ALASTAIR CROOKE
Founder of Conflicts Forum – an international movement which engages with Islamist movements broadly; organiser of US and European unofficial dialogues in 2005 with Hezbollah, Hamas and other Islamist movements; former special Mid-East adviser to European Union High Representative, Javier Solana; facilitated various Israeli-Palestinian ceasefires during 2001-2003; instrumental in the negotiations leading to the ending of the siege of the Church of Nativity in Bethlehem; mediated in the negotiations leading to the ceasefire declared by Hamas and Islamic Jihad in June 2003; staff member of President Clinton’s Fact Finding Committee, led by Senator Mitchell into the causes of the Intifada; direct experience of conflict over a period of 30 years in Ireland, South Africa, Namibia, Afghanistan, Cambodia and Colombia; co-ordinator in hostage negotiations; author of articles and contributor to television productions on the Palestinian–Israeli conflict and on insurgency and political Islam more generally.

MARK PERRY
Mark Perry is a military, intelligence and foreign affairs analyst and writer. His articles have appeared in dozens of publications: The Nation, The Washington Post, The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, The Cleveland Plain Dealer, Newsday, and The Los Angeles Times. He is the author of six books: Four Stars: The Inside Story of the Forty-Year Battle Between the JCS and America’s Civilian Leaders (1987), Eclipse: The Last Days of the CIA (1990), A Fire In Zion, Inside the Israeli-Palestinian Peace Process (1994), Conceived In Liberty (1996), Lift Up Thy Voice, The Grimke Family’s Journey from Slaveholders to Civil Rights Leaders (2000) and Grant and Twain (2004). He is currently working on his seventh book (Penguin Press), which is a history of the Marshall-Eisenhower military partnership during World War Two.

During the late 1970s and early and mid-1980s, Perry has served as editor and Washington bureau chief for a number of publications. He served as editor for Washington D.C.’s City Paper. He also served, for six years, as editor of The Veteran, the largest circulation newspaper for veterans in the nation. Perry authored an article for Regardies magazine on the CIA’s program to destabilize Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq, which was nominated for a National Magazine Award. He helped research and write the BBC’s award-winning “Panorama” production of “The Intelligence War Against Iraq” in 1991 and has served as chief researcher on a number of other BBC productions. A Fire In Zion was the recipient of the 1995 Jewish-American Community Book Award.

Perry has appeared in many media and national forums: as an commentator on Cable News Network’s “Special Assignment,” as a guest on CNN’s “The International Hour.” He has served as a consultant to CNN on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He is the recipient of the University of California’s prestigious “Censored Award.” He is currently Washington correspondent for The Palestine Report, a foreign policy internet magazine focusing on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He founded and was President of the Institute for Conflict Resolution Studies. He is a senior fellow at the Jerusalem Media and Communications Center. Most recently he helped to establish and is the co-Director of Conflicts Forum, an international organization working for peace in the Middle East. Perry is a leading expert on the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, and has worked for long periods over two decades in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza.

Perry served as a senior foreign policy analyst for Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation, a leading international humanitarian organization; VVAF co-founded the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize winning international landmine campaign. Perry served as the poliltical director of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines from 1992 to 2001. Perry also served as Vice President of Jefferson Waterman International, a Washington, D.C. political consulting firm from 2001 to 2005. He resigned his position to take up his duties at Conflicts Forum.
(Beiden overgenomen van conflictsforum.org)

MICHAEL ANCRAM
(...) Michael was born on 7th July 1945 in London. Educated at Ampleforth College, Christ Church Oxford (MA) and Edinburgh University (LLB), he was called to the Scottish Bar in 1970. Michael practised law until the beginning of 1974 when he contested and won the seat of Berwickshire and East Lothian in the General Election of that year, becoming the first Conservative Catholic Member of Parliament in Scotland since the Reformation. Michael lost the seat in the General Election the following October, the second that year, and returned to the Bar until 1979 when he became Member of Parliament for Edinburgh South.
From 1979 until 1983, Michael was a member of the House of Commons Energy Select Committee, in addition to being Chairman of the Scottish Conservative Party from 1980 until 1983. He was Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Scottish Office with responsibility for Home Affairs, Housing, Local Government, Rating Reform and the Environment from 1983 to 1987, when he lost his seat.

In 1992, Michael moved to Wiltshire as Member of Parliament for Devizes. He was a member of the Public Accounts Committee and Chairman of the Backbench Constitutional Affairs Committee from 1992 until May 1993. At that time he was appointed Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Northern Ireland Office, and in January 1994 was appointed Minister of State at the same office. As such, he was responsible for the negotiations leading to the Northern Ireland Peace Process, and was the first British minister to meet with Sinn Fein and the IRA for 25 years.

Michael was made a Privy Counsellor in January 1996, and a QC later that year. He was appointed to the Shadow Cabinet with responsibility for Constitutional Affairs in 1997, a position he held until 1998 when he became Deputy Party Chairman. In October 1998 Michael was made Chairman of the Conservative Party. Following the General Election in June 2001, he was a candidate in the Conservative Party leadership election and in September 2001 was appointed Deputy Leader of the Opposition and Shadow Secretary of State for Foreign & Commonwealth Affairs. In 2005 he was appointed Shadow Secretary of State for Defence and remained Deputy Leader.

Alongside politics and the law, Michael has been involved in farming as a partner in an arable tenanted farm in the Scottish Borders. During his time out of Parliament, from 1987 until 1992, he held non-executive directorships in companies ranging from Corporate Communications to Paper Recycling. He was also heavily involved in the Housing Association movement, and Environmental Medicine. His hobbies, alongside folk singing, include photography and skiing. As a student, Michael raced with the British University Ski Team for three years. Amongst family and friends he is known best for his Buddy Holly impressions, and his continuing agility in the Parliamentary Ski Races in Switzerland each year.

In accordance with Michael Ancram's statement at the Party Conference in October, he stepped down from the front bench on 6 December 2005.

ROBERT FISK
Maidstone, Kent 1946
Brits journalist die lange tijd Midden-oosten correspondent voor de krant The Independent was. Fisk ontvind de 'Amnesty International UK Press Awards' voor zijn verslagen in Algerije (1998) en nogmaals voor zijn artikel over de NAVO en de luchtmachtcampagne tegen voormalig Joegoslavie in 1999. In Engeland werd hij zeven keer (!) bekroond met de Britse prijs voor journalistiek en tweemaal met de "Reporter of the Year" trofee.