This Woman Secretly Tries to Stop War

Gabrielle Rifkind operates successful the shadows, successful the quiet, dark, backmost rooms of planetary politics. A spot paradoxically, the 71-ish Londoner strikes a crisp pose: outré pantsuits, dresses. Cool, kooky glasses. A achromatic daze of bobbed hair. Upon gathering her, you truly privation to talk to her. Which is possibly the point: The peacemaking enactment Rifkind founded successful 2016—the London-based Oxford Process—is each astir facilitating dialog. Except they bash this, arsenic their website says, “far from the nationalist gaze.”

Rifkind is not connected to immoderate authoritative government, but she has spent the past 2 decades trying to marque imaginable the conditions for bid between, oftentimes, sworn enemies. She has worked successful off-the-record meetings connected Syrian proxy wars, the Iran atomic talks. Because of her background, she’s often looking for and astatine the roots of trauma. As she said successful a portion successful the Guardian astatine the commencement of the Ukraine war, “We should not underestimate the nexus betwixt humiliation and aggression.” Her caller weeks and months (and years) person been busy.

Vital work. Yet, arsenic she says, “there's a unusual paradox because, successful immoderate ways, I deliberation it's incredibly important to speech astir these ideas, and yet you besides person to stay disconnected the radar.” Which means, portion she can’t spill her secrets, she’s got plentifulness to accidental astir the distressingly endless task astatine hand.

This interrogation has been edited and condensed for magnitude and clarity.

Maria Streshinsky: How does the Oxford Process work?

Gabrielle Rifkind: A batch of what we privation to bash is to effort and acceptable up connection softly down the scenes betwixt warring parties. We're a precise tiny organization, but we are precise privileged to person ex-foreign ministers, ex-ambassadors who enactment with america and springiness up their clip pro bono. Funding tin beryllium an contented for america due to the fact that of the information that we don't instrumentality sides. People tin find that difficult. They privation determination to beryllium bully radical and atrocious radical successful the world.

Your inheritance is successful psychology. How did you extremity up mounting up concealed meetings to extremity wars?

In 2000, I was invited to Israel to thatch 50 radical analysts to enactment with trauma. I went to the state 26 times implicit 2 years. It was the tallness of the 2nd Intifada, a play of termination bombing. It seemed to maine that successful the extremity I didn't privation to enactment with idiosyncratic radical who'd been traumatized. Rather, the full governmental strategy connected some sides betwixt the Israelis and the Palestinians seemed traumatized, linked to their ain histories, the Holocaust, the Nakba. I'm not comparing the two; they are different, but it seemed a batch of the reactions that were happening had a batch to bash with past and trauma. It besides seemed to maine that for years we've known of imaginable solutions, but nobody's been successful the close authorities of mind. So I decided I would effort and enactment politically, connected some sides.

How did you statesman that process?