Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs

The center's stated mission is to strengthen Israel's security interests by converting policy research into applied diplomacy.[4] It draws on what it describes as a culturally diverse team of diplomatic and national-security experts and maintains partnerships across the Middle East, Africa, Asia, Europe, and North America. The center presents Jerusalem as a "global embassy" from which it conducts this work.[4]

Diker has described the center's agenda as highlighting what he views as threats posed by Iran and allied terrorist groups while seeking to shape policy debate in Washington.[3] The center also reports engaging Arab countries with which Israel has no formal diplomatic relations and using Arabic-language social media to counter what it characterizes as anti-Israel and antisemitic disinformation.[3] In describing its regional work, the center says it seeks to bridge government and the private sector through "applied diplomacy."[5]

The center was founded in 1976 by Professor Daniel J. Elazar, a political scientist whose scholarly work centered on federalism and the Jewish political tradition.[6][7] It began as the Jerusalem Institute for Federal Studies, conceived as a venue for researching federalist themes and introducing their systematic expression into Israeli political life and the wider politics of the Middle East.[6] The Center for Jewish Community Studies, another Elazar-led institution, became one of the founding pillars of the new Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs in the same year.[8]

Under the JCPA name, the center adopted a broader policy-studies mandate that included examining contemporary Jewish communities, developing a systematic study of the Jewish political tradition, preparing curriculum materials for schools in Israel and the diaspora, and holding an annual summer workshop in Jewish political studies.[8] Elazar served as founder and president. The center launched the scholarly Jewish Political Studies Review in 1989, and academic archives identify JCPA as its publisher.[8][9] JCPA also published the Jerusalem Letter / Viewpoints series, including studies of Holocaust survivors in the United States and controversies in Jewish cultural life.[10][11]

Dore Gold served as president for 22 years beginning in 2000.[12] Dan Diker succeeded him in November 2022.[13] In June 2024, Diker announced that the organization was changing its name to the Jerusalem Center for Foreign Affairs.[2] By October 2024, the Jerusalem Post identified it as the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs and described the change as part of a shift toward a more proactive policy, diplomacy, and communications role.[3] Diker characterized the institutional model as a move from a traditional think tank to a "do tank."[3]

One of the center's longest-standing initiatives is its "Defensible Borders for Israel" program, which it describes as developing a conceptual, military, and diplomatic framework for border arrangements that would allow Israel to defend itself without reliance on foreign armies or international security mechanisms.[1] The program emphasizes strategic depth and control of terrain including the Jordan Valley and the Samarian highlands. Its reported outputs include three-dimensional simulations and maps, policy reports, and briefings to the U.S. Congress, the Knesset, and the UN Security Council.[1] After October 7, 2023, the center says it expanded the concept to include internal buffer zones separating civilian communities from hostile territories, permanent force deployment against terrorist infiltrations, and layered physical, cognitive, technological, and demographic defenses. The center states that its proposed defense lines are not based on the 1967 borders.[1]

Since 2016, the center has documented what it calls the Palestinian Authority's "Pay-for-Slay" policy—payments to imprisoned terrorists and their families.[1] It says it compiled a database of payment mechanisms, budget structures, and beneficiaries, and describes this work as a basis for the 2018 Taylor Force Act in the United States and a corresponding Israeli deduction law.[1]

The center also reports long-standing work advancing its understanding of Israel's legal rights in the international arena. It produces legal opinions, position papers, books, and briefings on subjects including Jerusalem's status, the Jewish people's right to a sovereign state in the Land of Israel, and Israeli activity in disputed areas.[1]

Under its Applied Diplomacy portfolio, the center reports building relations among Israel, the United States, and moderate Middle Eastern states through educational programs, speaker tours, policymaker roundtables, and briefings for congressional and parliamentary staff.[1] It has signed a memorandum of understanding with Bahrain's Derasat Research Institute concerning regional cooperation, maritime security, Iranian influence, and policy dialogue, and it maintains professional forums with partners in Morocco, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain.[1] Its Israel-Africa work addresses food security, Red Sea waterways, and efforts to curb contraband, drug, and arms smuggling.[5]

The center has produced studies examining specific regional security threats. Maariv reported on a study based on captured Hamas documents translated and edited by Lt. Col. (res.) Yehonatan Dahoh-Halevi, a center researcher. The documents were made public by the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center in March 2025.[14] The center's study interpreted statements attributed to Hamas leaders Yahya Sinwar and Mohammed Nasser as indicating that Hamas viewed Israel's political crisis in early 2023 as a strategic weakness and an opportunity for escalation.[14]

A separate center study examined Qatar's relationship with Hamas, presenting documents and testimony alleging long-term Qatari diplomatic, financial, and ideological support for Hamas and arguing that this support helped build the terrorist group's capabilities before the October 7 attack.[15] The center called for reassessing international relations with Qatar and closer monitoring of fund transfers to conflict zones.[15] NGO Monitor has also attributed to a December 2021 center article allegations that the Turkish humanitarian organization IHH systematically transferred funds to Hamas's military wing, including funds allegedly used for a naval-training facility and weapons purchases.[16]

Maariv also reported results from a center public-opinion survey in which 79 percent of respondents did not trust ceasefires with Hamas and Hezbollah, 66 percent opposed establishing a Palestinian state, and 57 percent supported the Trump plan for Gaza. The report did not provide the survey's sample size, fieldwork dates, or methodology.[17]

In 2024, the center established a Center for Security, Diplomacy, and Communications, described as a strategic media arm tasked with identifying and countering hostile narratives, conducting international public diplomacy, and addressing cognitive threats.[1] Its media productions include the English-language podcast "East to West," a nine-part Arabic-language series called "Exposing Lies," and "War Room Briefing," which the center says began at the start of the 2023 Gaza war and ran for approximately 150 episodes.[1]

The center's serial publications include the Jerusalem Issue Brief / Jerusalem Viewpoints, described as briefings by Israeli officials, military experts, and academics; the Daily Alert, a digest of linked news and commentary published since 2002 that appears on Sundays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays; and the scholarly Jewish Political Studies Review, founded in 1989.[1][18] Six volumes of Israeli Knesset debates covering 1948 to 1981 are also available online through work associated with the center.[19]

The first cycle of the center's "Talking Middle East" training and internship program launched in April 2024 for students in their third year of study or above.[1] The program combines spoken Arabic, diplomacy, advocacy, Islamic studies, international law, and field tours, with participants meeting Israeli and international diplomats, former senior security officials, and Arab-world journalists.[1]

The center hosted a Jerusalem conference on March 27–29, 2023, bringing together think tanks, applied-diplomacy institutes, and journalists from more than 20 countries in the Middle East and Africa, including countries without diplomatic relations with Israel.[20] A separate conference announcement described representatives of think tanks and policy centers from 30 Middle Eastern and African states.[21] Discussions addressed counterterrorism and radicalization, water and food security, possible Gulf-Africa-Israel partnerships, environmental concerns, and the expansion of the Abraham Accords.[20][21]

Daniel J. Elazar founded the center in 1976 and served as its president.[6][7] Dore Gold held the presidency for 22 years starting in 2000.[12] Dan Diker, who had previously worked at the center as a senior researcher and head of its project addressing Israel's delegitimization, became president in November 2022.[13][22] His reported areas of expertise include strategic analysis of Israel–U.S. relations, Palestinian terrorism threats, and Israel's relations with Jewish communities in the diaspora.[22] Shagiv Steinberg has been identified as the center's CEO.[23]

The center's institutional record combines scholarly publishing, documentary preservation, policy advocacy, and direct outreach. JCPA published the Jewish Political Studies Review and the Jerusalem Letter / Viewpoints series, while work associated with the center made six volumes of Knesset debates available online.[9][19] Its current programs pair research products with briefings to legislative and international bodies, regional partnerships, educational programs, and communications campaigns.[1][1] This combination of research and direct engagement underlies the center's description of itself as a policy-oriented "do tank."[3]

Several prominent center programs concern politically contested Israeli-Palestinian questions. The center advocates defense lines not based on the 1967 borders and characterizes Palestinian Authority payments to imprisoned terrorists and their families as "Pay-for-Slay."[1][1] It also advances legal arguments concerning Jerusalem, Jewish sovereignty in the Land of Israel, and Israeli activity in disputed areas; these are institutional advocacy positions rather than statements of neutral legal consensus.[1]

The center's regional-threat studies likewise contain attributed interpretations and allegations rather than independently established findings. Reports about captured Hamas documents and Qatar's relationship with Hamas presented the center's conclusions as its analysis, while NGO Monitor attributed the IHH allegations to a center article.[14][15] The publicly reported security survey results also appeared without sample size, fieldwork dates, or methodological details.[17]