Emmanuel Navon


Emmanuel Navon is a French-born Israeli political scientist and foreign policy expert who teaches at Tel-Aviv University and at the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya. He is a senior fellow at the Kohelet Policy Forum and a senior analyst for i24news.

Biography

Early life and education

Emmanuel Navon was born in Paris, France, as Emmanuel Mréjen. As a child, he attended the international bilingual school. He graduated from Sciences-Po, majoring in Public Administration. During his studies at Sciences-Po, he interned at the French Foreign Ministry and at the French Ministry of Finance. In 1993, he immigrated to Israel and subsequently hebraized his last name to Navon. In Israel, Navon enrolled in the Israel Defense Forces and pursued his graduate studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, earning a master's degree and a Ph.D. in international relations. During his studies at the Hebrew University, he consulted to the Israeli Foreign Ministry on the reform of the United Nations and joined the Shalem Center as a doctoral fellow.

Career

Navon began his career as consultant for Arttic, helping Israeli companies obtain funding from the European Commission and join European consortia. Between 2003 and 2005, he served as CEO of BNIC, an NGO that trained Israel's business leaders in public diplomacy. Between 2005 and 2010, he was a partner with the Navon-Levy Group, a consultancy that promoted Israeli agricultural projects in Sub-Saharan Africa. Between 2011 and 2016, he served as head of the Political Science and Communication Department at the Jerusalem Haredi College. Navon is a frequent guest speaker in North America and Europe on behalf of Organizations such as the Jewish Federations of North America, Hillel International, and ELNET where he generally addresses current affairs related to Israel and to the Jewish people.

Academic positions

Navon has been lecturing at Tel-Aviv University's School of Political Science, Government and International Relations and at the Abba Eban Graduate Program for Diplomacy Studies since 2002. In addition, he has been lecturing since 2012 at the IDC's Lauder School of Government, Diplomacy and Strategy. He teaches and has taught classes on Israel's foreign policy, on foreign policy decision-making, on the history of diplomacy, on European diplomacy, on globalization, and on the global politics of oil and energy.
In 2013, he joined the Kohelet Policy Forum think tank as a senior fellow, In his 2006 policy paper for the Herzliya Conference, Navon recommended the establishment of a national public diplomacy authority. In July 2007, the Israeli government established an Information Directorate to coordinate information activities among ministries. In his January 2017 policy paper for the Kohelet Policy Forum, Navon recommends the adoption of open lists and political alliances in Israel's voting system.

Journalism and commentary

Emmanuel Navon is engaged by i24News as a senior analyst for international affairs.
Navon has appeared on France 24, Voice of America, Channel News Asia, and in the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, The Fiscal Times, The Jerusalem Post, Le Monde, Le Figaro, Libération, Le Point, France Culture, RFI, L'Obs, Causeur, Tribune juive, the Canadian Jewish News, Radio Canada, and La Libre Belgique.
Navon's op-eds have been published in Newsweek, Le Monde, Le Figaro, and The Jerusalem Post.
He regularly publishes editorials in The Times of Israel and is a former contributor to Mida, an Israeli current affairs and opinion web magazine.

Ideas and controversies

Navon is critical of international relations theory and describes the "great debates" as a sham. His dismissive attitude toward IR theory has been rebuked by international relations scholars Duncan Bell and Brian C. Schmidt. Duncan Bell's rebuke of Navon's critical approach to IR theory is often quoted in academic literature.
Since the breakdown of the Oslo process in the Fall of 2000, Navon has claimed that Israel can neither retain all the territories it conquered in the Six-Day War nor achieve peace with the Palestinians. His readiness to make territorial concessions is motivated solely by the need to preserve Israel's democracy and Jewish majority, and he very much doubts that such concessions would settle the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. Since the Israeli disengagement from Gaza, he has low expectations from unilateral moves and often describes Israel's position vis-à-vis the Palestinians as a "Catch 22" situation. A proponent of Realpolitik, he rejects both the territorial dogmatism of religious Zionism and the dovish beliefs of the Israeli left. He has stated that "there is no credible alternative to a two-state solution, yet this 'solution' keeps working in theory and failing in practice."
A staunch advocate of the Jews' right to national self-determination, Navon believes that there was something unrealistic in the full emancipation of the Jews by the French Revolution and that nation-states such as Israel can be fully compatible with democracy and civic equality.
He rejects the stance, typically expressed by European diplomats, that Israel's final eastern border should be identical to the Green Line, and calls upon European leaders to judge Israel by the same standards they apply to their own countries during NATO operations.
In April 2010, Navon publicly criticized the JCall initiative for overlooking the responsibility of the Palestinian leadership in the deadlock of the Israeli–Palestinian peace process.

In March 2011, a lecture Navon delivered at the Université du Québec à Montréal was disrupted by pro-Palestinian students, and Navon had to be escorted by security guards. In November 2012, RTBF journalist Eddy Caekelberghs cut short a live interview after Navon accused him of contributing to Hamas' propaganda.
Navon is a defender of free-markets and of globalization. He advocates the use of Israel's technological edge to contribute to energy independence, a position for which he was criticized by Prof. Yehezkel Dror. A supporter of the preservation of NATO and of the EU, Navon is suspicious of Russia and had opposed Brexit. He is critical of Israel's "New Historians."
Navon describes himself as a liberal conservative. He endorsed François Fillon for the first round of the 2017 French presidential elections and Emmanuel Macron for the runoff.

Politics

In November 2012, Navon ran for Knesset on the Likud ticket but did not gather enough votes in the party's primary elections.

Personal life

Navon is a practicing Modern Orthodox Jew. He is married to Sima Herzfeld. They have four children. Navon is the brother of French artist :fr:Valérie Mréjen|Valérie Mréjen and the brother-in-law of US rabbi Shmuel Herzfeld.

Publications

Books