Associated Press report on a 2006 joint Israeli-Palestinian study commissioned by IPCRI stated that the study found Palestinian textbooks did not "incite hatred toward Jews or Judaism," identified only two cases of anti-Jewish stereotypes, and found no objective information about Israel's society and people.[13] The study added the caution that "the way and contexts in which Israel is presented may give rise to the impression of an implicit denial of its legitimacy."[13]

Critical assessments came from multiple quarters. CAMERA, in an article contesting an International Herald Tribune op-ed by education consultant Roger Avenstrup, presented its account of three IPCRI studies: the March 2003 report described the curriculum's overall orientation as peaceful while noting that textbooks failed to extend principles of tolerance to Jews and Israel; the June 2004 report found no signs of "outright" promotion of hatred toward Israel, Judaism, or Zionism but discussed indirect glorification of jihad and martyrdom; and the November 2004 report described "confused messages" and identified as the main political theme the idea that Israel should not exist.[11] CAMERA quoted the November report as stating that critiques supported by quotations and hard evidence "cannot and should not be ignored by the Palestinian Authority as a mere anti-Palestinian propaganda campaign."[11]

A 2017 Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center survey placed IPCRI's work in a broader research landscape in which the studies surveyed generally agreed that Palestinian textbooks did not teach peace but disagreed over whether they taught hatred of the Jewish-Israeli "other." It characterized IPCRI's studies as tending toward Nathan Brown's position, which rejected the latter conclusion.[12]

Many observers considered IPCRI's approach balanced and accurate, while others argued that its conclusions did not go far enough in making policy recommendations.[1]

IPCRI occupied an unusual institutional niche. In 2006, the Congressional Research Service described it as the only joint Palestinian-Israeli public-policy organization devoted to practical solutions for the conflict.[1] An Institute for National Security Studies survey later included it among Israel's most prominent think tanks.[2]

Its work also combined policy research with sustained joint forums. Baskin retrospectively reported that IPCRI organized more than 2,000 working groups across major final-status, economic, environmental, and social issues.[5] In the textbook field, the Congressional Research Service recorded that many observers regarded IPCRI's analysis as balanced and accurate, although some believed its policy recommendations were insufficient.[1]

IPCRI's textbook analyses occupied contested political terrain, and critics argued that its conclusions understated the degree of anti-Israel and anti-Jewish content in Palestinian Authority curricula.[12][11] Some assessments further argued that IPCRI's policy recommendations did not go far enough, even where observers accepted its factual findings.[1] The organization's finding that Israeli textbooks omitted substantial sections addressing Palestinian experiences added another contested dimension to the discussion.[1]

In 2010, IPCRI published a Hebrew translation of Egyptian novelist Alaa Al Aswany's The Yacoubian Building as a PDF and distributed it to a mailing list of approximately 27,000 subscribers, citing the aim of expanding cultural awareness. Aswany accused the organization of piracy and theft and threatened legal action. Baskin stated that the organization had not intended to infringe on the author's copyright.[14]