The Honored No. (24) Jihad Maqdisi

• Jihad Makdissi was born in 1974 to a Christian family from the Syrian capital, Damascus.
• He graduated from Al-Nour High School in Damascus, then from the École Nationale d’Administration in Paris, France.
• He obtained a Master’s degree in Diplomacy and International Relations in 2009 from the University of Westminster in the UK.
• He earned a PhD in Media Studies from the American University in London.
• In 2000, he worked at the Syrian Embassy in Washington, D.C.
• He also worked at the Syrian Embassy in London for five years.
• He was recalled to Damascus after the Syrian revolution broke out in mid-March 2011.
• He took on the role of official spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs under the Assad regime until around 2012.
• He defected from the Syrian regime and left his position at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on December 3, 2012.
• After his defection, many rumors circulated about him, with the British newspaper The Guardian even suggesting that he was “cooperating with officials in the U.S. intelligence agencies, who helped him flee to Washington.”
• He justified his defection from the Assad regime based on his belief that the massive popular protests that erupted in Syria in 2011 had legitimate demands and because “moderation and centrism” no longer had a place in the country, with polarization among Syrians reaching a deadly and destructive level, as he stated in a statement issued in February 2013.
• Makdissi believes in diplomacy and a political solution for Syria, which he emphasized in an interview with The New York Times in January 2014, where he said that a diplomat should serve his country, not be a lawyer who accepts any case presented to him! And that when things in Syria moved towards an armed conflict, he refused to be a lawyer for one side only.
• He joined the ranks of the opposition and became one of the most prominent figures in the “Cairo Platform,” which participated in the Geneva IV negotiations and supported De Mistura’s paper based on Resolution 2254 and the Geneva I Communiqué.
• In 2017, he issued a statement announcing his retirement from political work, explaining his reasons, including the internationalization, terrorism, and the bloody and tense atmosphere in Syria.

In the Syrian Future Movement (SFM), in recognition of his diplomatic, political, and then revolutionary history, and for standing with his people in their revolution against oppression and tyranny, and in appreciation of Syria’s great figures and men, we present the SFM Shield this week to the charismatic diplomat Jihad Makdissi, a symbolic Syrian shield that embodies our vision and national approach.