Stephen P. Cohen

Dr. Stephen P. Cohen served as Academic Consultant to the National Intelligence Council from 2003-2006 and on the US Advisory Group on Public Diplomacy for the Arab and Muslim World in 2003. He has made some 150 trips to the region over 40 years, and has taught in the US at Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Lehigh, City University of New York, and at Middle East institutions in Egypt, Israel, Lebanon, Jordan and Syria. He speaks and meets regularly with high-level American, Israeli, Palestinian, Arab and European officials. Cohen is the founder and president of the Institute for Middle East Peace and Development, which remains his institutional base, enabling him to serve as facilitator and private intermediary in peace-making and peace-building. He brought about the first secret official negotiations between Israel and the PLO under the supervision of Yasser Arafat and Shimon Peres; served as a behind-the-scenes confidant of Israel’s Foreign Minister Moshe Dayan and Egypt’s President Anwar El Sadat in the launching of their peace process; and is a senior member of the United States group engaged in off-the-record dialogue with Syria.