Leadership & Networking
Personal experiences and face-to-face exchanges are key ingredients to deepening the Israel-Europe bond. With this in mind, ELNET facilitates high level networking opportunities in both Israel and Europe.
Experiencing the Issues on the Ground: ELNET's Senior European Delegations to Israel
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ELNET regularly initiates delegations of senior European policymakers to Israel. These high-level programs enable delegates to experience first-hand the complexities on the ground and to deepen their insight of Israel and its challenges. Delegations' agendas include meetings with top-level governmental officials, influential politicians, and prominent representatives of civil society. They also comprise strategic tours and on-the-field briefings by independent policy experts.
Since its inception in 2007, ELNET has taken more than 30 European delegations to Israel, engaging over 300 participants. ELNET has facilitated visits to Israel of Members of Parliament, top-level governmental officials, mayors and local council members and leading policy-makers from a dozen European states.
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Gaining Direct Insight: Meetings Between High-Level European and Israeli Policymakers in Europe
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ELNET creates opportunities for in-depth discussions on challenging and complex strategic issues pertaining to the Israel-Europe relationship by bringing influential Israeli leaders to Europe. These visits provide top European politicians with insightful views and enable them to directly exchange with Israeli counterparts. Such figures have included: Mr. Dan Meridor, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Intelligence of Israel; Mr. Avishay Braverman, then Minister of Minority Affairs; Mr. Isaac Herzog, then Minister of Welfare; Ms. Shelly Yachimovich, Head of the Labor Party; Dr. Nahman Shai, MP from the Kadima Party; Prof. Uzi Arad, former Chairman of Israel's National Security Council and a senior advisor to the Prime Minister; Maj. Gen. Amos Yadlin, until recently Head of Israel's military intelligence and current Director of the Institute for National Security Studies; and Brig. Gen. Michael Herzog, who served as special emissary for the Peace Process to Israel's Prime Minister and Minister of Defense.
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Latest Initiatives
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ELNET created a special program for a unique group of senior journalists and policy experts specializing in topics of Defense and International Relations from the most respected and read media outlets and think tanks in France (including Le Monde, Le Figaro, Libération, Le Nouvel Observateur, Le point, L'Express, Radio France International (RFI), BFM TV and the Institut Français des Relations Internationales (IFRI)) who visited Israel in December 2012. This visit was initiated by ELNET in cooperation with the Fondation pour la Recherche Stratégique (FRS). The tailor-made itinerary enabled the participants to experience new complexities on the ground and to reinforce their understanding through meetings with various government representatives, influential Israeli experts, top level academics and high-ranking policy-makers, as well as through strategic tours.
Among the personalities met by the delegation were: President of the State of Israel Hon. Shimon Peres; Vice Prime Minister and Minister of Strategic Affairs Moshe Yaalon; Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Intelligence and Atomic Energy, Dan Meridor; Mark Regev, Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu's Spokesperson; Yigal Palmor, Spokesman of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs; Hon. Dalia Dorner, former Justice of the Supreme Court and current President of the Israeli Press Council; Prof. Manuel Trajtenberg, Chair of the Planning and Budgeting Committee of the Council for Higher Education and of the Committee set up by the PM to negotiate with the summer 2011 protesters; MK Dr. Einat Wilf who provided concluding remarks on the way Israel is perceived in European media; H. Exc. Christophe Bigot, French Ambassador to Israel and several others.
This delegation of senior journalists with a special interest in the Middle East proved extremely successful as it offered this group of open-minded individuals a deepening of their already high level of knowledge and understanding of the issues at the center of their fields of interest.
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President Shimon Peres discusses peace in the region with the Delegation of journalists and French Ambassador to Israel Christophe Bigot.
Photo by: Itzhak Harari
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Briefing by the Deputy Commander of the Gaza Strip Region, in the Black Arrow site.
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Prof. Manuel Trajtenberg explaining the way the protests were dealt with in Israel, budgeting issues, the importance of Defense in the Israeli budget and main social trends in the country today, in presence of Muhamad Darawshe, Co-Executive Director of the Abraham Fund Initiatives, who presented Arab-Israeli relations in a previous session.
Photo by: Itzhak Harari
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In order to continue to strengthen relations between Israel and the newly elected French Government, ELNET hosted Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Intelligence and Atomic Energy of Israel, Dan Meridor, from 3-5 October 2012. The tailor-made visit, organized in close cooperation with the Israeli Embassy in Paris, allowed Mr. Meridor – this prominent Minister also member of the Security Cabinet of Israel – to meet and exchange ideas with several top-level leaders and officials from the entire political spectrum and the French press.
Minister Meridor met with top-level leaders including: Laurent Fabius, Minister of Foreign Affairs; Jean-Yves Le Drian, Defense Minister; Manuel Valls, Minister of Interior; Nicolas Sarkozy, the former President of France, Paul Jean-Ortiz, Diplomatic advisor to the President; Jean-François Copé, Secretary General of the UMP party; Jean-Christophe Cambadélis, National Secretary of the Socialist Party in charge of International Affairs; Jean-Vincent Placé, President of the Ecologist group in the Senate; Daphna Poznanski, MP for French citizens living abroad, Danielle Hoffman-Rispal, President of the Parliamentary friendship group France-Israel; three senators, members of the Foreign Affairs, Defense and Armed Forces Commission, Josette Durieux, Robert Del Picchia and Michel Boutant ; Michel Miraillet Director of Strategic Affairs and Diplomatic counselor at the Defense Ministry and Nicolas Roche, the counselor in charge of strategic affairs to the Defense Ministry. Main issues about strategic affairs in the Middle East were discussed and most of these figures expressed interest in visiting Israel and the region with visits organized by ELNET.
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France's Foreign Minister, Laurent Fabius, met with Dan Meridor and discussed the Israeli-Palestinian peace prospects, the political evolutions in the Arab world, the Iranian nuclear program and the Syrian crisis and its impact on neighboring countries.
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During the meeting with Jean-Yves Le Drian, Defense Minister, Dan Meridor expressed his satisfaction on the positive prospects of reinforced bilateral cooperation and officially invited Minister Le Drian to visit Israel as soon as his schedule will allow it.
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Dan Meridor had the opportunity of discussing with Nicolas Sarkozy, the former President of France. Mr. Sarkozy, who remains very much interested and involved in international affairs, shared with Minister Meridor his analysis of the main diplomatic issues in the Middle East and made a few recommendations.
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To deepen bonds between Israel and the newly-formed left-wing government and France's Socialist Party, ELNET hosted in France the Chairwoman of Israel's Labor Party, MK Shelly Yachimovich. The tailored visit was organized in close cooperation with the French Socialist Party and the Israeli Embassy in France and included meetings with France's most senior governmental and parliamentary figures. Following high-level meetings in Paris, MK Yachimovich attended the Summer University of France's Socialist Party in the city of La Rochelle, western France. This major event gathers every year the top political leadership of the Socialist Party for informal debates on myriad issues of interest for the Party.
Among the figures met by Ms. Yachimovich were: President François Hollande; Laurent Fabius, Minister of Foreign Affairs; Manuel Valls, Minister of Interior; Pierre Moscovici, Minister of Finance; Najat Vallaud-Belkacem, Minister for Women Rights and Spokesperson of the government; Marisol Touraine, Minister of Social Affairs and Health; Claude Bartolone, President of France's National Assembly; and MP Jean-Christophe Cambadelis, National Secretary in charge of International relations and a candidate for the party's leadership.
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France's new President, François Hollande, met with MK Yachimovich for a low-key discussion on recent Middle-Eastern developments, including the Iranian nuclear program, and economic issues of common concerns to Israel and France. This was the first time President Hollande met with an Israeli political leader since his election in May.
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Manuel Valls, France's Minister of Interior discussed internal security concerns, including the fight against terrorism and anti-Semitism, with Shelly Yachimovich.
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Major diplomatic and security challenges confronted by Israel and France, including the Iranian nuclear issue, were addressed in the meeting with Elisabeth Guigou, President of the Foreign Committee of France's National Assembly.
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A parliamentary delegation of senior political figures, representing Spain's ruling Partido Popular (PP) and the Catalan CiU, visited Israel in June 2012. Among the senior delegates were several members of the most influential committees dealing with Foreign Affairs and Defense issues at the Spanish Congress. Members included, Gabriel Elorriaga, Juan Carlos Grau, Toni Picó, Beatriz Rodriguez-Salmones, Guillermo Mariscal and Jordi Xuclá. During the visit, the delegation met, among others, with Vice Prime Minister and Minister of Strategic Affairs of Israel Moshe Yaalon; Minister of Education Gideon Saar; the Fifth President of the State of Israel Yitzhak Navon; and Israeli Members of the Knesset from the ruling coalition as well as the opposition.
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In May 2012, ELNET partnered with the Spanish Foreign Ministry and its subsidiary, Centro-Sefarad Israel, to expand cooperation between Spanish and Israeli Policy-Makers. For the first time, a delegation of senior representatives from all major Spanish think tanks in the fields of Foreign Affairs and Defense visited Israel. The following institutes were represented: The Elcano Royal Institute, IDEAS Foundation, FAES, FRIDE, The Observatory of Foreign Policy at Fundacion Alternativas and The Toledo International Centre for Peace. The delegates were exposed to a large variety of Israeli think tanks and met with influential policy-makers. Pictured here is Dr. Einat Wilf, Member of the Knesset and Chairman of the Independence parliamentary faction, meeting with the Senior Spanish delegates at the Israeli parliament.
After returning to Spain, some of the senior delegates insisted that the visit deepened their initial perspectives on Israel, during an interview broadcast on Spain’s second state-owned national TV channel. Click here to watch the video.
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