Gabrielle Rifkind

Gabrielle Rifkind is the Director of Oxford Process.

She is a group analyst, specialist in conflict resolution and an accredited mediator. Gabrielle combines in-depth political and psychological expertise with many years’ experience in promoting serious analysis and dialogue. Her focus of work over the past two decades has been the Iran nuclear issue, the proxy wars in Syria and the Palestine-Israel conflict. More recently she has been working on the Ukraine/ Russia conflict on keeping lines of communication open between the warring parties. She is a passionate believer in preventive diplomacy. 

An energetic woman, Gabrielle is an author and frequent contributor to the media, with over 50 publications nearly always from a conflict resolution perspective.  She has written for various newspapers, online publications and academic journals, including; The Guardian, The Times, Prospect, The Independent, Foreign Affairs, Open Democracy and the New England Journal of Public Policy. She is the author of How to Agree to Disagree: Turning Conflict to Connection, Pan Macmillan 2026 and is the co-author with Gianni Picco of Fog of Peace: how to prevent war. Bloomsbury 2016. In her article in Prospect Magazine, Gabrielle Rifkind argues that we need to get behind public rhetoric and aggression to talk peace. More information about Gabrielle is available at www.gabriellerifkind.co.uk.

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 Publications:

  • How to Agree to Disagree: Turning Conflict to Connection (Pan Macmillan 2026)

  • The Psychology of Political Extremism (Random House 2018)

  • The Fog of Peace: The Human Face of Conflict Resolution (I.B. Tauris 2014), co-authored with the former senior UN diplomat Giandomenico Picco

  • Making Terrorism History (Routledge 2005)

Gabrielle has been the conflict mediator for four series of BBC Radio 4’s Across the Red Line and Women’s Hour and twice debated at the Oxford Union. She regularly delivers public lectures.

She has delivered a TedTalk titled How to Prevent - or Stop - a War, where she shared how inclusive negotiating strategies can prevent war from breaking out or stop an ongoing conflict, and what we can do to make peace real for all.

She recently penned an article in Foreign Affairs titled The Price of Peace with Iran and a separate article with Responsible Statecraft titled A grand bargain is in sight, you just need a 'golden bridge' to get there.

She participated in a debate titled Is War Inevitable? with Open to Debate on whether humanity is naturally inclined toward war, or if war is a solvable policy failure.

She was a keynote speaker at an event titled Shaping the Future: Britains Role in a Changing Middle East and North Africa at the UK Labour Party’s 2025 annual conference.

She appeared on the Parlia podcast to discuss How Extremists Thinkand explained how emotional investment affects Being Diplomatic on BBC 3.

Article contribution and Op-Eds: