Reut Institute

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The Reut Institute is an Israeli think tank based in Tel Aviv. It describes itself as an "an innovative policy group designed to provide real-time, long-term strategic decision-support to Israeli leaders and decision-makers". It was established in 2004 by first and current president Gideon 'Gidi' Grinstein and Noa Eliasaf-Shoham "as an answer to the weakness of Israel's political system and the complex challenges Israel faces in a volatile and constantly changing environment" and describes itself as a "non-partisan Zionist organisation that provides its work to the government of Israel pro bono".

Writing in the New York Times in 2007, Thomas Friedman called the Reut Institute "Israel's premier strategy policy group".

Activities

According to its founder's biography, the vision that drives the Reut Institute is '21st Century Zionism' which focuses on "enhancing Israel's security, democracy and thriving Jewish identity". Reut says it addresses "only those issues which pose a strategic threat or opportunity to the security or the wellbeing of Israel or the Jewish world". It works for Israeli government agencies free of charge and states that its shortest project, commissioned by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, lasted 60 hours from assignment to delivery.

Two key areas are national security and 'Israel 15' which calls for Israel to become one of the fifteen leading nations in terms of quality of life within fifteen years.

Reut markets itself as unique due to its "very short reaction times...essential for designing and implementing policies in real time". Staff work in what it calls "policy SWAT teams" and use an early warning system methodology known as Praxis developed by Zvi Lanir founder of the Praxis Institute.

Part of its strategy for making "a lasting impact on the security and well-being of the State of Israel and the Jewish People, is to recruit and train Israel's future strategic thinkers". It also established the Reut Policy Network to utilise the "untapped intellectual potential" of researchers around the world interested in identifying “strategic trends that jeopardize Israeli national security”.

Rationale

According to the Jerusalem Post, Yuval Holtzman, an analyst at Reut, has said: "Isaiah Berlin's metaphor of the fox and the hedgehog is relevant", referring to Berlin's division of thinkers into two categories - hedgehogs, who view the world through the lens of a single defining idea, and foxes, who draw on a wide variety of experiences. Holtzman suggested that the "fox" approach is used at Reut as opposed to the "hedgehog" approach typically associated with academic experts:

Experts probe deeply into specialized subjects...That is necessary and important, but we also need the ability to move rapidly and flexibly between disciplines, to get a broad picture. We also need to study 'complementary opposites,' which are often the key to dynamics. For example, government regulation versus the invisible hand of the market are opposites, but they are complementary, and in the right combination, they are just what is needed to induce dynamism in the complex system of the economy.

Work on countering 'delegitimization'

A slide from a presentation the Reut Institute gave at the Tenth Annual Herzliya Conference showing the cities it regards as hubs of delegitimization

From late 2009 the Reut Institute increasingly worked on countering what it called the 'delegitimization' of Israel. It defined this as the "convergence of seemingly unrelated movements and associations into a coalition that fundamentally de-legitimizes the Jewish character of the State of Israel". Reut classes the "use of human rights discourse" to condemn alleged Israeli war crimes by "left wing European groups" in the same bracket as Holocaust denial and calls for the destruction of Israel, viewing them as various trends within an overall delegitimization phenomenon.

In January 2010, Reut published 'Eroding Israel's legitimacy', an article highlighting activities "portrayed as protesting against Israeli policies", when "in fact they are frequently manipulated in order to blur the difference between valid criticism of Israeli policies and attempts to undermine Israel's right to exist". Examples cited included the UN Goldstone Report, attempts to prosecute Israeli officials for war crimes, and the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign.

In February 2010, the Institute produced a report entitled 'The Delegitimization Challenge: Creating a Political Firewall'. This analysed "the erosion in Israel's diplomatic status over the past few years, which reached its peak with the Goldstone report" and the "frustrating outcomes of the Second Lebanon War (07/06) and Operation Cast Lead (01/09)".

An executive summary of this report interpreted the situation in terms of two forces, a 'Resistance Network' composing Islamist and Arab nationalist opponents of Israel, and:

The Delegitimization Network, primarily comprising organizations and individuals in the West - mostly Arab and Islamic groups, so-called post-Zionist Jews and Israelis, and elements of the radical European political left - negates Israel's right to exist based on a variety of political and philosophical arguments. Both groups take their inspiration from the collapse of the Soviet Union, East Germany, and apartheid South Africa.

The summary argues that delegitimization "may develop into a comprehensive existential threat within a few years" and says "Israel must embrace a network-based logic and response by: Focusing on the hubs of delegitimization such as London, Toronto, Madrid, or the [San Francisco] Bay Area and undermining its catalysts". It also identifies the risk of "a paradigm shift from the Two-State Solution to the One-State Solution as the consensual framework for resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict" and argues that Israel should "rebrand" itself and "engage its critics, while isolating the delegitimizers".

Praise for attacks on human rights group

Reut's report expresses the need for "Establishing a 'price tag'", stating "Today, attacking Israel is 'cheap' and convenient, but it can be turned into a more risky enterprise". It cites approvingly the accusations made by journalist Ben-Dror Yemini about senior Human Rights Watch (HRW) director Joe Stork, and NGO Monitor's accusations about another HRW employee, Mark Garlasco, both co-authors of reports criticizing Israeli human rights abuses.

In August 2009 Stork was accused of being "a fanatical supporter of the elimination of Israel", "a friend of Saddam [Hussein]" and to have "supported the Munich Massacre". He responded by saying the accusations were a "shoot the messenger approach" that ignored the contents of the reports critical of Israel and related loosely to events from 30 years before.

A pro-Israel blog suggested in September 2009 that Garlasco collected Nazi memorabilia . He responded by labeling the claim "defamatory nonsense, spread maliciously by people with an interest in trying to undermine Human Rights Watch's reporting" although he was suspended on pay pending an investigation and eventually left HRW in February 2010.

Emergence of 'anti-delegitimization' network

A slide from Reut's presentation at the Tenth Annual Herzliya Conference showing how it believes Israel should counter the delegitimization threat

In the summary of a December 2011 publication '2011: The Year We Punched Back on the Assault on Israel's Legitimacy', the Reut Institute claims that in that year a "coordinated global effort to combat delegitimization emerged on every front, from international forums to university campuses" and dubs this "the successful creation of an 'anti-delegitimization network'". Reut credits the Israeli government with making a "[c]ritical contribution" to the emergence of this network.

It lists "extracting a ‘price tag’ for acts of delegitimization" and "progress in stifling the momentum of anti-Israel boycotts" as key achievements.

Following the publication of 'The Assault on Israel's Legitimacy: London as a Case Study' which identified London as "the hub-of-hubs" of delegitimization, an event called the Big Tent for Israel was organised in Manchester, UK, on 27 November 2011 and explicitly sought to address the issues raised in the report. Reut’s Eran Shayshon spoke in the opening plenary and on a session entitled 'The View From Abroad'.

In the programme for the event, organizer Rabbi Jonathan Guttentag wrote “We need to fight a war to defend Israel against delegitimization. We have to raise an army and we have to join that army". A sister event called the Mini Big Tent For Israel was held in London in the same month. In a Reut blogpost Eran Shayshon describes the event as part of "the emergence of the pro-Israel network" and also mentions a May 2011 conference We Believe In Israel organised by BICOM in this context.

Criticism of 'delegitimization' concept and terminology

One activist criticised by the Reut Institute in 'The Delegitimization Challenge', Ali Abunimah, commented on this report:

It blames "delegitimizers" and "resisters" for frustrating the two-state solution but ignores Israel's relentless and ongoing settlement-building drive -- supported by virtually every state organ -- calculated and intended to make Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank impossible.

It never considers for a moment that the mounting criticism of Israel's actions might be justified, or that the growing ranks of people ready to commit their time and efforts to opposing Israel's actions are motivated by genuine outrage and a desire to see justice, equality and an end to bloodshed. In other words, Israel is delegitimizing itself.

Abunimah has published an early summary of the report that recommended "Israel should sabotage network catalysts and drive a wedge between its component parts, primarily between soft critics of Israeli policy and delegitimizers of its existence". He states that the encouragement to 'sabotage' has since been removed from the version on Reut's website.

Elsewhere he has criticised Reut's description of "extracting a ‘price tag’ for acts of delegitimization" pointing out that this term is "generally associated with mosque burnings, vandalism, tree felling, killings of people and their livestock and other violent attacks by Israeli settlers against Palestinians" and concludes that use of the term indicates that the Reut Institute "seeks to emulate on an international scale this type of intimidation".

Samira Shackle has written in the New Statesman that The Delegitimization Challenge report seems to conclude that:

Israel must accept that it is often criticised in part because of its policies, but that it needs to polish its brand so that it can continue to implement such policies. The solution, therefore, is not to address concerns, but to suppress those who voice them. One thing is clear - if the Israeli government adopts the measures suggested by the Reut Institute, any decline in legitimacy will grow worse.

Support for Reut analysis

Martin Raffel, Senior Vice President of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs and Israel Action Network Project Director, has said:

As the Reut Institute report on delegitimization stresses, it is...activists from the Zionist left who are best positioned to advocate to their liberal friends, who by all rights should be supportive of Israel as the region's most democratic and most supportive society of women's, LGBT, labor, and minority rights.

At a conference in March 2011, the Reut Institute's Daphna Kaufman recommended a petition call Restoring Sanity which calls for all debate regarding Israel to keep within certain 'blue and white lines' and not crossing what it calls 'red lines' by undermining Israel's legitimacy or promoting a one state solution. Signatories include individuals from AIPAC and the Jewish Agency as well as several members of the Reut Institute.

History

Founded in January 2004 principally by Gideon Grinstein, in its first year Reut employed 6 staff and had a budget of $368,000. Its first client in July 2004 was Israel's National Security Council. In July 2006 Reut hosted a conference called 'From Disengagement to Convergence' at which Minister of Foreign Affairs Tzipi Livni was keynote speaker.

By December 2007 Reut had 23 staff and a budget of $1.4 million.

Presence at Herzliya Conferences

A slide from a Reut presentation at the Tenth Annual Herzliya Conference showing why it sees delegitimization as more serious than any military threat to Israel today and wants national policy priorities to change

Reut founder and president Gideon Grinstein has spoken at:

• The Seventh Herzliya Conference (2007) on 'Initiatives for Diplomacy and Statecraft in the Arab-Israeli Context'. Reut also gave a presentation called 'Inversion towards Occupation' on "the fundamental shift in Israeli-Palestinian relations".
• The Eighth Herzliya Conference (2008) on 'The Balance of Israel's National Security – The "Herzliya Indices" in Israel's 60th year'. Reut also gave a presentation on its 'ISRAEL 15 Vision' calling for Israel's economic development to "leapfrog" forwards.
• The Ninth Herzliya Conference (2009) on 'Weathering the Storm: Israel and the World Economic Crisis'.
• The Tenth Annual Herzliya Conference (2010) on 'Winning the Battle of the Narrative: Getting the Message Out' and 'Civil Preparedness in the Israeli Home Front: the Role of the Civil Society'. Abunimah writes that Grinstein gave a presentation calling for Israeli government intelligence agencies to engage in "attacking catalysts" of the "delegitimization network" as well as working to portray Israel as environmentally friendly.
• At the Eleventh Annual Herzliya Conference (2011) he chaired a talk entitled 'Embedding the Culture of Readiness in Homeland Defense and Civilian Crisis Management'.

Objections to anti-boycott law

On August 2 2011 Reut CEO Roy Keidar and leading analyst Eran Shayshon wrote an op-ed criticising the Knesset's plan to outlaw support for a boycott within Israel, warning that it could backfire. They argued that while delegitimization was an urgent threat, delegitimizers' "strategy...is to deliberately blur the distinction between de-legitimization, and the legitimate discourse on Israeli government policy" and therefore "legislation which attempts to restrict the actions of parts of Israeli society in their criticism of government policy, only further serves the interests of those seeking to blur the boundaries".

They said the law would not be effective because "the law is territorial in its application and yet the de-legitimization campaign is global, primarily operating beyond Israel's borders" and also argued that the controversial proposal caused harmful disunity within Israel when "collaboration across the political spectrum with the common goal of ‘de-legitimizing delegitimization'" was required.

Attacks on Naomi Klein

In March 2010 Eran Shayshon of the Reut Institute attacked Naomi Klein during an interview on CBC radio station. Explaining why he singled out Toronto as one of the cities labelled a hub of delegitimization, Shayshon alleged that Klein opposes Israel's right to exist and opposes a two-state solution.

Klein claimed that this was a "flat out lie", stating that she has never advocated any particular political outcome in Israel-Palestine. She said she supports the BDS campaign's call for Israel to abide by international law and argued that Shayshon was attempting to equate "non-violent tactics like BDS with a military campaign to destroy Israel".

Shayshon responded with an article in Haaretz which suggested that the BDS campaign was "simplistic and unfounded and is likely to cause more human misery, chaos and bloodshed" and stated:

'Kleinism' represents a simplistic, artificial view of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that has led many who consider themselves human-rights activists to focus their criticism nearly exclusively on Israel....We should not be misled by 'Kleinist' terminology. Those who really care about justice, peace, human rights and international law should reject the superficial apartheid diagnosis and its accompanying disastrous prognosis. Instead, it is those in both Israel and Palestine who promote the principle of two states for two peoples who could eventually bring about a true and stable peace in accordance with international law.

In a longer version of the piece, Shayson argues that legitimate "criticism [of Israel] crosses the line into delegitimization...when it falls into one or more of the following categories":

• Challenges the Two-State Solution/ Promotes the One-State Solution
• Promotes Double Standard/ Singles Israel Out
• Demonizes Israel
• Suggests that Israel was Born in Sin / Opens the ‘1948 Files’

Cecilie Surasky from Jewish Voice for Peace criticized each of these points individually. Klein's answer was an article stating that Shayshon was "saying that the enemy is history" and refuting his sources and accuracy.

Affiliations

• In 2010 Reut published an economic development policy document in collaboration with the Jewish Agency project Partnership 2000 and the Joint Distribution Committee project ELKA.

• The Reut Institute "co-hosted" the American Jewish Committee's 'ACCESS' young leadership weekend conference in Washington DC, in spring 2012, also involving the Ministry of Public Diplomacy and Diaspora Affairs for the State of Israel, and the Consulate General of Israel in New York. The conference was designed to encourage Jewish youth to "discuss and mobilize in support of Israel" and workshops included how to "communicate effectively with international opinion-makers".

At the same conference in 2011 the Reut Institute, "in cooperation with the Israel on Campus Coalition and Jewish Labor Committee, brought together Israel activists from across the political spectrum to address and counter efforts to delegitimize Israel". According to Kenneth Bandler, the American Jewish Committee’s director of media relations, this conference ended with then French Ambassador-at-large for Human Rights Francois Zimeray stressing "at the conclusion of the conference that denial of Israel's legitimacy and denial of the Shoah are intertwined".

• Reut founder Gidi Grinstein spoke alongside Lorna Fitzsimons, then CEO of BICOM, and Rafael Bardaji, director of the Friends of Israel Initiative in "a session devoted to the global assault on Israel's legitimacy" at the American Jewish Committee's Global Forum event which immediately preceded its ACCESS conference.

• Reut was one of 15 organisations that sponsored the second annual Avi Schaefer Symposium in Jerusalem in January 2012. Around 300 students attended and Natan Sharansky and MK Einat Wilf spoke at the symposium, the theme of which was The Z-Word: Reimagining Zionism. Other speakers were from the Jewish Agency, the Foreign Ministry and the Shalem Center.

• Gidi Grinstein attended and was a moderator at a One Voice event calling for a two-state solution.

People

• Gideon Grinstein - Co-Founder and President.
• Roy Keidar - CEO
• Eran Shayshon - National Security analyst

Board

David Alexander | Noa Eliasaf - Shoham | Michael Orenstein | Yoav Shapira | Noam Bardin

Original Steering Committee

The Reut Institute's 2004 Annual Report lists the following members:

• Pini Meidan-Shani – Foreign Policy Advisor to PM Barak (2000-01)
• Arnon Pearlman – Chief Spokesperson for PM Sharon (2001-03)
• Dalia Rabin – Deputy Minister of Defense (2001-02)
• Prof. Uriel Reichman – President of the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya
• Uri Shani – Chief of Staff of PM Sharon (2001-02)
• Adv. Gilead Sher – Chief of Staff and Chief Negotiator of PM Barak (1999-01)
• Baruch Spiegel – Special Advisor to Minister of Defense Mofaz, and Deputy Coordinator of Activities of the GOI in the West Bank and Gaza (1995-98)

Funding

The Reut Institute operates under the Israeli law of non-profit organisations ('Amutot') and is funded by a network of private donors. Any donation that could potentially create a conflict of interest is said to “require a formal and public discussion and decision” by the Board of Directors.

Reut's Charter states that it will “make every effort to secure funding for its activities from nongovernmental benefactors” and that it will only raise funds “from individuals or funds that support its vision”.

Reut states that it will not accept any contribution that exceeds 15% of its yearly budget, nor any donations from government agencies (Israeli or foreign).

Before it was launched in 2004 the earliest financial contributions included the first donation from Israel in July 2003 from Jewish Agency board member Avi Naor and the first from the US by Reagan Silber in September 2003.

According to the Jerusalem Post 75 percent of its funds come from "private donors in Europe and the US, and 25 percent from Israeli sources".

American Friends of the Reut Institute

American Friends of the Reut Institute (AFRI) is a nonprofit organisation registered in the United States (Federal ID # 20-3585888) and based in Beverly Hills, California.

Its stated mission is to "advance a vision of a prosperous and secure Israel". AFRI is the single largest supporter of the Reut Institute, and the Reut Institute is the chief recipient of AFRI's donations.

According to Electronic Intifada, AFRI's public filings show that it sent almost $2 million to the Reut Institute in 2006 and 2007.

Other funders

Reut's one year Strategy and Leadership Training Program is supported by the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation.

The Samuel Bronfman Foundation lists Reut as one of the initiatives it supports. According to Reut they launched a New York office at the Samuel Bronfman Foundation in February 2007.

In May 2011 the Alliance For Global Good announced it was to enter into program partnerships with five non-profit organizations including the Reut Institute and Ben-Gurion University.

Clients

Reut says it was "established to serve Israeli government agencies and decisionmakers...from top-ranking politicians to government professionals, who hold positions of authority, leadership or influence".

Its introductory video lists the following Israeli government agencies as clients:

• Bureau of the Prime Minister
• Ministry of Foreign Affairs
• Ministry of Finance
• Ministry of Defence
• Ministry of Industry, Trade and Labour
• IDF
• National Economic Council
• National Security Council
• Knesset Committees

Publications

• The Delegitimization Challenge: Creating a Political Firewall, (February 2010).
• The Gaza Flotilla: The Collapse of Israel's Political Firewall, (August 2010).
• The Assault on Israel's Legitimacy: London as a Case Study, (December 2010).
• San Francisco as a Delegitimization Hub: Initial Report on the 1st Study Visit, (September 2011).
• 2011: The Year We Punched Back on the Assault on Israel's Legitimacy, (December 2011).

Contact

Address: 126 Yigal Alon St., Tel Aviv 67443, Israel

Phone: +972-(0)3-6950090

Email: office@reut-institute.org

Website: www.reut-institute.org

Resources

• Reut Institute Presentation: The Challenge to Israel's Global Legitimacy, given at the Tenth Annual Herzliya Conference in February 2010
• James Marc Leas, Israeli Think Tank Calls for Sabotaging "Delegitimizers" of Israel, 21 May 2010, Counterpunch.