Isaac Ben-Israel studied Mathematics, Physics and Philosophy at Tel-Aviv University, receiving his Ph.D. in 1988. He joined the Israel Air Force after graduating high school and has served continuously up to his retirement in 2002. During his service, Isaac Ben-Israel has held several posts in operations, intelligence and weapon development units of the IAF. He headed the IAF Operations Research Branch, Analysis and Assessment Division of IAF Intelligence, and was the Head of Military R&D in Israel Defence Forces and Ministry of Defence (1991-1997). In January 1998 he was promoted to Major General and appointed as Director of Defence R&D Directorate in IMOD. During his service he received twice the Israeli Defence Award.

 

After retirement from the IDF Isaac Ben Israel joined the University of Tel-Aviv as a professor and was the head of Curiel Centre for International Studies (2002-2004), the head of the Program for Security Studies (2004-2007), Executive Director of the Interdisciplinary Centre for Technological Analysis & Forecasting at Tel-Aviv University (2010-2013), Deputy Director of the Hartog School of Government and Policy in Tel-Aviv University (2005-2015) and a member of Jaffe Centre for Strategic Studies (2002-2004). He became Head of the Blavatnik Interdisciplinary Cyber Studies Centre in 2015.

 

Professor Ben-Israel was a member of the 17th Knesset (Israeli Parliament) between June 2007 and February 2009. During this period he was a member of the Security and Foreign Affairs Committee, the Finance Committee, the Science & Technology committee, the Chairman of the Homeland Security Sub Committee and the Chairman of the Israeli–Indian Parliamentary Friendship Association.

 

He is the Chairman of Israel Space Agency since 2005 and Chairman of Israel National Council for R&D since 2010.

 

In 2011 he was appointed by the Prime Minister to lead a task force that formulated Israel national Cyber policy. Following that he founded the National Cyber Headquarters in the PM Office.  In 2014 he was appointed again by the PM to lead another task force which resulted in a government decision (February 2015) to set up a new National Cyber Authority.

 

Recently, he was appointed by the Prime Minister to lead a committee that formulated Israel's artificial intelligence strategy.

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