Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies

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The Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies, founded in 1977, (as the Center for Strategic Studies) at the initiative of Tel Aviv University. It added the word 'Jaffee' in 1983 in honour of Mr. and Mrs. Mel Jaffee. It was a key Israeli think tank in the 1980s and was also central to the international Invisible College or terrorism think tanks and institutes. It is now known as the Institute for National Security Studies after being absorbed in October 2006.

In its former incarnation it employed a number of people who are now connected to neoconservative networks such as Dore Gold.

According to the account of Edward Herman and Gerry O'Sullivan, the 'most important' institute addressing the issue of terrorism in Israel in the 1980s was 'the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies, which is affiliated with the University of Tel Aviv. Its links to the government include its head, Major General Aharon Yariv, former director of Israeli intelligence, and editorial board members Brigadier General Aryeh Shalev and Minister of Defense Yitzhak Rabin. Walter Laqueur of CSIS and JINSA is also on the editorial board.'[1]

Herman and O'Sullivan note:

The center sponsors books, monographs, and conferences on a number of subjects, with a strong emphasis on terrorism. It has provided a base for Dr. Ariel Merari, one of Israel's leading analysts of terrorism and coauthor, with Shlomi Elad, of 'The International Dimension of Palestinian Terrorism' (Westview, 1986). [...] The center's 1979 conference on terrorism in Tel Aviv attracted an international group, including Brian Jenkins, J. Bowyer Bell, Yonah Alexander, and Robert Kupperman from the United States, Robert Moss and Paul Wilkinson from Great Britain, and Hans Joseph Horchem from West Germany. There was no departure in the published record of the conference from the Western format and identification of terrorists and victims. Its most interesting feature was the fact that twenty-one of the forty-six participants were state officials.[2]

People

Directors

Staff circa 1997

Staff circa 2006

  • Zvi Shtauber Head of the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies. Appointed Head of the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies in February 2005, following a long career in the Israel Defense Forces and other public offices. His final position in the military was head of the IDF Strategic Planning Division. Prior to that he served as the assistant defense attaché in the Israeli embassy in Washington. Upon his retirement from the IDF, Dr. Shtauber served as vice president of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. He then became the foreign policy advisor to Prime Minister Barak. In 2001 he was appointed Israeli ambassador to the Court of St. James (UK), a position he held until mid-2004.
  • Ephraim Asculai Worked for the Israel Atomic Energy Commission for over 40 years. In 1986, he was appointed to the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, working on issues of radiation protection of the public.
  • Abraham Ben-Zvi Head of the Security Studies Program at the School of Government at Tel Aviv University and a former Chairman of the Department of Political Science at Tel Aviv University.
  • Shlomo Brom Joined the Jaffee Center as a Senior Research Associate in 1998 after a long career in the IDF. His most senior post in the IDF was Head of the Strategic Planning Division in the Planning Branch of the General Staff. Brig. Gen.
  • Uzi Eilam Brig. Gen. (res.) Eilam was appointed Research Associate at JCSS in 2002. His previous position as Director General of the Israeli Ministry of Defense Mission to Europe was the last in a long career in the service of the IDF, the office of the prime minister, and the MOD. His military career spanned combat experience, including a term as commanding officer in the paratroopers, and military R&D at IDF headquarters. After retiring from the IDF, Eilam served as Director General of the Israeli Atomic Energy Commission and as Chief Scientist and Director of R&D in the Ministry of Defense.
  • Meir Elran Brig. Gen. (ret.) Meir Elran joined the Jaffee Center in 2003 after a long career in the IDF Military Intelligence directorate. His most senior post in the IDF was Deputy Director of Military Intelligence (1987-1989). Other positions he held in the IDF included Assistant Director of the Research Division for Evaluation and Deputy Commander of the IDF's National Defense College. Brig. Gen Elran has served as a senior advisor with several Israeli ministries, including the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Internal Security and the Israeli National Security Council, where he concentrated on social issues relating to national security.
  • Ram Erez Ph.D. candidate in International Relations at the Hebrew University, joined the Jaffee Center in 2001. His research focuses on how policy networks influence security policy in Israel.
  • Shmuel Even Dr. Even joined the Jaffee Center in 1995 after a long career in the IDF's Intelligence Branch.
  • Shlomo Gazit Maj. Gen. Gazit began his affiliation with JCSS in 1988, a few years after completing 33 years of service in the IDF. Following the Six Day War, he served as Coordinator of Israeli Government Operations in the Administered Territories, and following the Yom Kippur War, he served as the head of IDF Military Intelligence.
  • Hirsh Goodman Mr. Goodman directs the Andrea and Charles Bronfman Program on Information Strategy at the Jaffee Center. He was vice president of the Jerusalem Post until January 2000, and the founding editor of The Jerusalem Report. For almost two decades Goodman covered defense issues for the Post, was a contributing editor to U.S. News & World Report, and was a contributor to the New Republic. Goodman was a Strategic Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
  • Moshe Grundman Assistant Head of JCSS, director of the Center's publications, and managing editor of Strategic Assessment – the JCSS quarterly. Mr. Grundman, established the JCSS Documentation and Information Center in February 1978 and was its director untill 1997.
  • Mark A. Heller Principal Research Associate at JCSS and editor of Tel Aviv Notes. He has been affiliated with the Jaffee Center since 1979 and has taught international relations at Tel Aviv University and at leading universities in the US.
  • Ephraim Kam Deputy Head of JCSS. Served as a Colonel in the Research Division of IDF Military Intelligence until 1993, when he joined the Jaffee Center. Positions he held in the IDF included Assistant Director of the Research Division for Evaluation and Senior Instructor at the IDF's National Defense College.
  • Anat Kurz Senior Research Associate who has headed the Jaffee Center's Project on Low-Intensity Conflict since 1989.
  • Emily Landau Director of the Arms Control and Regional Security Project at JCSS.
  • Tamar Malz Joined the Center in 1996. She assisted two major projects at JCSS in the course of which she worked on issues related to Arms Control and Regional Security, and Israel's National Security.
  • Paul Rivlin Joint appointment at the Jaffee Center and at the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle East and African Studies, Tel Aviv University.
  • Yoram Schweitzer Expert on international terror.
  • Aryeh Shalev Brig Gen. (res.) Shalev served for 33 years in the IDF, where his final posting was Military Governor of Judea and Samaria.
  • Zaki Shalom Senior researcher at the Ben-Gurion Research Institute at Ben-Gurion University.
  • Yiftah Shapir Served as an officer in the Israeli Air Force, and has extensive background in information technology and operations research.
  • Nachman Tal Former senior official of the General Security Service (GSS), joined the JCSS research staff in 1996 following his retirement from the GSS.
  • Imri Tov Economic Advisor to the Israeli defense establishment from 1988-2000, before which he was a senior economist at the Bank of Israel.
  • Judith Rosen - English Editor - worked at TIME Magazine as a letters correspondent.

Information Center and Library

Research Assistants

Administrative Staff

Funding

In 2007 the Center carried the following information about funding on its website:

The JCSS budget is based largely on the annual interest that accrues from an endowment fund established by the Association of American Friends of Tel Aviv University from contributions made primarily by the Jewish community of the United States. This is supplemented by foundation support and contributions dedicated to specific projects In this way JCSS seeks to ensure for itself the financial independence necessary for its research and other activities.[6]

Resources

Contact

Internet Archive holdings of tau.ac.il/jcss/ 1997-2007.

Powerbase

Notes

  1. The "Terrorism" Industry: The Experts and Institutions That Shape Our View of Terror by Edward S. Herman and Gerry O'Sullivan, New York: Pantheon, 1989.
  2. Ibid.
  3. Staff: Shai Feldman, RUSI, accessed 6 August 2012
  4. JCSS Research team. Retrieved from the Internet Archive of 12 February 1997 on 5 April 2015.
  5. JCSS Staff. Retrieved from the Internet Archive of 15 January 2006 on 6 April 2015.
  6. JCSS About JCSS Retrieved from the Internet Archive of 15 July 2007 on 3 April 2015.