© Judah Passow 2002
The Middle East programme facilitates inclusive dialogue, often engaging with groups who sit outside the official diplomatic process, to explore support for the end of conflict. We believe, as people make conflict, only people can resolve it.
Our analysis also takes into account the realities of realpolitik and the competing forces present in any political process. Through in-depth research, analysis and building strong relationships we aim to make a contribution to the resolution of the conflict.
Gabrielle Rifkind is Oxford Research Group Director of the Human Security in the Middle East programme. She is a group analyst and specialist in conflict resolution and is convener and founder of the Middle East Policy Initiative Forum (MEPIF).
She has initiated and facilitated a number of Track II roundtables and hosts the media 'Liddite' Conversations with ORG. She is also working on developing dialogue between Iran, the US and Israel. She makes regular contributions to press and media and is author, with Scilla Elworthy, of Making Terrorism History (Random House, 2005).
Refqa Abu-Remaileh is Project Manager for ORG's Middle East Programme. She completed her PhD in Middle Eastern Studies at Oxford University in May 2010. She works primarily with the Palestinian Strategy Group and Israeli Strategic Forum.
Lisa Hashemi is Programme Assistant on our Middle East programme, working mainly on the programme's Iran track. Before joining ORG, Lisa was with an Istanbul-based NGO, who are engaged in pursuing social cohesion in Turkey. Lisa holds an M.Sc. in International Politics from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London.
Professor Oliver Ramsbotham has been Chair of the Board since April 2007.
Oliver Ramsbotham is particularly involved in ORG’s Middle East programme, where his original approach to handling intractable conflict and its associated linguistic intractability, which he calls ‘radical disagreement’, both informs - and is informed by - ORG's ongoing work with the Palestinian Strategic Group and the Israeli Strategic Forum.
Oliver is Emeritus Professor of Conflict Resolution at the University of Bradford (UK) and President of the Conflict Research Society. He is series co-Editor of Routledge Studies in Peace and Conflict Resolution.
In addition to many articles, he has published books relevant to all three areas of ORG's programme activity. These include books on nuclear deterrence, alternative defence options, and peacekeeping in the area of sustainable security, as well as books on dialogue and the management of radical disagreement in the Middle East including: Transforming Violent Conflict: Radical Disagreement, Dialogue and Survival, Routledge 2010. He is also the author of Contemporary Conflict Resolution, with Hugh Miall and Tom Woodhouse, Polity 2011 (third edition).
Eskandar Sadeghi-Boroujerdi is a Researcher on ORG's Iran project as part of our Middle East programme. He is a doctoral candidate in Modern Middle Eastern Studies at Queen’s College, University of Oxford. His research pertains primarily to issues of religious and political reform in post-revolutionary Iran. Other interests include Shi’ite clerical politics and political Islamism in the Shi’ite world. He taught the MSc in International Politics of the Middle East at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in 2010-2011. He has published numerous articles and reviews, including The Guardian: Comment is Free, PBS’s Tehran Bureau, Equilibri, The British Journal of Middle East Studies, and Iranian Studies. He also writes on twitter.com/essikhan.
Lord Alderdice is a medical doctor, psychiatrist and psychotherapist who has been active in politics since the 1970s. He was a key negotiator of the Good Friday Agreement.
He sits as a Liberal Democrat in the House of Lords and has substantial experience of political conflict and international terrorism and is currently focusing on the Middle East. In 2006 he was appointed to the Commonwealth Commission on Respect and Understanding.
Ahmed Badawi is Co-founder and Executive Director of TRANSFORM: The Interdisciplinary Centre for Conflict Analysis, Political Development and World Society Research. He was Project Director (Israel/Palestine) at the Oxford Research Group (2007-2009). His current interests and areas of specialisation are Palestinian politics, the Israeli Palestinian conflict, dilemmas of social integration in Europe, and the politics of development in the Arab World.
Michael Brearley is a psychoanalyst. He was a professional cricketer who captained England between 1977 and 1981.
He has long had an interest in how to get teams to cohere, and how to deal with conflict. His present work involves trying to allow different voices to be heard and powerful emotions to be tolerated.
From 1965 to 1988, Amira Dotan served in the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) finishing as the Head of the Women’s Corps with the rank of Brigadier General, the first woman in the Israeli history to achieve this rank.
In 2006, she was invited by Prime Minister Sharon to stand for the Kadima party in the Knesset and served in this capacity until 2009. Her responsibilities included representing the Knesset at the European Parliament and at NATO. She is also a member of the Council for Peace and Security, an association of nationla security experts in Israel. Her special interests are mediation and conflict resolution.
David Hearst is the chief foreign leader writer of The Guardian. As a foreign correspondent he covered the loyalist backlash in the wake of the Anglo-Irish Agreement in Northern Ireland, the first conflict in the break-up of the former Yugoslavia in Slovenia and Croatia, the first war in Chechnya and Boris Yeltsin's moral and physical decline.
After Ireland, he was appointed Europe correspondent for Guardian Europe, then joined the Moscow bureau in 1992, before becoming bureau chief in 1994. He left Russia in 1997 to join the foreign desk, became European editor and then Associate Foreign Editor.
Dr Tony Klug, advisor to ORG, is a veteran writer and analyst on the Middle East, is Vice-Chair of the Arab-Jewish Forum and a board member of the Palestine-Israel Journal. For many years he worked at the International Secretariat of Amnesty International. In June 2007, The Fabian Society published his acclaimed essay How Peace Broke Out in the Middle East: A Short History of the Future.
Daniel C. Kurtzer holds the S. Daniel Abraham Chair in Middle East Policy Studies at Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. He served in the United States Foreign Service for thirty years, including postings as the U.S. Ambassador to Israel (2001-2005), and as the U.S. Ambassador to Egypt (1997-2001). He is the co-author, with Scott Lasensky, of Negotiating Arab-Israeli Peace: American Leadership in the Middle East. Ambassador Kurtzer received his Ph.D. from Columbia University.
Nicolas Pelham is The Economist’s correspondent in Jerusalem. He spent five years as a senior analyst for International Crisis Group, reporting on Iraq, Lebanon and Israel/Palestine, and covered extensively Gaza’s evolution under Hamas rule. Prior to 2003, he worked as the Economist’s correspondent in Iraq and the Maghreb. He is the author of A New Muslim Order (2008), which traces Shia resurgence in the Arab world, and co-author of A History of the Middle East (2004).
Gianni Picco worked for some 20 years (1973-92) at the United Nations. He led the task force which secured the cease-fire agreement between Iran and Iraq in 1988.
From 1988 to 1992 he conducted the operation which led to the release of 11 western hostages in Lebanon and the recovery of the remains of two more, as well as the identification of some Israeli MIAs in Lebanon and the release of Lebanese detained without due process by Israel. He was also a member of the negotiating team on the withdrawal of the Soviet troops from Afghanistan. Since 1994 he has been a consultant to private companies on matters of political risks and critical infrastructure protection.
Sir Malcolm Rifkind served in the Foreign Office from 1982-86 as a Minister of State and from 1995-97 as Foreign Secretary. From 1992-95 he was Secretary of State for Defence. He is currently MP for Kensington and Chelsea.
Dr Azzam Tamimi is Director of the Institute of Islamic Political Thought (IIPT) in London and former Director of the Islamic Movement Parliamentary Office in Amman, Jordan. He is author of Hamas: Unwritten Chapters (C. Hurst & Co, 2006).
Ofer Zalzberg is a Senior Analyst with the International Crisis Group's Middle East and North Africa Program. His current interests and areas of specialisation are the theory and practice of conflict work and the Arab-Israeli conflict. He is based in Jerusalem.
Dr Husam Zomlot is a specialist on Middle East affairs. He is Palestinian and currently is a visiting fellow at Harvard’s center for Middle Eastern Studies. He served as a PLO representative to the UK (2003-2008). Mr Zomlot previous work experience includes the Palestine Economic Policy Research Institute and the United Nation’s Office of the Special Coordinator in the Occupied Territories.
At the University of London, he has lectured on the topic of political economy, and he has also co-authored several UN reports, participated in various research projects, international and regional conferences, and contributed to published books. His most recent contribution was published in a book entitled “State Formation in Palestine: Viability and Governance during a Social Transformation.”
A hub of best practice, we bring together international experts, who share our philosophy, to participate in dialogue and contribute to our influential research and policy reports. These encourage a deeper appreciation of the causes and drivers of conflict in the Middle East and challenge established ways of thinking through creative approaches to conflict resolution.
Our work provides spaces in which groups who disagree may begin to build dialogue and find common interests. For example, our work in the occupied Palestinian territories brings together representatives within a divided group, while our work in Lebanon brings together opposing groups. Our guiding principles for the resolution of conflict are:
Amberstone Trust
JA Clark Trust
Rifkind-Levy Trust
Zinian Trust
