Uzi Arad

Uzi Arad (Hebrew: עוזי ארד; born October 2, 1947) is an Israeli national security official and scholar. Spending over two decades in the Mossad, Arad rose to become the agency's director of research (intelligence). Between 1997 and 1999, Arad was seconded as a foreign policy advisor to Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu. Between 1999 and 2009 Arad was the founding director of the Institute for Policy and Strategy at the Herzliya Interdisciplinary Center (IDC). Arad established and chaired the annual Herzliya Conference, Israel's principal international policy conference, convening Israeli and international leaders, policy-makers and most senior experts in the field of national security, broadly defined. Arad was a professor at the Lauder School of Government, Diplomacy and Strategy. He is a fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) in Tel Aviv. Between 2009 and 2011 Arad served as the national security advisor to the prime minister of Israel, and the head of the Israeli National Security Council. Following his NSC term, Arad was expected to be the new Israeli ambassador to London, but instead he returned to academia. Arad had been serving as advisor to the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee. He was also the Founding Chair of The Atlantic Forum of Israel. Arad has been a critic of the Iraq War and former prime minister Ariel Sharon's withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, arguing that the energy spent there should have been shifted towards dealing with the nuclear program of Iran.