Tzahi Gavrieli

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Tzahi Gavrieli

Image Tzahi Gavrieli Twitter.png
Tzahi Gavrieli
Occupation Lawyer; Deputy Director-General (2016–2019) and Director-General (2019–2020), Ministry of Strategic Affairs and Public Diplomacy
Known for Directing the ministry's campaign against "delegitimisation"
Tzahi Gavrieli
Tzahi Gavrieli speaking about Coronavirus and anti-Israel rhetoric. Uploaded to YouTube on 6 May 2020.
Left to right: Tal Rabina, Tzahi Gavrieli, Gilad Erdan, Elan Carr, Rabbi Menachem Margolin at the Behind the Mask report event in Brussels, 25 Sept 2019.
Tzahi Gavrieli speaking at the Legal Network Initiative Conference in Jerusalem which took place 5-7 February 2018.
Asher Fredman, Shimrit Tsubery Heuberger, Gilad Erdan, Stuart Polak, Lior Haimovich, Tzahi Gavrieli, 9 at anti-BDS event in the Houses of Parliament on 6 September 2016. Uploaded to Facebook by Shimrit Tsubery Heuberger on 6 Sept 2016.

Career

Director, National Task Force for Countering Delegitimization, described as the 'ministry’s deputy director general'.

  • Director General, Ministry of Strategic Affairs & Public Diplomacy, May 2019 – Present.[1]
  • Owner, Tzahi Gavrieli Strategic Consulting, 2011 – May 2016.
  • Programming Director, Israeli Presidential Conference, 2011 – May 2014.
  • Prime Minister's Office (8 years)
    • Adviser to Prime Minister, 2007 – 2011.
    • Adviser to Cabinet Secretary, 2003 – 2007.
    • Head of the National Management Center during the second Lebanon War, and as one of the cofounders of MASA Project.
  • Chairman, IDC Student Association, 2001 – 2002.

Other Roles

Mr. Gavrieli took a major part in the founding of the Israeli National Public Diplomacy Department. [2]

Additionally, Mr. Gavrieli is the owner of a strategic consulting Company and acts as the Director of Programming at the Israeli Presidential Conference. [3]

He is a Battalion Commander in the IDF reserve forces and holds the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel. [4]

Education

  • Bachelor of Law (LL.B.), The Interdisciplinary Center, 1998 – 2002.
  • Bachelor of Business Administration (B.B.A.), The Interdisciplinary Center, 1998 – 2002.

Activities

In a 2013 biographical note in HuffPost, Tzahi Gavrieli was described as 'an attorney', who 'has served as an advisor to Israeli Prime Ministers, Benjamin Netanyahu and Ehud Olmert. During his time in the Prime Minister’s Office he served also as the Cabinet Secretary Adviser, and took a major part in the founding of the National Public Diplomacy department.[5]


He has also 'acted as the Chairman of the Student Association of the Inter Disciplinary Center, Israel (IDC). Currently is the owner of a strategic consulting Company and about to publish a children's book.'[5]


Gavrieli, 43, a lawyer, was Netanyahu’s adviser on content affairs and also worked in the bureaus of prime ministers Ehud Olmert and Ariel Sharon. He was involved in the establishment of the Public Diplomacy Council and before the last election left Netanyahu’s office and worked with Moshe Kahlon on preparing the platform of Kahlon’s party, Kulanu. He took up his current post in the Strategic Affairs Ministry last year [2015].


During the discussion in the Knesset’s transparency committee, Gavrieli said a number of times it would have been better for it to have taken place in a less public forum. According to Gavrieli, the ministry’s role was to “act so the narrative of the State of Israel as the national home of the Jewish people is clear and unquestionable, not among countries nor among audiences, not among progressive liberal audiences, not on campuses, nor among economic decision makers, nor among jurists throughout the world, nor among labor unions and churches. And the second narrative is to stop the phenomenon of delegitimization. And on that matter, there is difficulty speaking in an open forum.”


When Gavrieli was asked what the ministry’s definition of delegitimization was, he said it meant “rallying of organizations and ideas around an existing contemporary issue of rejecting the idea of the State of Israel as the national home of the Jewish people.”[6]

Leaked emails

According to emails from a cache attributed to Benny Gantz that was released in 2025 by the hacking group Handala, which Distributed Denial of Secrets (DDoSecrets) says is "believed to have ties to Iranian intelligence", and published by DDoSecrets. The authenticity of the emails has not been independently verified.[7] An email of 1 June 2016 from Assaf Orion of the Institute for National Security Studies described Gavrieli as the "future deputy" of Sima Vaknin-Gil, director-general of the Ministry of Strategic Affairs. It said she intended him to lead the "virtual network infrastructure of the Blues" (the pro-Israel network), noting that he had already begun setting up such a network or portal for the "Blues community" (translated from Hebrew).[8]

Contact

Ministry of Strategic Affairs

Gavrieli, a lawyer and former content adviser to Benjamin Netanyahu, joined the Ministry of Strategic Affairs and Public Diplomacy in 2016 as deputy director-general and "director of the campaign against delegitimization".[9] He became director-general in 2019 and served until 2020.[10] In a June 2021 interview he said that the cabinet had assigned NIS 100 million to the anti-BDS task and that ministry staff had interviewed more than 250 people about how to respond.[10] He contributed to the June 2019 Jerusalem Post supplement Unmasking BDS, for which the ministry paid about NIS 120,000.[11][12]

Notes

  1. ↑ Tzahi Gavrieli Linkedin Profile LinkedIn Retrieved from Archive.today of 13 June 2020 on 13 June 2020.
  2. ↑ Tzahi Gavrieli Linkedin Profile LinkedIn Retrieved from Archive.today of 13 June 2020 on 13 June 2020.
  3. ↑ Tzahi Gavrieli, Twitter, archived on 15 December 2020 at https://archive.vn/JdwmU#selection-1563.13-1571.0 Accessed on 15 December 2020
  4. ↑ Tzahi Gavrieli, Engage, archived on 15 December 2020 at https://archive.vn/wip/sWnAH Accessed on 15 December 2020
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 Huffington Post Tzahi Gavrieli. Accessed 10 June 2020.
  6. ↑ Uri Blau Inside the Clandestine World of Israel's 'BDS-busting' Ministry, Haaretz Mar 26, 2017. Archive.today copy.
  7. ↑ Distributed Denial of Secrets, Benny Gantz emails ddosecrets.org, 27 August 2025, accessed 21 October 2026. DDoSecrets says the emails "were released by Handala, a hacking group that is believed to have ties to Iranian intelligence", and applies its "Cyberwar" disclaimer.
  8. ↑ Benny Gantz emails (released by Handala, published by Distributed Denial of Secrets), email from Assaf Orion (INSS) on a call with Sima Vaknin-Gil, 1 June 2016 (Hebrew), archive path beny/Inbox!5/0000003360, dataset page ddosecrets.org, accessed 21 October 2026. Leaked email; authenticity not independently verified.
  9. ↑ Uri Blau, Inside the Clandestine World of Israel's 'BDS-busting' Ministry Haaretz, 26 March 2017, accessed 21 October 2026.
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 Lahav Harkov, Has the Strategic Affairs Ministry achieved its goals? The Jerusalem Post, 24 June 2021, accessed 21 October 2026. Interview with former director-general Tzahi Gavrieli (ministry-side account).
  11. ↑ Itamar Benzaquen, Jerusalem Post took government money to publish anti-BDS special +972 Magazine, 4 October 2020 (critical), read via the Internet Archive, accessed 21 October 2026.
  12. ↑ Itamar Benzaquen, במשרד לנושאים אסטרטגיים קנו מוסף שלם ב"ג'רוזלם פוסט" (The Strategic Affairs Ministry bought an entire supplement in the Jerusalem Post) The Seventh Eye, 15 September 2020 (Hebrew; critical), read via the Internet Archive, accessed 21 October 2026.
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