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 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. ISBN9780415077965
Co-author with Scilla Elworthy. Hearts and Minds: Human Security Approaches to Political Violence. United Kingdom: Demos, 2005. ISBN9781841801483
Co-author with Scilla Elworthy. Making Terrorism History. London: Penguin/Random House, 2006. ISBN9781846040474
"Language of war, language of peace and its application to the Palestinian/Israeli conflict". Psychotherapy and Politics International. 2 (2). June 2004.
^Dobell, Graeme (13 November 2014). "Edging through the fog". Inside Story. Retrieved 16 August 2021.
^Mark, Peter; Rifkind, Gabrielle (2016). "Establishing group psychotherapy in a student counselling service". In Lees, John; Vaspé, Alison (eds.). Clinical Counselling in Further and Higher Education. United Kingdom: Taylor & Francis. pp. 87–102. ISBN978-0-415-19281-1.(See contributors, p. ix)
^Rivailland, Monique (5 April 2014). "The light house – A psychotherapist who specialises in conflict resolution has transformed her London home with glass and modern art". The Times.
^Rifkind, Gabrielle; Picco, Giandomenico (2017). The Fog of Peace: The Human Face of Conflict Resolution. Bloomsbury – I. B. Tauris. ISBN978-1-7807-6897-7.
