Institute for Middle East Peace and Development

The Institute for Middle East Peace and Development 501(c)(3) was founded by Stephen Philip Cohen (Middle East expert) in 1979 "to serve as facilitator and private intermediary in peace-making and peace-building." Cohen has served as the Institute's President ever since.

Their website notes:


 * "The Institute for Middle East Peace and Development was established by Dr. Stephen P. Cohen in 1979 at CUNY, and is now an independent organization. We are grateful for the help we received from Cyrus Vance, Moshe Dayan, and Boutros Boutros Ghali in the days of our founding. IMEPD was designed to serve as a venue for confidential, Track II Arab-Israeli dialogue.   We pioneered bringing together social scientists from Middle East universities for collaborative research, culminating in the Images in Conflict Project. We convened the first secret official negotiations between Israel and the PLO, supervised by Yasser Arafat and Shimon Peres."

Team
Source
 * Stephen P. Cohen
 * Beth Konarski

Directors
Source
 * Stephen P. Cohen, President, Institute for Middle East Peace and Development
 * Frank Wisner, Executive Vice President of AIG and former US Ambassador to Egypt, India, and the Philippines
 * Margaret Tutwiler, Executive Vice President for Communications and Government Relations of the New York Stock Exchange, former UnderSecretary of Public Diplomacy
 * Robert Arnow, real estate entrepreneur and philanthropist, founder of educational programs for the Bedouins of Israeli Negev
 * Marcia Riklis, philanthropist and businesswoman, successor to her father’s major estate, the Riklis Empire
 * Adam Backenroth, businessman and music philanthropist