Shabtai Shavit is the chairman of the Board of Directors of the International Institute for Counter Terrorism (ICT) at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya, Israel; a post he has held since 2001. He served as the director of Israel’s Intelligence Services, the Mossad, between 1989 and 1996, having joined the organisation in 1964 and holding a number of positions over the 32 years before his appointment as director. He also currently holds positions as an adviser to the Israeli National Security Council, the Knesset Sub-Committee on Intelligence and the Committee on Foreign Affairs and National Security.
Our Voice of the Fortnight is from the Times of Israel's 'Wartime Diaries' podcast. In the immediate aftermath of October 7th, Shai Davidai – an Assistant Professor at Columbia University – became an unlikely public defender of Israel. And truthfully, even he was surprised by this turn of events: As a committed left-wing Israeli, he had spent years criticizing the government, and often took to the streets to demonstrate against its policies. But the atmosphere he witnessed on college campuses (and specifically on his own campus at Columbia), compelled him to speak up and speak out.