Biography

​

Dalia Ziada is an Egyptian award-winning writer and political analyst specializing in governance, geopolitics, and defense policy in the Middle East and the Eastern Mediterranean. Dalia studied international relations at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University, majoring in international security studies.
 
Over 18 years, Dalia worked in leading positions at regional and international think tanks and civil society organizations, where she managed programs and published dozens of essays and books analyzing political conflicts and power relations in the Middle East and North Africa and the geopolitical complexities of the Eastern Mediterranean.
 
Dalia co-founded and chaired the Liberal Democracy Institute (LDI), directed research at the Center for Middle East and Eastern Mediterranean Studies (MEEM), worked as the Executive Director of the Ibn Khaldun Center for Development Studies (IKC), and was the Regional Director in the Middle East and North Africa at the Washington-based American Islamic Congress (AIC). She has also served as a board member of the Foreign Affairs Committee of Egypt’s National Council for Women (NCW). 
 
Since April 2024, Dalia has joined the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs (JCFA) as a Senior Fellow for Research and Diplomacy. Since May 2024, Dalia has been roaming American university campuses, in partnership with Hillel International, to lecture on the changing geopolitics of the Middle East in the aftermath of the October 7 attacks. Meanwhile, Dalia is working on a research project with the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy (ISGAP) on the threat of radical Islamism in the United States and Europe.
 
In addition, Dalia is a member of several regional and international voluntary initiatives advocating for peace and freedom, including the Council of Mediterranean Diplomacy (Diplomeds), the Renew Democracy Initiative (RDI), the Clarity Coalition, and See The Good (STG). 
 
Dalia has earned several awards for the impact of her writing and activism. She has been globally recognized for her leading role as a civil rights activist in the Arab Spring revolutions of 2010-2011 and for her uncommon stance as an Arab Muslim intellectual in support of Israel and against Hamas and Iran proxies in the aftermath of the October 7 attacks on Israel. Dalia has been active in the people-to-people Muslim-Jewish Dialogue and Arab-Israeli Dialogue for 16 years. She has engaged in several political and cultural battles against political Islamists and radical Islamist groups in her homeland, Egypt, other Arab countries, and the United States.
 
Dalia authored the best-selling book “The Curious Case of the Three-Legged Wolf - Egypt: Military, Islamism, and Liberal Democracy” (2019) and other internationally acclaimed books dating back to 2006. Dalia’s next book project, "The Coalition of Odds," explores the geopolitical and security structures of the new Middle East emerging from the regional reshuffle of power coalitions, the impact of the Great Power Competition, and the changing world order.

 

​

Areas of expertise

​

(18 years of field work in the Middle East and Eastern Mediterranean)

​

• Regional security and power competition in the Middle East and North Africa.

• The geopolitical complexities of the Eastern Mediterranean.

• US foreign policy in the Middle East and the Eastern Mediterranean.

• Defense Policy and Civil-Military Relations in Arab countries, Israel, and Turkey.

• Theory and Application of Nonviolent Action and Strategies.

• Governance, Democratization, and Social Movements in Arab Countries.

​​​​

​

​

View the full resume, publications, and detailed professional record here​​