Ilana Bet-El is a strategic adviser, writer and historian. A former UN official and senior adviser on the Balkans, she has worked extensively with both governments and clients in the private sector on geostrategic and policy issues related to security, defence and energy in the EU, Russia, Turkey and broader Europe, the Middle East and the Trans-Atlantic community. With a background in the media and academia, she has published widely, including a weekly column on EU defence and security. She holds a PhD in history from UCL, is a member of the WIIS (Women In International Security) Senior Advisory Board in Brussels, and a Visiting Fellow at King’s College London Department of War Studies.
Ilana Bet-El
Senior Associate Fellow
Content by Ilana Bet-El
Podcast
The Women Leaders podcast: The US at 250, the exceptional experiment with Laurel Rapp
On the eve of the United States of America’s 250th anniversary, ELN Senior Associate Fellow Ilana Bet-El is joined in conversation with Laurel Rapp, Director of the US and North America Programme at Chatham House, to discuss the US experiment and how recent developments across Greenland, Venezuela and Iran – as well as domestically – have altered global perceptions of the US.
Podcast
The Women Leaders podcast: Lebanon’s pivotal place in the Middle East
Following the signing of the 14-point peace plan in Versailles, it would appear that the war in the Middle East is over, at least according to President Trump. However, the absence of both Israel and Lebanon from the agreement would suggest otherwise. Suzan Haidamous, Beirut-based correspondent for the Washington Post, joins ELN Senior Associate Fellow Ilana Bet-El to break down events in Lebanon and the wider region.
Podcast
The Women Leaders podcast: Risk and reality
Assessing risk is a vast and growing field, made ever more complex and expansive by the introduction of technology, especially AI. Tinatin Japaridze, YGLN member and Director of Geopolitics at Anadyr Horizon joins ELN Senior Associate Fellow Ilana Bet-El to analyse how the ever-changing nature of global affairs intersects with emerging technologies to transform our conceptions of risk.