Dr. Nir Boms
Research Fellow, International Institute for Counter-Terrorism (ICT), Reichman University; Manager, Program for Regional Cooperation, Tel Aviv University; Former VP, Foundation for the Defense of Democracies
Dr. Nir Boms is a writer, researcher and commentator on Middle East Affairs. Dr. Boms is research fellow at the Institute for Counter Terrorism. He is also affiliated with the Dayan Center at Tel Aviv University, where he manages the Program for Regional Cooperation and the Gulf Israel Policy Forum. He is also the coordinator of the TAU Workshop on Israel and the Middle East and the Hiwar Forum for Intra-Regional Dialogue.
Dr. Boms received his doctorate from the University of Haifa. His dissertation analyzed the Influence of Information Technology on the Creation of Civic Society in Syria and Iran. He holds MA degrees in the fields of Political Science and Judaic Studies from the University of Maryland. He currently teaches at the Rothberg School of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem (Israel in a Changing Middle East) , in addition to Tel Aviv University . His 2016 book, Expat-ing Democracy (Peter Lang, 2016) deals with the influence of Expat communities on democracy discourse in the Middle East. His recent book, “The Syrian War: Between Justice and Political Reality” (Cambridge university Press, 2020) is an edited volume on the Syrian War (2011 – 2019).
Amongst additional affiliations he is a fellow at the International Institute for Counter Terrorism at the Reichman University, Herzliya; a member of the board of the Israeli Council on Foreign Relations and the Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education. He Co – Founded of CyberDissidents.org (now Movements.org) , a network of bloggers from the Middle East that focuses on freedom of expression and the promotion of dialogue in the region. Under the framework of his educational and peace endeavors, he co-founded the Tiyul-Rihla project, in 2012 , an initiative bringing Israelis and Palestinians together to travel and learn the history and identity of each other.
Prior to his return to Israel in 2004, he served as the Vice President of the Washington based Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD).
Prior to his tenure at FDD, Dr. Boms was the Academic Affairs Liaison at Israel’s Embassy in Washington, DC.
Dr. Boms’s journalists work have appeared in Ynet , Ha’aretz, The Wall Street Journal, Le Monde diplomatique, Die Welt (Germany) , The Washington Times, Iran Times International, Today Zaman (Turkey), The Jerusalem Post, The National Review, The Asia Times, The National Interest, and Israeli Journal of Foreign Affairs and Baghdad Times among others. He also participated in the writing of “Copts in Egypt, A Christian Minority Under Siege” (G2W-Verlag, 2006) and “The Long March to the West” (Valentine Mitchell, 2007).
Dr. Boms has extensive educational and outreach experience working in Israel, the United States and Europe. During the course of his career, he has taught and lectured in Australia, Bulgaria, England, Hong Kong, Hungary, Poland, Turkey, South Africa, Brazil, Morocco, the United States, the United Nations and its Human Rights Council, on issues relating to the Middle East, Terrorism and Democratization. He is fluent in Hebrew, English and Arabic.
Dr. Boms served in the Israeli Defense Forces as a communications officer and holds the rank of Major (Res).
