Daniel Diker is the president of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, a public diplomacy and research institute in Jerusalem.
Dan Diker was born in New York. Diker earned a BA cum laude from Harvard University and pursued his MBA at the Harvard Graduate School of Business before receiving an MA in government, counter-terrorism and homeland security studies, summa cum laude, from Reichman University in Israel. His dissertation on the Palestinian National Movement and the West was under the supervision of Professor Christian Kaunert, Department of Security Studies at the University of South Wales, Cardiff, UK.
In the mid-1980s Diker trained as an actor at Stella Adler Conservatory in New York City, and landed several small roles in Delta Force 3: The Killing Game. [1]
From 1984 to 1987, Diker worked on Wall Street, first as a marketing professional at Drexel Burnham Lambert, and then as an advisor to the co-chairman on investment banking at Shearson Lehman Brothers.
Diker served as the WJC's director for Strategic Affairs and as WJC Middle East adviser on policy and diplomacy. He succeeded Michael Schneider, who served as the organization's secretary general since 2007. [2]
From 2006 to 2010, he served as director of the Institute for Contemporary Affairs at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, headed by Dore Gold, Israel's former Ambassador to the United Nations and former Director General, Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs. At JCPA, Diker has worked as a foreign policy analyst since 2002. [3] Before his appointment as president of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs in 2023, Diker was a Fellow and senior project director there, where he headed the Program to Counter Political Warfare and BDS.
Diker was secretary general of the World Jewish Congress (WJC), an umbrella group representing Jewish communities and organizations in nearly 100 countries. Diker began his term as Secretary General designate in December 2010, and was formally elected WJC secretary general on 20 June 2011 by the WJC Governing Board in Jerusalem, Israel. [4] In December 2012, the London-based Jewish Chronicle newspaper reported that Diker had announced his resignation effective January 2013, with the WJC's relocation of its main office to NYC. According to the article, WJC President Ronald S. Lauder praised Diker's "enthusiasm and dynamism" and said that his "love of Israel and the Jewish people is second to none..." [5]
Diker also served as an adjunct fellow of the Hudson Institute in Washington [6] and currently serves as a Research Fellow at the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism at the IDC Herziliya [7] and a foreign policy fellow at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. Diker has authored and edited numerous policy books on the global BDS movement for the JCPA including: Israelophobia and the West (2020), "BDS Unmasked: Radical Roots, Extremist Ends"(2016), "Students for Justice in Palestine, Unmasked" (2017) and "Defeating Denormalization: Shared Palestinian and Israeli Perspectives on a New Path to Peace" (2018). [8] [9] [10]
Diker was the executive producer of a private online radio station named Voice of Israel (no connection to the official Kol Israel/"Voice of Israel"), which operated between 2014 and 2015. He served as national security Analyst and host of a weekly radio program dealing with issues of national security in Israel and around the world. [11] [12] He also founded and hosted Counter Terrorism Today on IDC International Radio.
Diker has appeared as a commentator and analyst on Israeli and Middle Eastern affairs on CNN, Russia Today, BBC, ABC News, Fox News, and Al Jazeera news channels and as a Middle East Affairs commentator for Israel's IBA English News. His articles have appeared in the New York Sun , The Jerusalem Post , Makor Rishon , as well as the academic journals Middle East Quarterly and Azure. [13]
The Jewish Council for Public Affairs (JCPA) is an American Jewish nonprofit organization that advocates for progressive and liberal policies. Founded in 1944 as the umbrella organization for local Jewish advocacy arms known as community relations councils, for almost 80 years it represented approximately 125 local Jewish federations and community relations councils and was the coordinating body for 15 national Jewish organizations.
The Jewish Institute for National Security of America (JINSA), formerly named the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, is a Washington, D.C.–based, non-profit and think tank.
The World Jewish Congress (WJC) is an international federation of Jewish communities and organizations, founded in Geneva, Switzerland in August 1936. According to its mission statement, the World Jewish Congress's main purpose is to act as "the diplomatic arm of the Jewish people". Membership in the WJC is open to all representative Jewish groups or communities, irrespective of the social, political or economic ideology of the community's host country. The World Jewish Congress headquarters are in New York City, and the organization maintains international offices in Brussels, Belgium; Jerusalem; Paris, France; Moscow, Russia; Buenos Aires, Argentina; and Geneva, Switzerland. The WJC has special consultative status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council.
Isidor "Dore" Gold is an American-Israeli political scientist and diplomat who served as Permanent Representative of Israel to the United Nations from 1997 to 1999. He is currently the President of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. He was also an advisor to the former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during his first term in office. In May 2015, Netanyahu named him Director-General of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, a position he held until October 2016.
The Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs (JCPA) is an Israeli think tank specializing in public diplomacy and foreign policy founded in 1976. Describing itself on its website as "The Global Embassy for Israel", it publishes the biennial journal Jewish Political Studies Review alongside other content.
Ehud Yaari is an Israeli journalist, author, television personality and political commentator.
StandWithUs (SWU) is a nonprofit right-wing pro-Israel advocacy organization founded in Los Angeles in 2001 by Roz Rothstein, Jerry Rothstein, and Esther Renzer.
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Asaf Romirowsky is a Middle East historian and political commentator. He is the Executive Director of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East (SPME) and the Association for the Study of the Middle East and Africa (ASMEA).
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Isi Leibler was a Belgian-born Australian-Israeli international Jewish activist.
Alan Baker is an Israeli expert in international law and former ambassador of the state of Israel to Canada. He is the director of the Institute for Contemporary Affairs at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs and a former partner in the Tel Aviv law firm of Moshe, Bloomfield, Kobo, Baker & Co. He was a military prosecutor and senior legal adviser in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and represented the Ministry of Defense at international conferences, and then joined the Foreign Ministry as legal adviser. He participated in the negotiation and drafting of agreements and peace treaties with Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon and the Palestinians. In January 2012 he was appointed by Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu to the three member committee chaired by former Justice Edmund Levy to examine the legal aspects of land ownership in the West Bank. The committee's report, referred to as Levy Report, was published by the Israeli government in Hebrew in July 2012.
Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) is a nonviolent Palestinian-led movement promoting boycotts, divestments, and economic sanctions against Israel. Its objective is to pressure Israel to meet what the BDS movement describes as Israel's obligations under international law, defined as withdrawal from the occupied territories, removal of the separation barrier in the West Bank, full equality for Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel, and "respecting, protecting, and promoting the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties". The movement is organized and coordinated by the Palestinian BDS National Committee.
Robert Singer is a businessman, and chairman of Spero Impact Solution. He is a volunteer senior executive of several diplomatic, Jewish, and educational nonprofits and initiatives, including Center for Jewish Impact (Chairman), Alumot Or, SASA Setton, the Anières Program (co-founder), Combat Antisemitism Movement, and Israel Venture Network.
Boycotts of Israel are the refusal and calls to refusal of having commercial or social dealings with Israel in order to influence Israel's practices and policies by means of using economic pressure. The specific objective of Israel boycotts varies; the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement calls for boycotts of Israel "until it meets its obligations under international law", and the purpose of the Arab League's boycott of Israel was to prevent Arab states and others from contributing to Israel's economy. Israeli officials have characterized the BDS movement as antisemitic.
Students for Justice in Palestine is a pro-Palestinian college student activism organization in the United States, Canada and New Zealand. Founded at the University of California in 2001, it has campaigned for boycott and divestment against corporations that deal with Israel and organized events about Israel's human rights violations. In 2011, The New York Times called it "the leading pro-Palestinian voice on campus". As of 2024, National SJP has over 350 chapters in North America.
Bassem Eid is a Palestinian living in East Jerusalem who comments on the Israeli–Palestinian conflict for Israeli TV and radio. He has been invited to speak by many pro-Israeli organizations in North America, including on university campuses.
An increase of violence occurred in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict starting in the autumn of 2015 and lasting into the first half of 2016. It was called the "Intifada of the Individuals" by Israeli sources, the Knife Intifada, Stabbing Intifada or Jerusalem Intifada by international sources because of the many stabbings in Jerusalem, or Habba by Palestinian sources. 38 Israelis and 235 Palestinians were killed in the violence. 558 Israelis and thousands of Palestinians were injured.
Reactions to Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) refer to the views of international actors on the BDS movement.
Yossi Kuperwasser is an Israeli intelligence and security expert. Formerly, Kuperwasser served as the head of the research division in the Israel Defence Force (IDF) Military Intelligence division and Director General of the Israel Ministry of Strategic Affairs.