CV
Ambassador Akiva Tor is a Visiting Senior Researcher leading the project for the repair of Israel’s image and rehabilitation of its public diplomacy apparatus. He served as the Israel ambassador to the Republic of Korea, head of the Israel Foreign Ministry Bureau for World Jewish Affairs and World Religions, Consul General in San Francisco and the Pacific Northwest and Director of the Israel Economic and Cultural Office in Taiwan.
Akiva Tor
Visiting Senior Researcher
Publications
All PublicationsIsrael’s Deteriorating Image as a Threat to National Security: A Plan to Rehabilitate Israel’s Public Diplomacy
Israel’s international standing has suffered severe damage in the wake of the Gaza war. This decline is evident across most areas of national life—the economy, academia, culture, the security of Jewish communities in the diaspora, and most essentially – the basic legitimacy of the State of Israel and its right to defend itself. Attempts to isolate Israel are not new. They are rooted in disagreements over the appropriate resolution of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, ideological opposition to Israel’s existence, and internal demographic and societal trends in various countries unrelated to Israel. However, the Gaza war has been marked by an unprecedented peak in the intensity of the cognitive campaign and efforts to isolate Israel, a challenge for which Israel was insufficiently prepared. The purpose of this policy paper is to identify the range of failures with the aim of correction and to present decision-makers with a series of practical steps required for improvement.
26 May, 2026