Misgav Institute for National Security and Zionist Strategy
Israeli think tank
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The Misgav Institute for National Security and Zionist Strategy (formerly named Institute for Zionist Strategies) is an Israeli think tank.
Yoaz Hendel, Chairperson
Miri Shalem, Chief executive officer
המכון לאסטרטגיה ציונית | |
| Founded | 2005 |
|---|---|
| Headquarters | Jerusalem, Israel |
Key people | Yoel Golovenski, president Yoaz Hendel, Chairperson Miri Shalem, Chief executive officer |
| Website | www |
Activities
Some of the activities of the Institute include the following.
Constitutional task force
The Institution wrote a draft for a possible constitution, which was presented in 2006.[1][self-published source?][2][better source needed]. The draft constitution emphasizes the sections defining the State of Israel as the national home of the Jewish people, and it significantly alters the relationship between the judicial authority and the legislative and executive authorities. The Constitutional Task Force listed among its members: Prof. Avraham Diskin, Prof. Moshe Koppel, Prof. Berachyahu Lifshitz, Judge (ret.) Uri Strosemn, Rabbi Dan Barry, Dr. Yitzhak Klein, Adv. Joel Golovensky and Israel Harel. This draft constitution was not adopted.
Foreign funding for NGO's
This project studied more than 20 NGOs in Israel and their donors. The Institute, in collaboration with NGO Monitor, issued a joint report claiming that foreign governments were funding NGOs in Israel in order to influence Israeli policy and public debate.[3] As a result, a bill was proposed to the Knesset requiring funding disclosure by NGOs receiving support from foreign political entities. The bill was approved in February 2011 and was not well received by the European Union.[4]
Accusations of bias in academia
The IZS, as part of the research of Dr. Hanan Moses, examined the extent of "bias toward post-Zionist discourse" in sociology departments throughout Israeli universities and whether what the Institute views as the "Zionist narrative" is given equal treatment in Israeli academia. The investigation claimed that all Israeli universities except Bar-Ilan University have what the research describes as "post-Zionist bias" in their sociology departments. Those claims were compared by some to McCarthyism[5][6]
7 October 2023 attack as opportunity to evacuate Gaza Strip
In October 2023, the Institute published a paper describing the October 7 attacks as "a unique and rare opportunity to evacuate the entire Gaza Strip". The paper proposes the ethnic cleansing of all of Gaza by displacing its inhabitants to empty apartments near Cairo, Egypt.[7][8]
US withdrawal from the UN advocacy
In August 2026, Haaretz reported that the Misgav Institute hired an American lobbying firm, Mercury Public Affairs, to influence Congress and the Trump Administration to promote "From UN Bureaucracy to American Global Leadership: A Strategy for Advancing American Interests by Disengaging from a Failed UN," a report advocating for the United States to withdraw from the United Nations.[9]
The report was authored by Gilad Erdan, Israel's former ambassador to the United Nations and formerly a senior member of the Misgav Institute.[9] According to Foreign Agents Registration Act filings, the contract was disclosed to represent a two-phase lobbying effort, including dissemination of the report in congress and administration offices, and subsequently a tour of Washington, D.C. for Misgav officials to meet with US policymakers.[9]