Age Group:
Adults- Registration is required for this event.
- Registration will close on January 6, 2026 @ 3:01pm.
- There are 80 seats remaining.
Program Description
Event Details
The library is excited to host Norm Olsen as a presenter as part of the 39th Annual Camden Conference.
Registration is required for this popular presentation.
Cape Elizabeth native Norm Olsen served for 26 years in the U.S. Foreign Service, with a total of nine years in Israel and the Gaza Strip. His first tour of duty there, as a Gaza reporting officer and USAID representative, spanned the First Intifada, the Madrid talks, the secret Oslo negotiations, the establishment of the Palestinian Authority, and the return of Yasser Arafat to Palestine. His reporting during that time was recognized by his receipt of a National Human Intelligence Reporting Award from the U.S. intelligence community.
His second tour of duty, as chief of the embassy political section, spanned the Second Intifada, the efforts of Quartet negotiator James Wolfensohn, the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, the victory of Hamas in U.S.-demanded Palestinian elections, the successful Hamas expulsion of U.S.-backed Fatah militants who were terrorizing Gaza, and the Israel-Lebanon war.
He retired as a Senior Foreign Service Officer in 2008 and has remained active in Israeli and Palestinian affairs. He and his wife, Pat, live in Cherryfield, Maine.
Olsen will discuss from personal experience these 34 years of deteriorating prospects for Middle East peace.
Since at least 1992, the United States has been the political shield protecting Israel from the consequences of its actions, ensuring the continuation of the settlement enterprise in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, and thus setting the foundation for today’s war in Gaza and Israeli plans for ethnic cleansing.
While the United States under President George H.W. Bush strong-armed Israeli Prime Minister and former terrorist leader Yitzhak Shamir to the Madrid negotiating table, and President BIll Clinton eventually supported the Oslo Accords after months of skeptically ignoring the effort, Clinton’s and subsequent administrations took careful note of Bush’s failure to win a second term, in part, officials believed, because of his pressure on Israel to conduct serious negotiations with the Palestinians.
The 1995 assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin by an Israeli opponent of the peace process, the hateful rhetoric of opposition Israeli politicians such as then opposition leader Netanyahu (and members of his current cabinet who still celebrate the assassination), and Netanyahu's later re-elections brought serious U.S. stewardship of the peace process to an end.
Since then, the rise of Messianic Evangelical Christianity, ever broader lobbying and political contributions by the Israel Lobby, the rise of post-9/11 anti-Islamism, the rise of isolationism following the Iraq War, and savage partisan politics have together scuttled efforts by successive American presidents to revive the now permanently derailed peace process. Instead, the debate has deteriorated to the point where the issue is no longer peace, but whether to support Israel’s ethnic cleansing of Gaza and the West Bank.
This event is presented in anticipation of the 39th Annual Camden Conference, “Today’s Middle East: Power, Politics, & Players” taking place live from the Camden Opera House from February 20 – 22, 2026.