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About the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs

 
The Jerusalem Center Building
Our Building – A Protected Jerusalem Landmark

The Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs is a leading independent research institute, serving as Israel’s global embassy for national security and applied diplomacy. Founded in 1976, the Center has produced hundreds of studies and initiatives by leading experts on a wide range of strategic topics.

Jerusalem Center Programs:

The Palestinian Authority Accountability Initiative

In 2016, the Jerusalem Center launched a pathbreaking research initiative documenting the Palestinian Authority’s official payments to terrorists and their families. This led to legislation both in Israel and the U.S. Congress (the Taylor Force Act) that conditioned aid to the Palestinian Authority on the cessation of these terror-incentivization payments. The Jerusalem Center is expanding the anti-“Pay for Slay” initiative to hold the Palestinian Authority to account for its widespread corruption, “apartheid” propaganda, and international lawfare against the State of Israel. The Center intends to mobilize international donor states to:

  • Force the PA to moderate its violent incitement against Israel and Jews.
  • Cease the Palestinian Authority’s subversion of Israel’s existence as the nation-state of the Jewish people on the world stage.
  • Expose the PA’s antisemitic rhetoric and political warfare in international institutions.
  • Develop and deepen Western critical discourse on the PA narrative.
  • Upgrade Israel’s peace profile in the West.
  • Promote a moderate Palestinian Authority that will advance a free and democratic society that truly represents the interests of Palestinians.

Institute to Counter Political Warfare:

The Initiative to Expose “Apartheid Antisemitism”

Jew-hatred has been mainstreamed into Western culture, politics, media, and higher education. Jews and the Jewish state have become “racialized” issues, as the American Jewish community is depicted as privileged “whites,” and Israel, likewise, as a “white supremacist colonialist entity” – an “apartheid state.” “Apartheid antisemitism” has coopted the U.S. public discourse, has divided the Jewish community, and has isolated Israel in international fora, particularly at the UN and associated agencies.

In 2016, the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs launched an international initiative to combat “apartheid antisemitism.” Dan Diker traveled to South Africa and engaged government, business and academic leaders in a joint research initiative to refute the BDS “apartheid” campaign against Israel. In 2020, the Jerusalem Center partnered with Black American leaders, Arab and Ethiopian Israeli researchers to expose BDS political warfare with the publication of Dan Diker’s compendium, Israelophobia and the West, which Professor Alan Dershowitz called “the bible for understanding the new antisemitism.” The Jerusalem Center and its partners will transform our research findings into actionable applied diplomacy.

Institute for U.S.-Israel Relations:

Black American-Israel Leadership Initiative

The Jerusalem Center’s joint diplomatic-educational PEACE-Promise project with the U.S.-based Institute for Black Solidarity with Israel (IBSI) engages young Black American and African leaders and influencers by educating and empowering them with political facts and historical context to combat antisemitism in the Black community and enhance understanding and cooperation between Blacks, Jews, and the Jewish state.

The IBSI-Jerusalem Center “Promise” project, which includes diplomatic missions to Africa and Israel, emphasizes the history and importance of Israel-Africa and Black-Jewish relationships. IBSI vets its “ambassadors,” identifying key players in the community, including Black pastors and leaders. IBSI’s holistic educational approach teaches authentic Black history, including the deep identification of Black churches with Israel and spiritual Zionism. In addition, IBSI’s frontal and direct approach to important controversial issues, including discussions on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and Black-Jewish relations, and continuing education and advocacy in the United States, distinguishes this program from all other advocacy organizations, which merely bring young people on Israel tours, with no further engagement.

During IBSI’s mission to South Africa and Zimbabwe and Israel, ambassadors will learn firsthand of Israel’s cultural, religious, and ethnic diversity, its technological achievements and its long-standing partnership with African states.

Institute for Regional Security:

Arab-Israel-India National Security Partnership

The intensifying threat posed by the Iranian regime to the security and stability of the Middle East and Western Asia has transformed former adversaries into new allies. The signing of the historic Abraham Peace and Normalization Accords in 2020 has created unprecedented cooperation between Israel and its Arab neighbors in the fields of national security and applied diplomacy as well as trade, high-tech, intelligence, infrastructure, and sustainability. The Jerusalem Center has partnered with Bahrain’s Derasat policy institute, the United Arab Emirates’ Emirates Policy Center, and Morocco’s Policy Center for the New South. These partnerships promise to completely reframe Israel’s profile as a fully integrated and normalized member of the Arab-majority Middle East. The Jerusalem Center, together with its regional partners, will continue to document and expose Iran’s race for hegemony under a rising nuclear umbrella via policy studies and recommendations for decision-makers across the region.

Africa-Israel National Security Partnership

The Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs is leveraging and extending its Abraham Accords partnerships into the African continent. African nations are turning to Israel as an anchor for security, stability, and prosperity, viewing Israel’s technological capabilities as a solution for food security, water desalinization, and infrastructure development for future generations.

For the first time in Israel’s history, a leading Israeli policy and diplomacy institute – the Jerusalem Center – is partnering with Ethiopia’s leading policy and applied diplomacy institutes. Ethiopia, the second-largest African nation, with a population of 125 million, shares similar national security challenges with Israel, including combating terrorism and radicalization, and seeking to maintain political and social cohesion in a multiethnic society. The Jerusalem Center has also been approached by leading policy institutes in Uganda, Kenya, Sudan, and the Red Sea states of Djibouti and Somaliland.

The Jerusalem Center is collaborating with Ethiopia’s Institute of Foreign Affairs (IFA) and Institute for Peace and Security Studies (IPSS) to create a shared agenda using the following modalities:

  • Exchange of Jerusalem Center, IFA, and IPSS-led governmental, parliamentary and diplomatic delegations.
  • Zoom consultations, workshops, roundtables, podcasts and videocasts.
  • Annual major conference on Israel-Africa national security challenges to be held in Africa, Israel, and the United States.
  • Policy recommendations on strategic intelligence, military and national security, and infrastructure, food and water security.
  • Impact assessment of Israel’s profile in the West including polling of African, Israeli and Jewish American public opinion on bilateral and multilateral relations.
  • Extension of the Jerusalem Center’s policy and applied diplomacy activities through research centers and universities, media and opinion influencers, and selected civil society stakeholders across the African continent.

Additional Jerusalem Center Initiatives:

Defensible Borders for Israel – A major security and public diplomacy initiative that analyzes current terror threats and Israel’s corresponding territorial requirements, particularly in the strategically vital West Bank.

Jerusalem in International Diplomacy – Dore Gold analyzes the legal and historic rights of Israel in Jerusalem in The Fight for Jerusalem: Radical Islam, the West, and the Future of the Holy City. Jerusalem expert Nadav Shragai documents nearly a century of extremist violence in “The Al-Aksa is in Danger” Libel: The History of a Lie.

Combating Delegitimization and BDS – A public diplomacy program exposing those forces that oppose Israel’s legitimacy. Publications include BDS Unmasked: Radical Roots, Extremist Ends (2016), Defeating Denormalization: Shared Palestinian and Israeli Perspectives on a New Path to Peace (2018), Students for Justice in Palestine Unmasked (2018), and Israelophobia and the West (2020).

Global Law Forum – An initiative led by Amb. Alan Baker, former legal advisor to Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, undertakes studies and advances policy initiatives to protect Israel’s legal rights in its conflict with the Palestinians and radical Islam.

Institute for Diplomatic Affairs (IDA) – A program that presents Israel’s rights and security-based diplomacy to the foreign diplomatic corps and foreign press in Israel.

Jerusalem Center Serial Publications:

Jerusalem Issue Brief/Jerusalem Viewpoints – Insider briefings by top-level Israeli government officials, military experts, and academics, as part of the Center’s Institute for Contemporary Affairs.

Daily Alert – A digest of hyperlinked news and commentary on Israel and the Middle East from the world and Israeli press since 2002.

Jewish Political Studies Review – A scholarly journal founded in 1989.

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See also:

The Jerusalem Center Activity Report 2022 (January-September 2022)

The Jerusalem Center Activity Report (October 2021)

The Jerusalem Center during the Coronavirus Epidemic (March–August 2020)

Jerusalem Center Action and Impact (2019–2020)

Jerusalem Center Action and Impact (January–October 2018)

Annual Report 2017: Jerusalem Center Action and Impact

Jerusalem Center Initiatives and Impact (2017)

Jerusalem Center Initiatives and Impact (Summer-Fall 2016)

Jerusalem Center Initiatives and Impact (Winter-Spring 2015-16)

Other Jerusalem Center Websites and Pages