Doron Matza has held senior positions in the Israel’s security and intelligence, managing the research division for strategy and policy in the Prime Minister’s Office from 1993 to 2014. He holds a Ph.D. from Ben Gurion University in Middle Eastern History focusing on hegemonic discourse in the Israeli ruling establishment towards the Palestinian minority. Today he is a member of the Research Program on Jewish-Arab Relations in Israel at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel-Aviv.
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.