Herzliya Conference

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The Herzliya Conference is an annual policy conference held in Herzliya Israel hosted by the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya

Influence

In 2009 the Herzliya Conference was described in an article in the neoconservative Middle East Quarterly as 'arguably the most influential think tank event in Israel'. [1] The article quoted Benjamin Balint, a fellow at the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute as saying: "the Herzliya Conference does have a large effect: It draws political officials and visitors. They had Mitt Romney this year, everyone from Natan Sharansky to Uzi Ayalon. That does have an effect in terms of shaping strategic studies. People fight over slots at Herzliya." It quoted Nir Boms, vice president of the Center for Freedom in the Middle East as saying: "Herzliya in many ways put themselves on the map. They work an entire year for one conference. It's no coincidence that Sharon eventually gave his speech about disengagement [from Gaza] at the conference." [2]

The Conferences

First Herzliya Conference

In December 2000, the Interdisciplinary Center hosted the First Herzliya Conference.[3]

Uzi Arad said of the conference, which he chaired, that "If you weren't there, it showed you weren't in the major league." An abstract of the conference, entitled The Balance of National Strength and Security in Israel: Policy Directions was published in March 2001 and presented to Israeli President Moshe Katzav. Ha'aretz described the document as "quite astounding":

The core of Israel's political and defense establishment has come out with a document that corresponds, in some of its recommendations and in general tone, with the views of the far right. This is mainly true with respect to the importance attached to the demographic threat to Jewish Israel posed by the Palestinians and Israeli Arabs.[4]

Second Herzliya Conference

At the Second Herzliya Conference, Israel in Battle and in the International Arena in December 2001,[5] Arad spoke over a video link with US National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice. Asked whether it was time for a formal US-Israeli strategic alliance, Rice agreed that there was scope for co-operation on counter-proliferation and missile defence. On Iraq, Rice stated: "Iraq is on our radar screen, its on the presidents radar screen, but there are certainly no recommendations to him at this point as to what to do about Iraq."[6]

Third Herzliya Conference

Ahead of Third Herzliya Conference in 2002, Arad released a study arguing that Israel was losing its military edge over the Arab world.[7]Prominent participants included William Kristol, Martin Indyk and Judith Miller.[8]Vermont governor Howard Dean also attended as part of an AIPAC-sponsored visit to Israel.[9]

Fourth Herzliya Conference

The Fourth Herzliya Conference (16-18 December 2003) was opened by Uzi Arad and addressed by Prime minister Ariel Sharon,[10] Among the mainly Israeli speakers were: Reuven Erlich and Reuven Paz.[11]

Fifth Herzliya Conference

Arad was chair and director of the Fifth Herzliya conference ('The Balance of Israel’s National Security') in December 2004. Among those who addressed the conference were Ariel Sharon, President Moshe Katsav, Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz, Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom, Minister for Diaspora Affairs Natan Sharansky, Labour Party leader Shimon Peres and Chief of Staff Moshe Ya'alon. Foreign speakers included Nicolas Sarkozy, president of the Union pour le Mouvement Populaire in France; Peter Ricketts, the UK's permanent representative to NATO; Marc Otte, the EU's special representative to the Mideast peace process; and Prof. Philip Zelikow, executive director of the 9/11 Commission.[12]

Sixth Herzliya conference

The Sixth Herzliya Conference on The Balance of Israel’s National Security was held from January 21-24, 2006.http://www.herzliyaconference.org/Eng/_Articles/Article.asp?CategoryID=227&ArticleID=1594 The Sixth Herzliya Conference on The Balance of Israel’s National Security] January 21-24, 2006, Accessed 1 September 2010</ref> Speakers included Maj. Gen. (res.) Yaakov Amidror Head of the Defensible Borders Project and the Institute for Contemporary Affairs at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs; Vice President of the Lander Institute, Jerusalem. Former Commander of the IDF's Military Colleges; Dr. Sean Barrett Member of the Economics Department at Trinity College, Dublin, Zeev Bielski Chairman of the Executive of the Jewish Agency for Israel and the World Zionist Organization; Carl Bildt Former Prime Minister of Sweden. Presently, Chairman of the Kreab Group of public affairs and strategic communication companies; Amb. John R. Bolton Permanent U.S. Representative to the United Nations; Prof. Paul Bracken Professor of Management and Political Science at Yale University; Jimmy Carter 39th President of the United States, from 1977-81; Sir Ronald Cohen Chairman of the Portland Trust, Founding Partner and Chairman of Apax Partners Holdings; Prof. Alan Dershowitz Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law at Harvard Law School; Diana Furchtgott-Roth Director of the Center for Employment Policy at the Hudson Institute; Amb. Dr. Dore Gold President of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs; General the Lord Charles Guthrie of Craigiebank GCB LVO OBE Former Chief of the Defence Staff and Chief of the General Staff of the British Army. Serves as a Council Member of the International Institute for Strategic Studies; Prof. Herbert I. London President of the Hudson Institute; Dr. Frank Luntz President and CEO of Luntz Research Companies and consultant to The Israel Project; Benjamin Netanyahu Chairman of the Likud Party; Ehud Olmert Acting Prime Minister; Danielle Pletka Vice President for Foreign and Defense Policy Studies at the American Enterprise Institute; Sir Michael Quinlan, GCB Senior Consulting Fellow on South Asia at the International Institute for Strategic Studies; Amb. Dr. Dennis Ross Chairman of the Jewish People Policy Planning Institute and Counselor and Ziegler Distinguished Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy; Dr. Robert Satloff Executive Director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy; Lord George Weidenfeld Co-founder and Chairman of Weidenfeld & Nicholson publishing firm; Lt. Gen. Moshe Ya'alon Distinguished Military Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and Former Chief of General Staff, IDF; Prof. James Young Chair of the Department of Judaic and Near East Studies at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst; Poju Zabludowicz CEO of Tamares Group, Founder and Chairman of the Board of BICOM (Britain’s pro-Israel lobby) and a member of the Advisory Board of United Jewish Israel Appeal; Mortimer B. Zuckerman Chairman and Editor-in-Chief of U.S. News and World Report and publisher of the New York Daily News, Member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the International Institute for Strategic Studies, and the Board of Directors of Snyder Communications. [13]

21st Century Hasbara conference

The Institute for Policy and Strategy held a conference entitled Media as 21st Century Hasbara: Israel, Media and Jihad in a era of Globalization on 17-18 December 2006.[14]According to the Jerusalem Post, Arad told the conference, "We must learn to recognize the players in this theater, including the increasing numbers of NGOs Arab money the diplomatic arena and the 'judicialization' of the diplomatic arena with institutions such as the International Criminal Court in the Hague."[15]

Seventh Herzliya Conference

The Seventh Herzliya Conference opened with John Lennon's song Imagine being played to the audience. According to the Jerusalem Post, 'The audience loved it. Some joined in singing quietly others hummed. If some had forgotten the lyrics most recalled the tune and the message. Thunderous applause was followed by silence.' [16] The song was followed by presentations byWesley Clark the former Supreme Allied Commander of NATO, Avi Dichter Minister of Internal Security, Shabtai Shavit a Former Head of the Mossad, Boaz Ganor the founder of the Institute of Countert-Terrorism and Uriel Reichman Founder and President of the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya. [17]

The conference criticised by Ha'aretz for it's hawkish stance on Israel's security situation. "At the least, one can say Arad is part of the Israeli political discourse's right wing," correspondent Uzi Benziman said.

The Herzliya Conference - this year at least - is not, therefore, an impartial academic summit. It is an event with a clear ideological agenda.
The subject of this year's conference is the balance of power and national security, and words like "patriotism," "national strength," "renewal" and "strengthening" appear time after time in the titles of the sessions. A significant portion of the speakers (at least on political-security matters) are known right-wingers like Richard Perle, James Woolsey, Dore Gold, Zalman Shoval and researchers from the Shalem Center.[18]

8th Herzliya Conference

The 8th Herzliya Conference 'On the Balance of Israel's National Security', took place in January 2008 with the opening ceremonies being held at the Knesset in Jerusalem. The conference was run by IDC Herzliya, the Lauder School of Government Diplomacy and Strategy and the Institute for Policy and Strategy and was held in cooperation with the Adelson Institute for Strategic Studies (which is part of the Shalem Centre). Cooperation and staff were also provided by the Zionist Council of Israel[19].

The event covered strategies and policy recommendations 'across the five principal components of Israel’s national security – defense and foreign policy; economics; education and society; governance; and Jewish Peoplehood policy', with the aims of achieving 'a qualitative leap in all the dimensions of its national policy'. This included the possible use of military force against Iran, as well as discussions on energy security, partiotism, governance, Islam and education, to name a few.

The events participants are too numerous to mention, spanning many pages of the report. Dov Lautman was in attendance along with Gideon Siterman. Lautman and Siterman share a connection through their involvement with the Israel-Britain Business Council (IBBC), where they took part in a meeting prior to the Israeli Prime Minister’s Conference in 2005. Heading the delegation from the IBBC at the Prime Minister’s Conference was Trevor Chinn[20][21]. Trevor Chinn's son David Chinn was present at the Herzliya conference. David Chinn is Partner with McKinsey & Co. Israel[22][23].

10th Herzliya Conference

The Tenth Annual Herzliya Conference was held at the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya in Israel on 31 January - 3 February 2010.[24]

Funding

2008

Principal Sponsors

The 2008 Herzliya Conference's principal sponsors were[25]....

Supporters

Cooperating organizations'

The events Media Consultants were Arad Communications

Notes

  1. ↑ Hannah Elka Meyers, 'Does Israel Need Think Tanks?', Middle East Quarterly, Winter 2009, pp. 37-46
  2. ↑ Hannah Elka Meyers, 'Does Israel Need Think Tanks?', Middle East Quarterly, Winter 2009, pp. 37-46
  3. ↑ [The First Conference - 2000], herzliyaconference.org, accessed 9 February 2008.
  4. ↑ A VERY MOVING SCENARIO, Ha'aretz, 23 March 2001.
  5. ↑ Institute for Policy and Strategy, The 2nd Herzliya Conference - 2001, accessed 1 September 2010
  6. ↑ Rice sees closer cooperation with Israel, by Joshua Brilliant, United Press International, 17 December 2001.
  7. ↑ Beset Jewish state is losing edge over Arab world, report warns, Washington Times, 2 December 2002.
  8. ↑ The Third Conference - 2002, Herzliyaconference.org, accessed 10 February 2002.
  9. ↑ Vermont governor meets with Israeli prime minister, by Christopher Graff, Associated Press State and Local Newswire, 3 December 2002.
  10. ↑ Institute for Policy and Strategy Themes of the Fourth Herzliya Conference, accessed 1 September 2010
  11. ↑ Institute for Policy and Strategy Speakers, Accessed 1 September 2010
  12. ↑ Four very intense days Herzliya Conference, by Mordechai Ben-Dat, Canadian Jewish News, 6 January 2005.
  13. ↑ Institute for Policy and Strategy The 6th Conference - 2006 > Speakers, 20 January 2006
  14. ↑ Richard Landes, Media as Theater of War, the Blogosphere, and the Global Battle for Civil Society, Executive Summary, Institute for Policy and Strategy, accessed 18 February 2009.
  15. ↑ Haviv Rettig, We must be aggressive in media war', News in Brief, Jerusalem Post, 18 December 2006.
  16. ↑ David E. Kaplan, 'Confronting the terror threat', Jerusalem Post, 28 September 2007
  17. ↑ David E. Kaplan, 'Confronting the terror threat', Jerusalem Post, 28 September 2007
  18. ↑ Uzi Benziman, Herzliya's tidings of Job, Haaretz, 25 January 2007.
  19. ↑ The Annual Herzliya Conference Series: on the Balance of Israel's National Security (2008) Conference Conclusions. Accessed 12th August 2008
  20. ↑ BBC Monitoring Middle East - Political Supplied by BBC Worldwide Monitoring. 'New head of Israel-Britain Business Council comments ahead of meeting'. 8th November 2005
  21. ↑ World Trade Center Israel Ltd. Newsletter Issue No.77. Spring 2006. Accessed 22nd July 2008
  22. ↑ The Annual Herzliya Conference Series: on the Balance of Israel's National Security (2008) Conference Conclusions. Accessed 12th August 2008
  23. ↑ Krieger, C. (2008) 'Sir Trevor’s big plans to transform London'. The Jewish Chronicle. 4th July 2008
  24. ↑ The 10th Annual Herzliya Conference, herzliyaconference.org, accessed 25 February 20201.
  25. ↑ The Annual Herzliya Conference Series: on the Balance of Israel's National Security (2008) Conference Conclusions. Accessed 12th August 2008
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