Contact:  Rick Peterson, Manager of News Services, 920/832-6590
For Immediate Release	                      January 11, 1999

Obstacles to Middle East Peace Focus of Lawrence University Lecture

	
     APPLETON, WIS. -- The arduous journey to a workable and lasting peace
in the Middle East will be the focus of the third installment of the
Lawrence University lecture series, "Islamic Challenges in the Post-Cold War
World."
     Rashid Khalidi, professor of Middle East history and director of the
Center for International Studies at the University of Chicago, presents,
"The U.S. and the Middle East: The Peace Process," Thursday, Jan. 21 at 7
p.m. in Lawrence's Main Hall, Room 109.  The event is free and open to the
public.
     An advisor to the Palestinian delegation to the Arab-Israeli peace
negotiations from 1991-93, Khalidi will examine what he calls "serious
structural problems" with the Middle East peace process.  He also will
discuss the Wye Accord that was brokered last October by President Clinton
between PLO leader Yasir Arafat and Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu,
explaining how that agreement has already fallen victim to Israeli,
Palestinian and American domestic politics. 
     Khalidi is president of the American Committee on Jerusalem and taught
at Lebanese University and the American University of Beirut before joining
the University of Chicago faculty.  His most recent book, "Palestinian
Identity: The Construction of National Consciousness," received the Middle
East Studies Association's Albert Hourani Prize as the best book of 1997.