Sunday, 23 August, 2026
Dr. Nir Boms is a researcher, educator, and policy expert specializing in the Middle East, regional cooperation, and conflict resolution. He serves as the Director of the TAU Workshop on Israel and the Middle East at Tel Aviv University and is the founder of the Program for Regional Cooperation and the Gulf Israel Policy Forum.
Amongst additional affiliations he is a fellow at the Venna Institute for Global Studies; the International Institute for Counter Terrorism. He is Member of Board the Israeli Council on Foreign Relations and the Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education and is an active member of the MENA 20250 network. Previously, he co – founded of CyberDissidents.org (later 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, an initiative bringing Israelis and Palestinians together to travel and learn the history and identity of each other.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). He is also the editor of Regional Cooperation in the Midst of Regional Conflagration: Examining the Partnership Agenda in the Shadow of October 7th,( KAS/Dayan, 2025), a publication on the status of regional partnership following the Gaza war.
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 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’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 served in the Israeli Defense Forces as a communications officer and holds the rank of Major (Res).
Syrian-Israeli Relations in Crisis: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives Middle East Center/Center for Israel Studies, St. Anthony, Oxford (February 28th, 2017)
Six Years On – The Syrian Revolution, Cambridge Middle East and North Africa Forum. Cambridge (February 27th, 2017)
-57 (17 דצמבר, 2017) . הגבול כגורם מחבר: הפעילות ההומניטרית בגבול ישראל-סוריה, כנס האגודה הגיאוגרפית הישראלית ה
Middle East Quo Vadis? Syria and Iraq, International Institute for Counter Terrorism , Hertzeliya (September 14th, 2016)
Israeli Humanitarian Diplomacy in Syria, : Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Washington D.C. (March 25th, 2016)
Freedom and Freedom of Speech: Lessons from the Middle East, Beyond the Obvious Guttenberg, Sweden (October 16-17, 2015).
Forbidden Aid, IsraeliHumanitarian Efforts to Syria, Tzipri Center, Jerusalem, (August 23rd, 2015)
Israel in a Changing Middle East, University of New South Wales, Australia (June 8th, 2015)
What Do Arab Want? – A Review of Middle East Polling Data, Hong Kong JCC (June 2nd, 2015)
Reponses to Item 7 and discussion on Human Rights in the Israeli Golan Heights, The UN Human Rights Council, Geneva (March 23rd, 2015)
Track II, the Case of Israel and Syria in Bridging Theory and Practice of Creative Conflict Engagement Conference, Bar Ilan University (January 14th, 2015).
Information and Communication Technology (ICT) as a Strategic Instrument of Promoting Civic Society and Democratization in the Middle East by Expatriate Opposition Groups , University of Haifa, National Security College (Nov 4th, 2013)
Media and the Arab Spring: 21st Century Dissidents Catholic-Jewish Dialogue Committee, Boston, MA (October 1st, 2013)
Old News, New Media and the Making of the Arab Spring,. The Martin Institute for Law and Policy, Stonehill College, Boston (September 30th , 2013)
New Media and the Arab Spring Amadeu Antonio Stiftung, Berlin (October 26th, 2011).
Middle East and the Rationality of Irrationality, Monash University, (June 2nd , 2008).
(London: Routledge, 2012). Published in the Israel Journal of foreign Affairs VII : 3 (2013), Pp. 174 – 176.
Understanding the 2006 Hezbollah–Israeli War
(London: Routledge, 2013). Published in Israel Journal of foreign Affairs VI : 3 (2013), Pp. 153 – 157.
(New York: Nation Books, 2010), Published in Israel Journal of foreign Affairs VI : 1 (2012), Pp. 141 – 143.
(Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2009), Published in Israel Journal of Foreign Affairs IV : 3 (2010), Pp. 157 – 160.
Simon & Schuster, 2009 . Published in Rhapsody Journal, Vol. 7, 2009
An Interactive View of the New Middle East,” Rothberg School, Hebrew University, Jerusalem.
AU workshop on Israel and the Middle East, international faculty Tel Aviv University
Syria Forum, Tel Aviv University
Gulf Israel Policy Forum