As MENA Program Director, Joost leads the organisation’s research, analysis, policy prescription and advocacy in and about the region. Previously, he was Crisis Group’s Chief Operating Officer (2013-2014), in which capacity he was responsible for the oversight and management of the organisation’s programs and operations around the world. Prior to that, he was Crisis Group’s Deputy Program Director for the Middle East and North Africa (2007-2012) and Project Director for the Middle East (2002-2007), helping to manage a team of analysts deployed throughout the region.

• Iraq: political transition, constitutional process, the situation of the Kurds, Kirkuk and other disputed territories, oil, relations with neighbouring states
• Bahrain
• Yemen
• Jordan
• Israel-Palestine
• Middle East region: security threats, authoritarianism and democratisation, political Islam, sectarianism

• Chief Operating Officer, International Crisis Group (2013-2014)
• Deputy Program Director, Middle East and North Africa, International Crisis Group (2007-2012)
• Project Director, Middle East, International Crisis Group (2002-2007)
• Executive Director, Arms Division of Human Rights Watch (1994-2002)
• Director of Iraq Documents Project, HRW (1992-1994)
• Research Coordinator, Al-Haq (Ramallah) (1988-1990)
• Database Coordinator, Al-Haq (Ramallah) (1985-1988)
• PhD, Sociology, University of California, Santa Cruz (1988); MA, International Relations, Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (1980)
• He has written for The New York Review of Books, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, The Financial Times, The National Interest, Middle East Report, and other publications

• Former Board Member, Center for Civilians in Conflict (previously known as CIVIC)
• Former Advisory Board Member, Arab Regional Office of Open Society Foundations
• Research Affiliate, MIT Center for International Studies
• Consultant/Advisor, Dialogue Advisory Group

Frequent interviews with major media outlets, including BBC, CNN, The New York Times, Financial Times

• Two books: A Poisonous Affair: America, Iraq, and the Gassing of Halabja (Cambridge, 2007), and Behind the Intifada: Labor and Women’s Movements in the Occupied Territories (Princeton, 1991)

• English
• Dutch
• Arabic
• French