Alastair Crooke
Director and Founder
Founder of Conflicts Forum – an international movement which engages with Islamist movements broadly; organiser of US and European unofficial dialogues in 2005 with Hezbollah, Hamas and other Islamist movements; former special Mid-East adviser to European Union High Representative, Javier Solana; facilitated various Israeli-Palestinian ceasefires during 2001-2003; instrumental in the negotiations leading to the ending of the siege of the Church of Nativity in Bethlehem; mediated in the negotiations leading to the ceasefire declared by Hamas and Islamic Jihad in June 2003; staff member of President Clinton’s Fact Finding Committee, led by Senator Mitchell into the causes of the Intifada; direct experience of conflict over a period of 30 years in Ireland, South Africa, Namibia, Afghanistan, Cambodia and Colombia; co-ordinator in hostage negotiations; author of articles and contributor to television productions on the Palestinian–Israeli conflict and on insurgency and political Islam more generally.