A new Neocon Think Tank

Funded by U.S. neocons, think tank researchers now carving Israeli policy

... the White House was in effect being run by neoconservative intellectuals from think tanks like the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research and the Project for the New American Century. ...

... There is no think tank today with as much influence on the Israeli government as the Shalem Center, which has extensive resources, despite being a small institute. ....

... What is the secret that has made the Shalem Center so much more influential than similar research institutes? Sarit Ben Simhon, a Tel Aviv University researcher who studies the role of think tanks in Israel, says the key word is money ...

... They want to train people in Israel who will go into the media, politics and the business world and will be decision makers in years to come, with the world view of the Shalem Center being neoconservative, Zionistic and based on Jewish culture. These are neoconservative concepts that they brought with them from the U.S. and adapted to Israel." ...

... "Many of our graduates now have junior positions in the treasury, the Prime Minister's Office and the Foreign Ministry," ... "The aim of the Shalem Center - unlike that of the intellectuals of the left - is to conquer the Knesset rather than the universities." ...

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... Shalem has grown from a think tank with a staff of three to an institute operating on a $10 million yearly budget with a staff of 100. Most of its funding comes from the Tikva Fund, created by the late philanthropist Zalman Bernstein. ...

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Coming soon—a Jewish liberal arts college

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The Shalem Center is an academic research institute in Jerusalem, Israel, established in 1994 to bring neoconservative thinking into Israeli public discourse. [1]The Shalem center runs six research institutes and its own press, and its senior fellows include best-selling author and historian Michael Oren, former Knesset member Natan Sharansky and former Israeli Chief of Staff Moshe Ya'alon. Founded by scholars and public figures from Israel and the Diaspora, the Center advances original research, publication, and teaching in the areas crucial to the public life of the Jewish people, including Jewish moral and political thought, Zionist history and ideas, Biblical archaeology, democratic theory, and economic and social policy.