Benedetta Berti

A native of Italy, Benedetta Berti is currently a fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), a TED Fellow, and lecturer at Tel Aviv University. Since August 2017, she works as Senior Advisor and Acting Head of the Policy Planning Division (PPU) in the Office of the Secretary General at NATO.

In the past, she has worked as a human security and foreign policy consultant for political risk consulting firms, NGOs, international organizations as well as governments in Latin America, the Middle East, and the US.

Her areas of expertise include human security, internal conflict, integration of armed groups, post-conflict stabilization and peace-building, as well as democratic governance and crisis management and prevention. Her current research is related to political violence and conflict in the Middle East, non-state armed groups, as well as Palestinian, Lebanese, and Syrian politics.

Her work has appeared, among others, on Al-Arabiya, the Daily Beast, the Christian Science Monitor, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, the National Interest, and Open Democracy as well as in academic journals including Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, the Middle East Journal, ORBIS and Mediterranean Politics. Recently, Dr. Berti authored Armed Political Organizations: From Conflict to Integration (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2013) and edited with Kristina Mikulová and Nicu Popescu of Democratization in EU Foreign Policy: New Member States as Drivers of Democracy Promotion (Routledge, forthcoming).

Benedetta is a frequent news commentator on international security, Middle Eastern politics, and the Arab-Israeli conflict. Her comments and interviews have been featured in a number of prominent news outlets, including The New York Times, Time Magazine, the Wall Street Journal, the Christian Science Monitor, Bloomberg, Reuters and al-Jazeera. She is also a frequent guest lecturer and public speaker.

Her work and research have been awarded numerous awards, grants and fellowships, including the World Politics and Statecraft Fellowship, the Horowitz Foundation Grant, the Lady Davis Fellowship, the Bradley Foundation Dissertation Fellowship, the Morris Abrams Award in International Relations, the Rosenthal Fellowship and the International Center for Non-Violent Conflict Curriculum Fellowship.

She is a a Young Atlanticist Fellow, a Körber Foundation’s Munich Young Leader, a member of the Asian Forum on Global Governance and the UN Alliance of Civilizations “Global Experts.” In 2015 the Italian government awarded her the Order of the Star of Italy (order of Knighthood).

Benedetta holds a BA in Oriental Studies from the University of Bologna, an MA and PhD in International Relations from the Fletcher School (Tufts University), and two Post-doctorates in International Relations and Political Science (Hebrew University and Ben Gurion University).