Professor Efraim Inbar is the President of the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security (JISS), a Professor Emeritus in Political Studies at Bar-Ilan University, Israel, and was the founding Director of its Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies (BESA). He specializes in Middle Eastern strategic issues and has written five books, including Israel’s National Security: Issues and Challenges since the Yom Kippur War (2008).
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.