Gabrielle Rifkind
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Gabrielle Rifkind | |
|---|---|
Gabrielle Rifkind | |
| Born | 1953 (age 72–73) |
| Alma mater | University of Manchester University of Edinburgh University of London |
| Occupations | Mediator, group analyst, psychotherapist |
| Known for | collaboration, conflict resolution |
Gabrielle Rifkind is a British mediator who has specialised in international conflict resolution working through non-governmental organisations, (NGOs) in the Middle East and United Kingdom. She is the Director of Oxford Process.[1] She is known as a commentator on international peacemaking and related themes and author of several titles.[2][3] Her work considers the role of human relationships[4] in managing parties with "radical disagreements"[5] with the goal of establishing areas of potential mutual self-interest.[6][7]
Rifkind is a graduate of the University of Manchester and the University of Edinburgh. After working for the Probation Service, she trained at the Institute of Group Analysis and became a group analyst and a psychotherapist.[8][9]
Later career
Rifkind joined the Oxford Research Group in the late 1990s to explore peacemaking in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict.[10] She became head of the Israel/Palestine programme. She next turned her attention to Iran and the wider Middle East.[11]
In 2016 she founded Oxford Process, which works in conflict situations to build relationships with conflicted parties to identify opportunities to reduce tensions or prevent further escalation of violence.[12] Rifkind's theory of conflict resolution focuses on the non-violent management of radical differences between groups, rather than searching for an elusive common ground.[13] Her work is currently focused on the Middle East and the war between Russia and Ukraine.[14]
Rifkind has frequently appeared on broadcast media in the UK has given public lectures on peacemaking and contributed to a colloquium at Princeton University and has twice debated at the Oxford Union.[15][16] She has been one of the conflict mediators for four series of BBC Radio 4's "Across the Red Line" presented by British political journalist, Anne McElvoy.[17] Rifkind is a featured speaker at the upcoming TED2024 conference in Vancouver.[18]
She is the co-author, with peace activist Scilla Elworthy of Making Terrorism History (2005)[19] and, with former senior UN diplomat Giandomenico Picco, of The Fog of Peace: The Human Face of Conflict Resolution,[20] and author of The Psychology of Political Extremism: What would Sigmund Freud have thought about Islamic State.[21]
Publications
Books
- Co-author with Tessa Dalley and Kim Terry. Three Voices of Art Therapy: Image, Client, Therapist. United Kingdom: Routledge, 1993 and 2014. ISBN 9780415077965
- Co-author with Scilla Elworthy. Hearts and Minds: Human Security Approaches to Political Violence. United Kingdom: Demos, 2005. ISBN 9781841801483
- Co-author with Scilla Elworthy. Making Terrorism History. London: Penguin/Random House, 2006. ISBN 9781846040474
- Co-Author with Giandomenico Picco. The Fog of Peace: How to Prevent War, Bloomsbury/I.B. Tauris, 2017. ISBN 9781780768977
- The Psychology of Political Extremism: What would Sigmund Freud have thought about Islamic State, 2018. ISBN 9-781-78220-663-7
- Contributor, "When Empathy Fails: Managing Radical Differences" in Encounters: The Art of Interfaith Dialogue 2018.[22]
Articles
Her contributions to journals include:
- Rifkind, Gabrielle (1 June 1995). "Containing the Containers: The Staff Consultation Group". Group Analysis. 28 (2): 209–222. doi:10.1177/0533316495282010. S2CID 144883427.
- Rifkind, Gabrielle (1 September 1995). "The Creative Process of the Artist and Group Analyst". Group Analysis. 28 (3): 331–337. doi:10.1177/0533316495283009. S2CID 143697955.
- "Language of war, language of peace and its application to the Palestinian/Israeli conflict". Psychotherapy and Politics International. 2 (2). June 2004.
- "Separating aspirations from realities". The Jerusalem Post. 1 May 2006.
- Rifkind, Gabrielle (13 February 2007). "Want to ease tensions with Iran? Just try talking". The Independent.
- "From crisis to opportunity". The Jerusalem Post. 20 February 2007.
- Rifkind, Gabrielle (28 October 2007). "This dialogue of the deaf is making war more likely". The Independent.
- Rifkind, Gabrielle (25 January 2009). "The man to sell peace to the Middle East". The Independent.
- "A route to resolution for Syria and Israel | Gabrielle Rifkind". The Guardian. 26 February 2010.
- Rifkind, Gabrielle (28 September 2010). "Solving the West Bank settler problem". The Guardian.
- "Iran nuclear talks: signs of cautious optimism emerge | Gabrielle Rifkind". The Guardian. 22 May 2012.
- Picco, Giandomenico; Rifkind, Gabrielle (2013). "To help Syria, talk first to Iran and Saudi Arabia". The Guardian.
- "A New Levant: a possible way through in the Syrian crisis". openDemocracy. Retrieved 22 September 2015.
- Rifkind, Gabrielle (7 September 2013). "One signature by Assad could help to avert the bombing". The Times.
- "Chilcot tells us what we already knew – how do we implement?". openDemocracy. 6 July 2016. Retrieved 22 December 2016.
- "Chilcot: all peaceful options were not exhausted". openDemocracy. 15 July 2016. Retrieved 22 December 2016.
- Let's try to understand North Korea's actions: it sees the world as its enemy, The Guardian, July 2017.
- Gaza regeneration: we all need dreams for the future, OpenDemocracy, June 2018.
- National Dialogue: Post-Brexit, We Need a UK-Wide Coming Together, OpenDemocracy, January 2019.
- Rifkind, Gabrielle (15 February 2019). "Afghanistan's fragile future shows the paradoxical nature of peacebuilding". Prospect.
- "Preparing the Psychological Space for Peacemaking", with Nita Yawanarajah, The New England Journal of Public Policy, May 2019.
- "Ancient Hospitality", with John Harris, New Humanist, July 2019.
- Rifkind, Gabrielle (3 December 2019). "We need a path towards reconciliation for Labour and British Jews". The Times.
- "The Deal of the century: any chance of an honest broker?", Open Democracy, March 2020.
- Rifkind, Gabrielle (9 February 2022). "I'm a conflict mediator. This is a way out of the Ukraine crisis". The Guardian.
- Rifkind, Gabrielle (26 January 2023). "How to talk peace while waging war". Prospect.
- Rifkind, Gabrielle (25 November 2023). "A better future can be built for Gaza". Prospect.
- Rifkind, Gabrielle (11 January 2024). "Israelis and Palestinians by Jonathan Glover review – the psychology of conflict". The Guardian.