FOREIGN POLICY, UP CLOSE : AVC PROFESSOR BRIEFED FOR MIDEAST TOUR.

Byline: Jim Skeen Daily News Staff Writer

Antelope Valley College Professor Donald Ranish traveled to Israel to see firsthand the tensions in the Middle East.

For nine days, Ranish attended briefings by National Security Council staff members and current and retired ambassadors as part of a fellowship with the State Department's United States Institute of Peace. Afterward, Ranish went to Israel under the auspices of the International Political Science Association.

``It has enriched me,'' Ranish said. ``It's made me a better student of world affairs and, hopefully, my students will benefit.''

Ranish, a Fulbright scholar, and about 20 other professors attended briefings on global and regional conflicts. The sessions concentrated primarily on the Middle East, Bosnia and the China/Korea peninsula region, Ranish said.

The group also received briefings on international efforts by nongovernment groups, such as relief and human rights organizations, Ranish said.

``That was pretty intense. We spent eight, nine, 10 hours a day in briefings on very complex issues,'' Ranish said. ``The quality of the people involved in formulating policy on behalf of the United States is quite impressive.''

The Institute of Peace was created in 1984 and is intended to be an independent and nonpartisan federal institution. Its purpose is to help the president, Congress and other policy-makers resolve international conflicts.

Among the goals of the institute is to strengthen curricula and instruction from high school through graduate school about the changing character of international conflict and nonviolent approaches to managing it.

Ranish followed his Washington, D.C., trip with a visit to Israel, where he found people adjusting to a newly elected prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and some Palestinians questioning their own leadership.

``There is a lot of wait-and-see attitude,'' Ranish said of public opinion on Netanyahu.

In Israel, Ranish met with academics and government officials from North America, Europe, Asia, Africa and the South Pacific. He also presided over a panel of international legal experts, discussing judicial systems in a changing world.

Many Palestinians work in Israel, but a growing number of workers have been entering Israel from China, Turkey and elsewhere.

There is concern about whether a Palestinian nation will be able to find work for its people, Ranish said.

There are also concerns about whether Yasser Arafat is up to the task of nation-building for the Palestinians, he said.

``The Western-educated and Western-looking Palestinians are concerned about the direction of Palestinian authority,'' Ranish said.

More encouraging is the apparently strong effort by Israel and Jordan to maintain peace, Ranish said.

Ranish teaches U.S. government, comparative government, international relations, judicial process and criminology. He has published dozens of papers and articles.

In 1987, he was a Fulbright scholar to Korea, where he taught postgraduate studies in Seoul.

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Photo

Photo: (color in AV only) Donald Ranish of Antelope ValleyCollege was briefed by U.S. policy experts before his trip to observe conditions in the Middle East.

John Lazar/Special to the Daily News