Israel Council on Foreign Relations

The ICFR describes itself as a non-partisan forum, while other profiles have characterized it as multidisciplinary. Its participants include active and retired Israeli and foreign diplomats, scholars, government officials, businesspeople, journalists, and students.[1][2] The World Jewish Congress continues to describe the ICFR as operating under its auspices, but the council’s own current website uses the phrase “formerly operated,” leaving the present institutional relationship unclear.[1][2]

Former diplomat Avi Primor succeeded founding president David Kimche and later became president emeritus.[4] Dan Meridor was identified as president in 2024 and again in March 2026.[5][6] The ICFR website lists Dr. Laurence Weinbaum as director general and Yvette Shumacher as deputy director general.[2]

The ICFR was established in 1989 by Dr. David Kimche and a group of practitioners and scholars of international affairs.[2][7] Kimche had served as deputy head of the Mossad and later as director-general of Israel’s Foreign Ministry. He sought to create a Jerusalem institution for sustained engagement with international affairs from Israeli and Jewish perspectives.[7][3] Avi Beker was a co-founder and the council’s first executive director; he had headed the WJC Institute in Jerusalem and later served as WJC secretary-general.[8]

The council was modeled on the Council on Foreign Relations in New York and Chatham House in London.[1][4] Its stated aims include stimulating public awareness of world events and encouraging discussion of foreign policy, particularly matters concerning Israel, the Middle East, and Jewish affairs.[1][2] Kimche remained founding president until his death from cancer in 2010.[3]

The council organizes public and closed-door lectures and symposia, providing a nongovernmental setting in which Israeli and visiting scholars, statesmen, diplomats, and other dignitaries can exchange views.[1][2] Its website says that the council accommodates a wide range of viewpoints and draws participants from government, diplomacy, academia, business, journalism, and the student community.[2]

Since its founding, the ICFR has hosted heads of state, prime ministers, foreign ministers, and other international guests. Speakers listed by the council include former U.S. president Jimmy Carter, who addressed “My Study Trip to the Middle East,” and Canadian foreign minister Chrystia Freeland, who spoke on Canada–Israel relations.[2] At the October 2013 symposium “The Middle East Vortex: Views from Washington, Moscow and Berlin,” approximately 200 people attended, including 13 ambassadors and diplomats from more than 20 other countries. WJC president Ronald S. Lauder called the shared appearance of the U.S., Russian, and German ambassadors “unique.”[9]

The council has also held memorial programs for past contributors. A 2011 discussion honoring Kimche at the Hebrew University’s Givat Ram campus brought together diplomats, academics, Palestinian peace activists, and WJC representatives. Then-president Avi Primor announced that Kimche’s name had been incorporated permanently into the council’s logo.[10]

The ICFR Young Diplomats Forum was launched in April 2011 for Israeli diplomats under the age of 40 and their international counterparts posted in Israel.[2] It is intended to encourage knowledge-sharing, policy discussion, and professional networking. The WJC’s description of an Israeli-European iteration says that it holds monthly policy talks to deepen Israeli participants’ understanding of Europe while giving European diplomats substantive knowledge of Israel and Israeli contacts.[1]

Forum meetings follow a closed-door, Chatham House-style format and are generally held at ambassadors’ residences.[2] Their themes are drawn from the Middle Eastern and broader international agenda. Approximately 40 forum members attended the ICFR’s October 2013 Jerusalem symposium.[9]

The ICFR launched its flagship publication, The Israel Journal of Foreign Affairs, in 2006.[2][11] The journal appears three times per year in print and digital formats and is published in cooperation with London-based Taylor & Francis/Routledge.[1][2] A 2013 advertisement promoted it as “The only foreign affairs journal coming to you directly from Jerusalem,” a claim presented as the publication’s own promotional language.[12]

The journal publishes interdisciplinary work by foreign-affairs practitioners and scholars from Israel and abroad, proceedings of ICFR lectures, and papers by graduate students from institutions in Israel, Australia, Canada, India, and the United States.[2][11] The council says that its circulation includes foreign ministries, embassies, university libraries, and foreign-affairs institutes and councils worldwide.[2]

A 2018 profile listed Prof. Aharon Klieman as senior editor, Dr. Laurence Weinbaum as chief editor, and Yvette Shumacher as managing editor.[11] The journal’s launch was marked by an event at Tel Aviv University that began cooperation between the council, the university’s political science department, and its Abba Eban graduate program in diplomacy.[13]

The ICFR’s record illustrates its role as a nongovernmental venue for diplomatic discussion. On April 21, 2008, it hosted former U.S. president Jimmy Carter in Jerusalem. Carter reported on meetings with senior Hamas leaders in Syria and conveyed their stated positions on a potential Palestinian state and peace agreement.[14]

At the council’s January 2023 annual meeting, president Dan Meridor presided over the induction of Gisela Dachs, Andrew Nagorski, Efrat Sopher, and Carice Witte to its boards. Witte delivered the keynote lecture on “The China Challenge,” while historian Dina Porat reflected on Gabriel Bach, a long-serving board member who had been a Supreme Court justice and deputy prosecutor in the Eichmann trial.[15]

The council has continued to organize discussions during periods of regional conflict. In March 2026 it co-hosted an online webinar with the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung titled “The Middle East Maelstrom: The War on Iran — Causes and Consequences.” Speakers included Meridor, Avital Leibovich, Jonathan Rynhold, Guido Steinberg, and Michael Rimmel, with Weinbaum moderating.[6]

Carter’s April 2008 address generated controversy over his account of conversations with Hamas leaders. He said they had indicated that they would accept a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders if Palestinians approved it and would accept a peace agreement supported in a free Palestinian vote.[14] Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri disputed the implication that Hamas would necessarily accept the result of such a referendum, creating disagreement over what the organization had conveyed to Carter.[14]