Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies

The Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies, part of Tel Aviv University's School of History, is "an interdisciplinary research center devoted to the study of the modern history and contemporary affairs of the Middle East and Africa".

The centre claims that it does not take positions or recommend policies but only "seeks to inform civil society and promote dialogue on the complexities of the ever-changing Middle East" through research, publications and conferences and in this way help to "advance peace through understanding". However, according to the American Friends of Tel Aviv University, the center works "closely with the Israeli government and army".

The centre was ranked in fifteenth place among think tanks in the Middle East and North Africa by the Global Go To Think Tanks Report 2011 produced at the University of Pennsylvania.

Activities

Research focuses on the Arab world (including North Africa), Turkey, and Iran, with an emphasis on modern history and contemporary affairs.

It hosts an annual 'TAU Workshop on Israel and the Middle East' (formerly held at the S. Daniel Abraham Center for Regional and International Studies) which involves "an intensive 12-day academic workshop and travel program that focuses on the history of the Arab-Israeli Conflict and on contemporary issues related to Israel and the broader Middle East".

The centre's Arabic press archive is "one of the largest and most comprehensive collections of modern and contemporary Arabic-language newspapers in the world".

Recent conferences convened by the centre have focused on topics like the resilience of monarchy in the Middle East, the shifting alignments of Islamic movements, the historic role of Jewish scholars in the study of Islam and the politics of identity among Israel’s Arabs.

Maj. Gen. Amos Gilad delivered the 2011 annual Moshe Dayan memorial lecture.

In March 2012 U.S. ambassador to Israel Daniel Shapiro visited the center and gave a speech in which he addressed Israel's relationship with the UN, especially its decision to cut ties with the Human Rights Council (HRC). Shapiro said that the Council 'obsessively focuses' on Israel while neglecting more urgent human rights issues.

History

The Center's origins lie in the Reuven Shiloah Institute, first established in 1959 under the auspices of the Israel Oriental Society and named after Reuven Shiloah, the first direcyor of Mossad, Israel's foreign intelligence agency. In 1965, the Shiloah Institute was incorporated into Tel Aviv University. In 1983, the University established the Moshe Dayan Center, named after the former Israeli Defence Minister and IDF Chief of Staff, Moshe Dayan, who once said Israel must 'be like a mad dog, too dangerous to bother.'

Affiliations

• Washington Institute for Near East Policy has long-standing academic ties to the Moshe Dayan Center. Many scholars have been visiting fellows at WINEP.
• Council on Foreign Relations, a New York think tank.
• Royal Institute for International Affairs, also known as Chatham House, a British policy institute.

People

Notable current and former staff include:

• Prof. Uzi Rabi, current Director
• Prof. Asher Susser, Senior Research Fellow
• Dr. Mira Tzoreff, Research Fellow, who spoke at the Twelfth Herzliya Conference on 'The Rise of Political Islam Across the Middle East: Arab Spring or Islamist Winter'
• Martin Kramer, member of board of governors and former director
• Dore Gold, former senior research associate at the centre.

Staff

Uzi Rabi (Director) | Irit Back | Samir Ben-Layashi | Ofra Bengio | Harel Chorev-Halewa Hay Eytan Cohen Yanarocak | Yitzhak Gal | Rachel Kantz Feder | Ephraim Lavie | Meir Litvak] | Bruce Maddy-Weitzman | Itamar Rabinovich | Paul Rivlin | Yehudit Ronen | Asher Susser | Annie Tracy Samuel | Mira Tzoreff]] | Esther Webman | Daniel Zisenwine | Eyal Zisser | Gideon Gera

Founders

S. Daniel Abraham | Mordechai Ben Porat | Charles Bronfman | Joseph Ciechanover | Lester Crown | Michel Fribourg | Bernard Gitter | Guilford Glazer | Kemal GŸrŸz | Haim Israeli | Ludwig Jesselson | Elie Kedourie | Senator E. Leo Kolber | Naphtali Lavie | Bernard Lewis | Moshe Many | Herman Merkin | Harvey M. Meyerhof | Itamar Rabinovich | Raphael Recanati | Baron Edmond de Rothschild | Zalman Shoval | Shabtai Teveth | Dan Tolkowsky | Joy Ungerleider-Mayerson | The Hon. Cyrus Vance |

Board of Governers

Joseph Ciechanover (Chair) | Shalom Abarbanel | Uri Bar-Ner | Mordechai Ben Porat | Ronald Cohen | Boleslav Goldman | Joseph Klafter | Martin Kramer | Naphtali Lavie | Itamar Rabinovich | Moshe Raviv | Oudi Recanati | Aharon Shai | Shimon Shamir | Zalman Shoval | Asher Susser | Mordechai Tamarkin | Shabtai Teveth | Dan Tolkowsky | Eyal Zisser

International Board of Overseers

Lester Pollack (Chair) | Joel Mandel (Vice Chair) | Gaby Brill | John Bussel | Alexander Gertner | Ted Ginsberg | Diane Glazer | Guilford Glazer | Stanley Gold | Harvey Rothenberg | Alan Schwartz | Mark Siegel and Christina Siegel | Jacqueline Simkin | Amos Sochaczevski | Michael Sorkin | Alan Topchik | Edwin Wulfsohn |

Funding

The Center is funded by Tel Aviv University and by an endowment, research grants, and contributions.

It also receives donations from the United States via the American Friends of Tel Aviv University.

Early funding came from Peter Ungerleider who supported the American Friends of Tel Aviv University through the Dorot Foundation and was 'instrumental' in the establishment of the Moshe Dayan Center.

Publications

The centre produces a peer-reviewed academic journal called Sharqiyya which is published semi-annually with the Middle East & Islamic Studies Association of Israel. It also has a bi-monthly online publication called Tel Aviv Notes, a monthly podcast called Diwaniyya, and a cultural blog called Zawiyya. It produces a monthly e-newsletter called Iqtisadi: Middle East Economy containing analysis of Middle Eastern markets and key economic players. It also issues a biannual bulletin on the centre's activities in spring and autumn.

Recent faculty publications include:

• Asher Susser, Israel, Jordan, & Palestine: The Two-State Imperative, (Brandeis University Press, 2011).
• Ofra Bengio and Meir Litvak, The Sunna and Shi‘a in History: Division and Ecumenism in the Muslim Middle East, (Palgrave Macmillan, 2011)
• Ed. Esther Webman, The Global Impact of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion: A Century-Old Myth, (Routledge, 2011)
• Itamar Rabinovich, The View from Damascus: State, Political Community and Foreign Relations in Modern Contemporary Syria (Vallentine Mitchell, 2011)
• Co-eds Uzi Rabi and Yoel Guzansky, The Gulf States: Between Iran and the West, (Hebrew), (Moshe Dayan Center and Institute for National Strategic Studies, Israel, 2012)
• Ed. Daniel Zissenwine, Nationalism, Secularism, and Religion in the Middle East (Hebrew), (Moshe Dayan Center, 2012)

Contact

The Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies

Tel Aviv University

Ramat Aviv, Tel Aviv 69978 Israel

Phone: +972-3-6409646 or +972-3-6409100

Email: dayancen@post.tau.ac.il

Website: http://www.dayan.org

Resources

• Moshe Dayan Center podcasts