Alexander Bligh is Visiting Professor of Law who teaches Israel and Middle Eastern International Law and Policy. Concurrently, Dr. Bligh is Director of the Middle East Research Center at Ariel University Center which is located in the West Bank. Prior to his current positions, he held several academic positions for varying lengths of time spanning years 1998- 2009: founder and chair of the Department of Israel and Middle East Politics; chair of the Department of Political Science, Department of Israel Studies, and Department of Middle Eastern History; and director for the Israel National Strategic Assessment Center, and professor, all at The College of Judea and Samaria/Ariel University Center. Dr. Bligh has further extensive history in the field of academia beginning in 1981 as a visiting scholar at Columbia University and then in 1985 as visiting professor, each time in the history department; visiting professor at the University of Toronto in 1987 in the department of political science; and visiting professor at York University (Canada’s third largest university) in the departments of history and political science. He is an experienced lecturer having held positions as senior lecturer at The Hebrew University in Jerusalem and The Open University. Dr. Bligh is credited with developing a master-level course program, Democracy and Democratisation in the Arab World, for the Department of Political Science at The Open University. He was dean of students and chair of the Middle Eastern studies program at Jezreel Valley College. A frequently invited published author, Dr. Bligh has spent much of his professional career presenting his research at conferences and universities in a global capacity. Most recently he presented "Developing Intelligence in the Field of Financing Terror—an Analytical Model" at the 10th European Conference on Information Warfare and Security at The Institute of Cybernetics at the Tallinn University of Technology in Tallinn, Estonia. He is the recipient of many scholarships, fellowships, and awards including The Israel Lottery, annual research grant (1976); Israeli Labor Organization, the Annual David Ben-Gurion Grant (1976); Columbia University’s President’s Fellowship (1978 and 1979); and the Israel Association for Canadian Studies, Government of Canada Faculty Enrichment Award (2002), and many more. After earning his B.A. in history of the Muslim countries and Arabic language and literature, he received his M.A. in history of the Middle East and Africa; a certificate from Columbia University School of International Affairs; M.Phil. in history of the Middle East and a minor in Soviet history politics; and a Ph.D. in history of the Middle East.