Wesam Basandowah is a professor of political science and head of the Council of Trustees for the Arab Initiative for Development. Dr. Basandowah obtained her doctorate in international relations from Cairo University. In addition to her academic career, she heads the Arab Initiative for Education and development, an NGO founded in 2012 which seeks to combat violence and extremist ideology and promote social peace within Arab countries suffering from social schisms.

Director Of Arabic Communication

Mostafa El-Dessouki is the Managing Editor of the pan-Arab news magazine Al-Majalla. A native of Alexandria, Dessouki served in the Egyptian navy, received his Bachelors degree from the University of Alexandria, and earned a Masters in comparative Islamic theology at the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London.

Dessouki’s commitment to peace communications stems from a family legacy. In 1919, his grandfather, Mohammed Kamel El-Dessouki, founded the Alexandrian newspaper Al-Ta’akhi (Brotherhood), managed by Muslim, Christian, and Jewish coeditors and devoted to promoting friendship among the three faith-based communities.

In February 2017, working with Joseph Braude, Dessouki brokered an institutional partnership between the Union of Egyptians in Europe, the largest Egyptian diaspora organization; and the Israeli Regional Initiative, an NGO that builds bridges to Arab countries with which Israel does not enjoy formal relations. The inaugural gathering in London brought together media and civic actors from Israel and seven Arab countries for the first public Egyptian forum about peace promotion since the signing of the Camp David Accords in 1979.

Director of International Outreach

Joseph is the President of the Center for Peace Communications. He is an expert on the nexus of culture and politics in Arab societies and maintains an active presence in the region’s media and policy debates. He studied Near Eastern languages at Yale and Arabic and Islamic history at Princeton. He developed his Arabic to broadcast quality over a seven-year stint on Moroccan national radio and added Persian to his Arabic and Hebrew as a graduate student at the University of Tehran.

Braude’s most recent book, Reclamation: A Cultural Policy for Arab-Israeli Partnership (Washington Institute for Near East Policy, 2019) presents a strategy on how to roll back generations of antisemitic and rejectionist messaging in Arab media, mosques, and schools. His three prior books include a prescription for post-Saddam institution building in Iraq (The New Iraq, Basic Books, 2003), a study of crime and punishment in Casablanca (The Honored Dead, Random House, 2011), and an assessment of prospects to foster liberal social trends through Arab media (Broadcasting Change, Rowman & Littlefield, 2018).

Egyptian Human Rights Advocate

Eglal Ghita, a British-Egyptian national, is a solicitor in London. Both bilingual and bicultural, she stands poised to act as one of the Arab Council's leading voices in the media.

Honorary President Of The Arab Council For Regional Integration

Dr. Essam Abdel Samad is the Honorary President of the Arab Council for Regional Integration. He lives between London and Cairo and heads the Union of Egyptians in Europe – an NGO registered with the Egyptian Government’s Association of Civil Society Organizations.

Abdel Samad serves as an unofficial adviser to the Egyptian leadership and was also a key player in drafting the Egyptian constitution following the Arab Spring. Three years ago, Abdel Samad hosted an Arab-Israeli meeting in London where representatives from seven Arab countries and Israelis called for the reorganization of Arab-Israeli relations in an unprecedented initiative known as the “Samad Initiative”.

He also heads prominent national, Arab and international initiatives and has led several conferences and seminars both in and outside Egypt.

Advisor

Ambassador Dennis Ross is counselor and William Davidson Distinguished Fellow at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Prior to returning to the Institute in 2011, he served two years as special assistant to President Obama and National Security Council senior director for the Central Region, and a year as special advisor to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. For more than twelve years, Ambassador Ross played a leading role in shaping U.S. involvement in the Middle East peace process and dealing directly with the parties in negotiations. A highly skilled diplomat, Ambassador Ross was U.S. point man on the peace process in both the George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton administrations. He was instrumental in assisting Israelis and Palestinians to reach the 1995 Interim Agreement; he also successfully brokered the 1997 Hebron Accord, facilitated the 1994 Israel-Jordan peace treaty, and intensively worked to bring Israel and Syria together. A scholar and diplomat with more than two decades of experience in Soviet and Middle East policy, Ambassador Ross worked closely with Secretaries of State James Baker, Warren Christopher, and Madeleine Albright. Prior to his service as special Middle East coordinator under President Clinton, Ambassador Ross served as director of the State Department’s Policy Planning Staff in the first Bush administration. In that capacity, he played a prominent role in U.S. policy toward the former Soviet Union, the unification of Germany and its integration into NATO, arms control negotiations, and the 1991 Gulf War coalition.

Tunisian Journalist And Writer / Media Advisor To The Arab Council For Regional Integration

Nadia Al-Turki is a prominent international journalist, writer, poet and academic. She writes in three languages, and aside from Arabic, is fluent in French and English. With a deep-rooted background in the media, she is a seasoned journalist, working for Al-Sharq Al-Awsat Newspaper, Al-Arab News, Al-Majalla and the Saudi Publishing and Research Company. She is currently President and Founder of the International Academy of Media and Diplomacy (IAMD). Her work has enabled her to build a wide network of influencers and to forge professional relationships within the diplomatic and media community. She is also the executive editor and founder of 7D news. While working in the political section of the Al-Sharq Al-Awsat Newspaper, she interviewed Arab and international figures in various fields. These include the late Benazir Bhutto of Pakistan, the Yemeni Prime Minister, the former Libyan Prime Minister, the President of NATO, the former Tunisian President, the former Portuguese President, the British Minister for Middle East Affairs, many officials and experts from the United Nations as well as many international organizations and universities from all around the world. Al-Turki regularly participates in radio and television programs as a political analyst.

Gulf Affairs Coordinator For The Arab Council For Regional Integration

Issa Rashed al-Arabi is an International human rights expert and defender focusing on Bahrain and the Arab region. He is a researcher and international consultant in the fields of national reconciliation, peace building and the promotion of transitional justice issues. Al-Arabi has founded or participated in the establishment of many associations and human rights committees in Bahrain and other countries in the region. Previously, he and a group of human rights defenders in the region founded the Gulf International Organization for Human Rights in Geneva where he served as Secretary General for more than two years. Later, in 2015, he and a group of Arab human rights activists founded the Arab Federation for Human Rights in Geneva where he served as Secretary General until 2017. This organization was born out of the need to unify Arab human rights work and direct it towards promoting respect for human rights in the region. In this, Al-Arabi sought to forge partnerships between governments and representatives of civil society active in the field of human rights. The aim of the Arab Federation for Human Rights is to contribute to the strengthening and upgrading of the Arab human rights system. Al-Arabi is now responsible for the chairmanship of the Arab Union for Human Rights, which represents many Arab and international organizations concerned with Arab affairs. Al-Arabi has participated in more than twenty sessions of the Human Rights Council, and in many periodic reviews of human rights at the United Nations. He has also participated in many regional and international conferences, seminars, meetings and forums on human rights. Additionally, Al-Arabi has taken part in numerous fellowship programs and international visits for peace programs. He presented a national reconciliation and peacebuilding initiative in Bahrain after the events of 2011.

Al-Arabi has spoken at numerous seminars on human rights, peace building, peace promotion and the promotion of a culture of tolerance at international think tanks such as Chatham House, international universities such as Oxford and Harvard, and the United Nations Palace for Human Rights. He also assumed the role of secretary for the first general conference titled “Human Rights in the GCC Countries” in 2014 and the second in 2015 , as well as secretary for first Arab Forum for Human Rights at the Arab League in 2016.