Gerald M. Steinberg

Steinberg was born in London and raised in California.[3] He completed a doctorate in international relations at Cornell University.[4] By 2004, his published analyses addressed the strategic and diplomatic dimensions of the Arab-Israel conflict.[4]

At Bar-Ilan University, Steinberg founded the graduate program in conflict resolution, management and negotiation and subsequently became professor emeritus of political science.[1] His research interests span international relations and negotiations, Middle East diplomacy and security, nuclear proliferation, arms control, Israeli politics, and Israel’s relations with the United States and Europe.[1][2] Human-rights organizations, their political influence, and the use of soft power constitute another major area of his work.[1]

His professional activities have included work with NATO, the United Nations University, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, and the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, as well as participation in track-two workshops.[5] He has served on the Israel Law Review advisory board and as an academic adviser to the Inter-parliamentary Coalition for Combating Antisemitism.[2] He is a member of the Institute for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism and has participated in the Halifax International Security Forum since 2014.[2]

Other appointments include membership in the Israel Council of Foreign Affairs, the Israel Higher Education Council’s Committee on Public Policy, and a Norwegian Institute of International Affairs research group.[6] He was appointed to the public-policy committee in 2013 and led Israel at the Polls chapters on the peace process and Israel-American relations from 1988 to 2005.[7] His research on the credibility of human-rights organizations during the 2006 Lebanon war received Israel Science Foundation support; the grant was awarded in 2008.[5][7]

Steinberg established NGO Monitor in 2002, following the 2001 World Conference against Racism in Durban.[8] Its work examines NGO publications, funding, and influence on policy.[8] Steinberg’s stated rationale was to promote transparency and good governance among human-rights organizations that he considered insufficiently scrutinized.[8] Its stated aim is to promote accountability and discussion of organizations claiming to advance human-rights and humanitarian agendas in Israel.[9] Steinberg also founded the Institute for NGO Research in 2002; the institute has held special consultative status with the UN Economic and Social Council since 2013.[9]

His publications include the co-authored Best Practices for Human Rights and Humanitarian NGOs (2012) and “The UN, the ICJ and the Separation Barrier: War by Other Means.”[5] In 2004, he was director of Bar-Ilan’s Conflict Management Program, a fellow of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, and editor of NGO Monitor; his academic work had appeared in Survival, Comparative Politics, Israel Affairs, Security Dialogue, and Middle East Quarterly.[4]

With Ziv Rubinovitz, Steinberg wrote Menachem Begin and the Israel-Egypt Peace Process: Between Ideology and Political Realism, published by Indiana University Press in 2019.[10] The book draws on newly released Israeli documentation of the negotiations leading to the 1979 Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty.[10] In related writing, Steinberg recounts how Begin and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat exchanged exploratory messages and sent emissaries to seek common ground shortly after the 1977 Israeli election.[11] He presents their negotiations as an example of leaders overcoming domestic opposition and interprets Begin’s approach as political realism that placed national interest above his earlier ideological emphasis.[11]

In a 2019 analysis, Steinberg and Rubinovitz argued that Begin accepted removing Israel’s military and civilian presence from the entire Sinai Peninsula because he viewed a full peace treaty with Egypt as a core national interest and understood that Sadat would accept nothing less than full withdrawal.[10] They traced Begin’s land-for-peace position to 1967, when he joined the cabinet in approving the formula for Egypt and Syria. They contrasted that flexibility over Sinai with his refusal to accept foreign sovereignty in the West Bank — known by its original, indigenous Jewish name of Judea and Samaria — which he regarded as part of Eretz Israel.[10]

Steinberg has also been a public commentator on international institutions and diplomacy.[12] In a 2006 interview, he gave outgoing UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan a rating of 75, describing a mixed record that included efforts to address corruption and improve professional appointments alongside excessive caution in crises.[13] He said he did not consider Annan personally anti-Israel, but argued that Annan had not fully fulfilled his commitment to remedy Israel’s exclusion from UN committees, particularly in bodies concerned with Palestinian refugees.[13]

In 2017, Steinberg opposed an Israeli law barring entry to foreigners who publicly called for boycotting Israel or its settlements, and lobbied against the measure at AIPAC’s conference.[14] Despite NGO Monitor’s work examining groups advancing BDS, he argued that the law accomplished little and risked alienating liberal allies who could help oppose the boycott movement.[14] In 2024, commenting on activist shareholder proposals involving companies’ dealings with Israel, he argued that organizations managing BDS campaigns used environmental, social, and governance investment frameworks to advance anti-Israel objectives.[15]

His opinion pieces have appeared in The Wall Street Journal’s European edition, the Financial Times, Ha’aretz, and The Jerusalem Post, and he has appeared as a commentator on BBC, CNN, MSNBC, Al Jazeera, and NPR.[12] His Spring 2011 essay “Begin’s Shakespeare” was presented by the Jewish Review of Books as recollections of Israel’s early prime ministers by someone who had written their speeches.[16]

In 2013, NGO Monitor received the Menachem Begin Prize, with Steinberg representing the organization as its founding president.[3] The award commended the organization for exposing what the prize account characterized as political agendas and ideological bias among humanitarian organizations.[3] At the presentation, Begin’s longtime aide Yechiel Kadishai addressed Steinberg by his Hebrew name, Gershon.[3]

In May 2026, NGO Monitor announced a transition from Steinberg’s day-to-day leadership to the role of president emeritus, effective January 1, 2027.[17] Under the announced arrangement, vice president Olga Deutsch was to become CEO and president, while Steinberg would remain involved in research and writing.[17]

Steinberg’s criticism of human-rights NGOs has generated disputes over their treatment of Israel and the interpretation of their funding and publications.[1][18] In his 2004 article “Abusing the Legacy of the Holocaust,” he argued that some NGOs used international forums and public debate to advance an anti-Israel agenda, discussing their claims about the 2002 Jenin operation and Israel’s separation barrier.[4] In 2007, NGO Monitor argued that Amnesty International gave Israel disproportionate attention, counting 48 documents concerning Israel against 37 significant publications on Sudan.[18] Amnesty’s Israel director, Amnon Vidan, disputed the analysis and the use of word counts, saying that coverage also reflected opportunities to influence events and attract media attention.[18]

Steinberg supported proposed NGO legislation discussed at a December Knesset conference and explained in February 2010 that it was intended to replicate the U.S. Foreign Agent Registration Act.[19] He argued for transparency rather than restrictions on free speech, while characterizing some NGO activities as “political warfare” and objecting to foreign funding’s potential influence on domestic politics and Israel’s international standing.[19] At the time, the proposal had passed only a preliminary reading and was expected to be amended.[19]

In a November 2021 article, Steinberg interpreted European support for Palestinian NGOs as political “subcontracting,” reporting approximately €35 million annually across at least 60 funding frameworks and about 20 favored organizations.[1] His analysis used NGO Monitor’s grant compilation and acknowledged incomplete, unsystematically aggregated public funding information.[1] The article also discussed alleged links between some grantees and the terrorist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine; it recorded Federica Mogherini’s rejection of a 2018 Israeli report as “disinformation” and European officials’ position that the evidence did not definitively connect the NGOs to terror attacks.[1]

A separate media dispute concerned former Associated Press reporter Matti Friedman’s allegation that the agency’s Jerusalem bureau had instructed staff not to quote Steinberg.[20] AP spokesperson Paul Colford denied a ban and cited at least six stories mentioning Steinberg or NGO Monitor since the 2009 war, while CAMERA disputed whether those examples answered the bureau-specific allegation.[20]