The Israel Project

TIP operated as an independent communications and educational nonprofit centered on media relations, research, polling, and access to experts. Its archived About page said it served the press, policymakers, and the public, did not lobby, and was not connected to any government.[2] A 2016 Congressional Research Service report listed TIP among selected U.S.-based groups actively interested in Israel and the peace process.[8]

The Israel Project emerged from Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi's dissatisfaction with existing efforts to address media coverage of the Middle East conflict.[5] Mizrahi, who had previously run a political consultancy whose clients included the Clinton-Gore team, founded the organization in Washington after concluding that pro-Israel spokespeople lacked the sophistication and resources needed to engage effectively with journalists.[5] She conducted polling about how the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was being presented to American audiences and trained pro-Israel communicators accordingly, collaborating with political consultant Frank Luntz in efforts to bring Israel's message to the American public.[5]

The founding year is documented inconsistently. The organization's archived homepage gives 2002, while its archived About page states 2003; a 2010 Jewish Standard article and the Jewish News Syndicate's organizational profile also give 2002, whereas a 2015 Times of Israel account cites 2003.[1][2][3][10] The three co-founders were described as motivated by concern over damage to Israel's international image during the Second Intifada and as seeking to make Israel's case through constructive media outreach.[3]

Scholarly accounts placed TIP within a broader wave of Israel-advocacy organizations that arose in the early 2000s. Bethamie Horowitz listed it among organizations founded between 2001 and 2004 that addressed the interface between Israel and American Jews, noting that eleven of the organizations founded in that period focused on advocacy or media branding.[11] A Berman Jewish Policy Archive profile characterized TIP as a prominent example of smaller, independent Israel-advocacy operations that developed partnerships with established communal organizations.[5]

By early 2012, TIP employed dozens of staff across offices in Washington and Jerusalem.[6] The organization was funded by private donations, with 95 percent of contributions coming from the United States, according to CEO for Global Affairs Laura Kam.[6] Its annual budget was reported as $11 million for the year preceding January 2012, while a 2015 profile cited a $7.5 million operating budget.[6][4] Board members were required to donate or raise at least $100,000 annually.[6]

Senior leadership comprised American businesspeople and strategic advisers. Len Leader, a former AOL president, served on the governing body alongside Mizrahi and Michael Gelman.[6] Israelis on the advisory team included Dan Gillerman, Gabriela Shalev, Sallai Meridor, and Natan Sharansky.[6] Shmuel Ben-Dror served as TIP's representative in Israel, while Marcus Sheff, a former editor of The Jerusalem Post, managed the Jerusalem office.[6] A November 2010 Reut Institute report identified Mizrahi as Founder and President and Sheff as Executive Director of TIP's Israel operation.[12]

Josh Block became TIP's president and CEO in 2012 after serving as AIPAC's spokesman and director of strategic communications.[13] His 2016 IRS filing listed his salary at just under $440,000.[14] Block announced in July 2019 that he would depart after seven years, having notified the board in June; he cited polarization in U.S. politics and within the Jewish community as having made it harder for nonpartisan organizations to recruit supporters.[13]

TIP's core mission was to provide journalists, policymakers, and the public with information about Israel and the Middle East. Its archived About page stated that the organization did not lobby and was not connected to any government, and described its work as providing expert access and analysis, organizing press briefings, speaker tours, conference calls, and educational trips, supporting nonprofit journalism, and conducting public-affairs research.[2]

One of TIP's most distinctive programs was its intelligence tours. TIP said thousands of journalists and diplomats had taken its Jerusalem tour, led by retired members of an IDF intelligence unit.[15] In spring 2012, it launched a Sinai-border tour bringing military attachés, diplomats, and international journalists to the Egyptian-Israeli frontier with military analysts.[15] The organization also conducted geopolitical tours along the borders with Syria and Lebanon.[15] Its Intellicopter program offered aerial tours framed around Israel's security situation, presenting figures including that Israel was nine miles wide at its narrowest point within its pre-1967 borders and that 70 percent of Israelis lived on the coastal plain.[16]

In spring 2004, TIP launched a Press Ambassadors program to train Israel advocates across the United States to act as liaisons to local journalists and editors.[5] The program was co-sponsored by United Jewish Communities and the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, and former Conference of Presidents chair Shoshana Cardin agreed to lead it.[5] TIP worked alongside United Jewish Communities, the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, and local Jewish community relations councils.[5]

Under Block, TIP launched The Tower, an online publication that began in January 2013 and comprised TheTower.org, The Tower magazine, and The Tower Tomorrow Fellowship.[9] The organization also operated a rapid-response team that produced infographics and videos for social media; its "Timeline of Hamas Terror" graphic circulated widely during the 2014 Gaza war.[4] TIP's projects page additionally listed Intellicopter aerial tours, the Daily TIP email newsletter, social-media campaigns, and the Tipping Point podcast, produced from the IDC International Radio studios in Israel and featuring pundits, experts, and guests.[9]

TIP operated a Research Center that produced polling and issue papers for the press, policymakers, and the public.[17] The organization described its polling as intended to inform partners about American public opinion.[17]

A national survey of 1,000 likely voters conducted by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner on February 7–9, 2011, and attributed to TIP found that 47 percent of respondents said the United States should continue foreign aid to Israel for purchasing U.S. military equipment, while 40 percent said aid should be reduced.[7] The Jewish Virtual Library's compilation of U.S. opinion polls attributes surveys to TIP across multiple years, including 2004, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2011, and 2014.[18] In a 2014 TIP poll, 43 percent of respondents viewed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu favorably and 24 percent unfavorably; 11 percent viewed Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas favorably and 52 percent unfavorably; and 6 percent viewed Hamas prime minister Ismail Haniyeh favorably against 46 percent unfavorable.[18] The compilation does not provide a sample size or methodology for that poll.[18]

TIP also co-sponsored research on campus attitudes toward Israel. Jointly with the American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise, TIP commissioned a survey conducted by Public Opinion Strategies in fall 2011, published as Israel and the Campus: The Real Story in 2012.[19] The national online survey included 800 college students interviewed October 28–November 8, 2011, with a reported margin of error of 3.46 percent, and an oversample of 400 Jewish college students interviewed through November 20, with a reported margin of error of 4.9 percent.[19] Among Jewish students surveyed, 66 percent said they felt close to Israel, 47 percent said they had visited Israel, 70 percent considered themselves sufficiently informed to discuss Israel with non-Jews, and 84 percent said the United States should support Israel in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.[19] The survey also found that 5 percent of Jewish students supported BDS.[19]

Among Jewish-student respondents, 78 percent reported having witnessed or personally experienced antisemitism, including 66 percent who said they had witnessed it and 46 percent who said they had personally experienced it.[19] The report cautioned that the survey team considered the overall figure "unrealistically high," noting that the question did not define antisemitism and did not establish whether experiences occurred on campus or at another time in respondents' lives.[19] It compared the result with a separate study that found 43 percent of Jewish students perceived antisemitism as a campus problem and recommended repeating the survey annually to track trends.[19]

During Mizrahi's tenure, TIP developed programs in French, Arabic, German, Spanish, Mandarin, Russian, Hindi, and Chinese, seeking to shape perceptions of Israel across a wide range of media markets.[20] The organization broadened its intended audience from journalists to include leaders and opinion-makers more generally, with the expansion effectively doubling its staff and budget, according to Laura Kam.[6]

The Arabic Media Project was particularly prominent. In 2010, TIP hired Adil Awadh, an Iraqi-born Muslim, as its senior adviser for Arabic media.[20] Awadh sought meetings with Arab journalists to encourage them to report Israel's side of the conflict, while stating that he supported a Palestinian state and regarded peace as the shared objective.[20] During a United Nations visit, he said he had persuaded at least seven Arab reporters to meet an Israeli official, though some told him they might not be able to report on the interview.[20] TIP-reported polling in Egypt, Jordan, the West Bank — known by its original, indigenous Jewish name of Judea and Samaria — and Gaza was presented as showing that nearly 60 percent of Arab respondents became more favorable toward Israel after learning about its willingness to pursue peace and its acceptance of religious groups, including Muslims.[3] The article reporting the result did not provide the survey's sample size or methodology.[3] The organization's archived About page reported that more than 1.2 million Arabic-speaking social-media subscribers followed TIP Arabic's Facebook page, Israel Uncensored, and described Al-Masdar as a 24-hour Arabic-language news site covering Israel-related affairs.[2]

In China and India, TIP moved from research and regional appointments to initial broad public-relations campaigns.[6] Reported tactics included inviting Israeli businesspeople on media tours in China, distributing Chinese-language newsletters to thousands of journalists, and using social media; in India, TIP planned press conferences featuring an Israeli Nobel laureate.[6] Kam explained TIP's rationale: after a decade of advocacy, the organization viewed the United States as broadly supportive of Israel and Europe as largely opposed, while countries such as India and China were not aligned and had not prioritized the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, making them a frontier where little in-depth image work had previously been done.[6]

A 2015 account reported that much of TIP's international work had subsequently closed, with the Arabic-language program remaining. The former China initiative continued independently as the Chinese Media Center, and the former Latin American outreach program continued independently as Fuente Latina.[20]

TIP cultivated ties with the diplomatic community through events and access programs. In March 2018, TIP and the World Jewish Congress co-hosted a mock Passover Seder in Tel Aviv attended by more than 70 ambassadors and senior diplomats from 40 countries.[21] This was the second time the organizations had partnered on the event, which was then in its third year.[21] The Seder was led by Daniel Taub, Israel's former ambassador to Britain, and included a Haggadah reading and traditional foods.[21] TIP was represented by CEO Josh Block, Vice President Lior Weintraub, and Chairman Allan Myer.[21] Weintraub described the pre-Passover gathering as a tradition of hosting foreign ambassadors and distinguished guests while exposing them to Israeli culture and Jewish tradition.[21]

Separately, TIP hosted a New York dinner in September 2010 for Jewish groups with Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, whom Mizrahi welcomed as conveying a "spirit of hope."[3] The organization also hosted a Capitol Hill briefing featuring Itamar Marcus, founder of Palestinian Media Watch, with Mizrahi characterizing her organization's relationship with Marcus as "tactical and not ideological" and arguing that addressing incitement could create space for Palestinian leaders to support peace.[3]

TIP's Israel office, headed by Lior Weintraub, a former spokesman and chief of staff for the Israeli embassy in Washington, continued organizing journalist meetings with Israeli officials and politicians and taking diplomats and reporters to areas affected by terrorist attacks, including along the Gaza border.[14]

TIP's institutional significance included its connections with established Jewish organizations, government-focused policy discussions, and later research and advocacy groups. Marcus Sheff, who was identified in 2010 as executive director of TIP's Israel operation, later became CEO of IMPACT-se; he had previously led the international business-development firm Intermedia.[22][12] Arik Agassi, now COO and Head of Global Partnerships at IMPACT-se, worked as Head of External Affairs and Operations at TIP's Israel office.[22] Eli Ovits later became director of IMPACT-se's partner institute Monitor Impact after serving as TIP's Director of Communications to the diplomatic corps and pan-Arabic and international media.[22]

A 2016 Congressional Research Service report listed TIP in an appendix of selected U.S.-based interest groups actively engaged on Israel and the peace process.[8] TIP jointly sponsored research with the American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise.[23] It collaborated with United Jewish Communities, the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, and the Conference of Presidents on the Press Ambassadors program.[5] It also co-hosted international events with the World Jewish Congress.[21] These connections illustrate TIP's role in linking an independent communications operation with established communal and policy institutions.[22][5]

Block's arrival in 2012 brought a noticeable shift in TIP's orientation. A 2015 profile described a change toward U.S.-focused advocacy, rapid-response communications, polling, and research, with the earlier global media-building mission receding.[4] Critics within the pro-Israel community said the narrower focus on Washington and the news cycle had come at the expense of the earlier goal of building a global pro-Israel community.[4] Former Israel-office founder Calev Ben-David was quoted as saying Block "decided to take a different direction" from the media-engagement mission, while other pro-Israel figures praised Block's work.[14]

Although TIP's archived About page said the organization did not lobby, a 2019 report said that under Block it helped lead state-level lobbying for laws targeting the boycott-Israel movement.[2][14] TIP also launched The Tower as both an online magazine and a fellowship program for emerging journalists.[14] Its rapid-response team produced social-media content, including infographics about Hamas terrorism, that reached wide audiences during periods of conflict.[4]

Financially, TIP's trajectory under Block was challenging. Contributions fell from $8,696,052 in 2015 to $4,922,854 in 2016, a decline of nearly half, according to the most recently available tax returns cited in a 2019 report.[14] The same report said this was down sharply from the close to $20 million the organization had raised annually at the beginning of the decade.[14]

In July 2019, JTA reported that a Washington pro-Israel insider said all 13 TIP staff members in Washington and Israel had been let go without notice, final salary, or severance pay, and that the organization could not pay some debts.[14] TIP chairman Allan Myer said reports of the organization's demise were premature and that the board would discuss staffing, finances, and the future of the Israel office.[14] A separate Jewish News Syndicate report said an insider's account of a complete staff layoff was called into question by a source close to TIP.[14] The available reporting therefore does not establish the precise scope or final outcome of the staffing situation.

Block's farewell message, issued around the same time as his departure announcement, attributed difficulties for nonpartisan organizations to polarization in U.S. politics and within the Jewish community, and said TIP would undergo a transition to determine how it could address needs in the current environment.[13] The Israel office, led by Weintraub, had continued its journalist-access and diplomatic-tour programs until at least the time of the final reports.[14]