Alastair Crooke is director of the Conflicts Forum, based in Italy and Lebanon.

Prior to this, Mr. Crooke was an advisor on Middle East issues to Javier Solana, the European Union’s former foreign policy chief. He was a staff member of Senator George Mitchell’s Sharm el-Sheikh Fact-Finding Committee, which inquired into the causes of the intifada between 2000 and 2001. As an adviser to the International quartet, comprising the United States, the European Union, Russia and the United Nations, he facilitated various cease-fires in the Occupied Territories .

Mr. Crooke has two decades of experience working with Islamist movements, particularly Hamas and Hezbollah as well as other Islamist movements in Afghanistan, Pakistan and the Middle East. He is the author of “Resistance: The Essence of the Islamist Revolution,” published in 2009, and is a regular media commentator in the international media, both in print and on television.

Mr. Crooke is a member of the United Nations Alliance of Civilization’s Global Experts panel.