Shaul Mishal is Professor of Political Science at Tel Aviv University and head of the Middle East Programme at the Lauder School of Government, Diplomacy and Strategy at IDC Herzliya. Mishal is also Visiting Professor at Yale University and Visiting Scholar at Harvard. He founded and directed the Center for Israeli Arab Studies and have authored numerous books and articles in subjects related to Arab and Islamic political cultures, most notably The Palestinian Hamas: Vision, Violence and Coexistence (Columbia University Press, 1999), co-authored with Avraham Sela. Mishal was born in 1945 in Baghdad by Jewish parents. The family emigrated to Israel where he was educated at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.
Benedetta Berti is Head of Policy Planning at the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, NATO. Berti is also Visiting Professor at the College of Europe, Associate Researcher at the Institute for European Studies at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Senior Fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute and a TED Senior Fellow. Previously, she held positions at West Point, the Institute for National Security Studies and Tel Aviv University, among others. Berti has published extensively on human security, internal conflict and the integration of armed groups, notably Hamas. Her books include Armed Political Organizations: From Conflict to Integration (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2013) and Hezbollah and Hamas: A Comparative Study (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2012). Berti holds a doctorate from the Fletcher School at Tufts University.
Magnus Ranstorp is Professor of International Relations and Research Director at the Swedish Defence University in Stockholm. He was previously Director of the Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence at the University of St Andrews. Ranstorp has written extensively about Hamas, Hizbollah and other armed Islamist movements over the past decades. His expertise also extends into the operative sphere. In 2000, Ranstorp received official recognition from the Knesset for his role as a backchannel messenger between Israeli authorities and Hizbollah’s leadership during the 1990s. Ranstorp has been an expert commentator on terrorism issues for CNN and was invited to testify before the 9/11 Commission’s first hearing.