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The Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) is pleased to announce that Or Rabinowitz will come to Stanford for the 2022-23 academic year as part of the institute’s new Visiting Fellowship in Israel Studies. Dr. Rabinowitz is currently a Senior Lecturer in International Relations at Hebrew University, Jerusalem.

During her time at Stanford as a Visiting Associate Professor, Dr. Rabinowitz will teach a one quarter long undergraduate course on “Israel: National Security and Nuclear Policy.” She will also organize and run an international workshop on “Deterrence and Weapons of Mass Destruction in the Middle East” in the spring or summer quarters of 2023, and engage with Stanford pre- and postdoctoral fellows and FSI faculty.

Dr. Rabinowitz’s appointment will be based at FSI’s Center for International Security and Cooperation.

“Or Rabinowitz is one of Israel’s finest scholars writing about nuclear proliferation, deterrence, and national security policy,” said Scott Sagan, co-director of CISAC.  “Stanford is really fortunate to be able to bring her to campus for a year under this program.”

Or Rabinowitz is one of Israel’s finest scholars writing about nuclear proliferation, deterrence, and national security policy. Stanford is really fortunate to be able to bring her to campus for a year under this program.
Scott Sagan
Co-director of the Center for International Security and Cooperation

Dr. Rabinowitz’s current research lies at the intersection of nuclear and intelligence studies, with a focus on Israel’s nuclear program and the role of science and technology in its national security doctrine. Her book, “Bargaining on Nuclear Tests: Washington and its Cold War Deals” was published in April 2014 by Oxford University Press, and she has since published articles in International Security, Journal of Strategic Studies, The International History Review and the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, among others.

She holds a PhD degree from the War Studies Department of King’s College London, an MA degree in Security Studies and an LLB degree in Law, both from Tel-Aviv University. She is currently conducting a study on intelligence collaboration between allies in the realm of counter-proliferation operations, funded by the Israel Science Foundation.

“I am honored to be joining Stanford this coming academic year, and to share my knowledge about Israel with Stanford’s undergraduates,” said Dr. Rabinowitz. “CISAC is a global leader when it comes to producing new knowledge and insight about the challenges of nuclear proliferation, and being chosen as an Israel Studies Fellow is a true privilege.”

Dr. Rabinowitz’s many awards and honors include being named an Israeli Chevening Scholar by the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and receiving The Scouloudi Award from the Institute of Historical Research, University of London. In 2018 she also won the Professor Ya’acov Barsimantov Best Article Award from the Israeli Association for International Studies.

The Visiting Fellowship in Israel Studies was launched in September 2021 with the generous support of Stanford alumni and donors. The search committee included senior fellows from throughout the institute. In addition to bringing to Dr. Rabinowitz to Stanford, the committee selected Dr. Amichai Magen, a scholar of law, government and international relations, as the inaugural Visiting Fellow in Israel Studies. Dr. Magen will also arrive at Stanford in the 2022-2023 academic year.

Media inquiries about the Visiting Fellowship in Israel Studies can be directed to Ari Chasnoff, FSI’s associate director for communications.

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CISAC Honors Class 2022
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Congratulations to Our CISAC Honors Graduates

On Friday, June 10th, 2022, we celebrated the accomplishments of the students in the Honors Program in International Security Studies.
Congratulations to Our CISAC Honors Graduates
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Dr. Or Rabinowitz of Hebrew University, Jerusalem, whose research explores how nuclear technology interacts with decision-making, strategy, and diplomacy, will come to Stanford in the 2022-2023 academic year as a Visiting Associate Professor.

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Gil Baram
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In 2010, the world was introduced to Stuxnet, a sophisticated malware developed by Israel and the United States that successfully targeted and damaged the Iranian uranium enrichment plant in Natanz. Named “the world's first digital weapon,” Stuxnet changed the way the global security and cybersecurity communities—in government, academia, and industry—perceived the range of cyber threats and types of damage that offensive cyber capabilities can deliver.   

While the offensive cyber capabilities of both Iran and Israel have evolved significantly over the past decade, one thing about the Iran-Israel cyber conflict remained consistent: its covert characteristics. 

Read the rest at The National Interest

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In 2010, the world was introduced to Stuxnet, a sophisticated malware developed by Israel and the United States that successfully targeted and damaged the Iranian uranium enrichment plant in Natanz. Named “the world's first digital weapon,” Stuxnet changed the way the global security communities perceived the range of cyber threats.

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Seminar Recording: https://youtu.be/2J1usUsxZVw

 

About this Event: Israel’s relations with the Arab countries of the Persian Gulf, and particularly Saudi Arabia, have been improving for many years. Saudi King Faysal famously handed out copies of the anti-Semitic Czarist forgery, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, to his visitors, but today the leaders of Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Oman, often make positive statements about Israel and the Jewish people. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu paid an official visit to Oman in October 2018. Unofficial meetings are reportedlyheld often with Saudi leaders. A synagogue now operates openly in Dubai, and EXPO 2020 Dubai will feature a full-blown Israeli pavilion. Qatar will likely let Israelis attend the FIFA World Cup in 2022. The Gulf countries are interested in access to Israeli technology for civil and military use. Never full-fledged supporters of the Palestinians, particularly after the Palestinian leadership supported Saddam Husayn in the Gulf War, Gulf leaders see an opportunity to cooperate with Israel against their common enemy –Iran. With doubts about US commitments to the region getting even stronger, the Arab countries of the Persian Gulf will look to increased cooperation with Israel, as well as Russia and China.

 

Speaker's Biography: Prof. Joshua Teitelbaum is a Visiting Scholar at CISAC. He is a leading historian and expert on the modern Middle East. Teitelbaum teaches modern Middle Eastern history in the Department of Middle Eastern Studies and is Senior Research Associate at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies (BESA), at Bar-Ilan University in Ramat Gan, Israel. For many years he was a Visiting Fellow and Contributor to the Herbert and Jane Dwight Working Group on Islamism and the International Order at the Hoover Institution, a Visiting Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science, and Visiting Scholar at the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law, all at Stanford. He has also held visiting positions at Cornell University, the University of Washington, and the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. His latest book is Saudi Arabia and the New Strategic Landscape (Stanford: Hoover Press), and his latest article is "Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and the Longue Durée Struggle for Islam's Holiest Places,” in The Historical Journal.

Joshua Teitelbaum Professor Bar-Ilan University
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More than a century after citizen armies became an international norm, nearly two dozen states actively recruit foreigners into their militaries. Why do these states skirt the strong citizen-soldier norm and continue to welcome foreigners? To explain this practice, we first identify two puzzles associated with foreign recruitment. The first is practical: foreign recruits pose loyalty, logistical, and organizational challenges that domestic soldiers do not. The second is normative: noncitizen soldiers lie in a normative gray zone, permitted under the letter of international law but in tension with the spirit of international norms against mercenary armies. Next, we survey foreign military recruitment programs around the world and sort them into three broad types of programs, each with its own primary motivation: importing expertise, importing labor, and bolstering international bonds. We explain these categories and explore three exemplary cases in depth: Australia, Bahrain, and Israel. Our findings suggest that foreign recruitment can affect a state’s military operations by allowing militaries to rapidly develop advanced capabilities, by reducing the political risk associated with the use of force, and by expanding a state’s influence among former colonial and diaspora populations.

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Abstract: Gen. Yadlin will present the national security challenges facing the State of Israel in the near future and beyond.

After a presentation of the balance of challenges and threats to Israel, Israel's relations with the US and Russia, the two leading superpowers in the Middle East, Gen. Yadlin will examine the four volatile fronts that Israel faces in the coming year: Gaza, Iran's consolidation in Syria and Lebanon, the risk of another round of conflict with Hezbollah, and the Iranian nuclear threat.  With a view to the coming decade, Gen. Yadlin will also present the INSS Plan: a Political-Security Framework for the Israeli-Palestinian Arena.


Speaker Bio: Major General (ret.) Amos Yadlin has been the Director of Tel Aviv University’s Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), Israel's leading strategic Think Tank, since November 2011.    

Maj. Gen. (ret.) Yadlin was designated Minister of Defense of the Zionist Union Party in the March 2015 elections.

Maj. Gen. (ret.) Yadlin served for over 40 years in the Israel Defense Forces, nine of which as a member of the IDF General Staff. From 2006-2010, Maj. Gen. (ret.) Yadlin served as the IDF’s chief of Defense Intelligence. From 2004-2006, he served as the IDF attaché to the United States. In February 2002, he earned the rank of major general and was named commander of the IDF Military Colleges and the National Defense College.

Maj. Gen. (ret.) Yadlin, a former deputy commander of the Israel Air Force, has commanded two fighter squadrons and two airbases. He has also served as Head of IAF Planning Department (1990-1993). He accumulated about 5,000 flight hours and flew more than 250 combat missions behind enemy lines. He participated in the Yom Kippur War (1973), Operation Peace for Galilee (1982) and Operation Tamuz – the destruction of the Osirak nuclear reactor in Iraq (1981).

Yadlin holds a B.A. in economics and business administration from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (1985). He also holds a Master's degree in Public Administration from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University (1994).

 

Amos Yadlin Director Tel Aviv University’s Institute
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The history of nonproliferation failures in Israel, India, Pakistan, and North Korea are reviewed in the light of the nuclear agreement with Iran. The paper shows that the circumstances in each case are special and not comparable to the situation in the Iranian case. Thus, while the Iran agreement has some weaknesses, past nonproliferation failures should not be considered predictive of a future failure in this case. But there are lessons to be learned from such failures that should inform U.S. nonproliferation policy generally.

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Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
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Leonard Weiss
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The paper provides technical and circumstantial evidence that the detection of a "double flash" by a Vela satellite on 9/22/79 was that of an Israeli nuclear test logistically assisted by South Africa, putting both countries in violation of their commitments under the Limited Test Ban Treaty. The implications of this are explored in light of the controversy over the Iran nuclear agreement.

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Bulletin of Atomic Scientists
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Leonard Weiss
Leonard Weiss
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Abstract: Adjudication of national security poses complex challenges for courts. In Judicial Review of National Security, David Scharia explains how the Supreme Court of Israel developed unconventional judicial review tools and practices that allowed it to provide judicial guidance to the Executive in real-time. In this book, he argues that courts could play a much more dominant role in reviewing national security, and demonstrates the importance of intensive real-time inter-branch dialogue with the Executive, as a tool used by the Israeli Court to provide such review. This book aims to show that if one Supreme Court was able to provide rigorous judicial review of national security in real-time, then we should reconsider the conventional wisdom regarding the limits of judicial review of national security. 

About the Speaker: Dr. David Scharia (PhD, LLM) heads the Legal and Criminal Justice Group at the United Nations Security Council Counter Terrorism Committee Executive Directorate (CTED). Before joining the United Nations, Dr. Scharia worked at the Supreme Court division in the Attorney General office in Israel where he was lead attorney in major counter-terrorism cases. Dr. Scharia served as a Member of the experts’ forum on "Democracy and Terrorism” established by Israel leading think-tank the Israel Democratic Institute. He was National Security Scholar-in-Residence at Columbia Law School and currently serves as a member of the professional board of the International Institute for Counter Terrorism (ICT). Dr. Scharia is a renowned expert on law and terrorism and the author of two books.  

Encina Hall (2nd floor)

David Scharia Coordinator of the Legal and Criminal Justice Group at the United Nations Security Council Counter Terrorism Committee Executive Directorate (CTED) Speaker United Nations Security Council
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ABOUT THE SPEAKER: Gil-li Vardi joined CISAC as a visiting scholar in December 2011. She completed her PhD at the London School of Economics in 2008, and spent two years as a research fellow at the Oxford Leverhulme Programme on the Changing Character of War at the University of Oxford, after which she joined Notre Dame university as a J. P. Moran Family Assistant Professor of Military History.

Her research examines the interplay between organizational culture, doctrine, and operational patterns in military organizations, and focuses on the incentives and dynamics of change in military thought and practice.

Driven by her interest in both the German and Israeli militaries and their organizational cultures, Vardi is currently revising her dissertation, "The Enigma of Wehrmacht Operational Doctrine: The Evolution of Military Thought in Germany, 1919-1941," alongside preparing a book manuscript on the sources of the Israeli Defence Forces’ (IDF) early strategic and operational perceptions and preferences.

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Gil-li Vardi joined CISAC as a visiting scholar in December 2011. She completed her PhD at the London School of Economics in 2008, and spent two years as a research fellow at the Oxford Leverhulme Programme on the Changing Character of War at the University of Oxford, after which she joined Notre Dame university as a J. P. Moran Family Assistant Professor of Military History.

Her research examines the interplay between organizational culture, doctrine, and operational patterns in military organizations, and focuses on the incentives and dynamics of change in military thought and practice.

Driven by her interest in both the German and Israeli militaries and their organizational cultures, Vardi is currently revising her dissertation, "The Enigma of Wehrmacht Operational Doctrine: The Evolution of Military Thought in Germany, 1919-1941," alongside preparing a book manuscript on the sources of the Israeli Defence Forces’ (IDF) early strategic and operational perceptions and preferences.

Gil-li Vardi Visiting Scholar, CISAC; Lecturer, Department of History, Stanford; Research Fellow, Hoover Institution Speaker
Joel Beinin Donald J. McLachlan Professor of History, Stanford Commentator
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