Gadi Ezra
# Gadi Ezra

Gadi Ezra (born in 1986) is an Israeli lawyer specializing in constitutional and international law, a lecturer, and a public diplomacy expert. He served as director of the National Public Diplomacy Unit in the Israeli Prime Minister's Office.

## Biography

Ezra was born and raised in Kiryat Gat. Upon his enlistment, he volunteered to flight school, and after a year continued to serve in the Paratroopers’ Special Forces. After his release from the army, he completed a bachelor's and master's degree in law at Tel Aviv University in just 4 years, as part of an accelerated track with a specialization in public law. He did his legal internship as the personal intern of the state attorney of Israeli, Moshe Lador, where he was involved in cardinal decision-making processes.

After completing his internship in 2014, Ezra continued for additional master's degrees in law at the prestigious New York University (NYU), in the international law program, ranked 1st in the world. At NYU, he was the first Israeli to be chosen to deliver the convocation speech on behalf of his classmates.

Upon his return to Israel in 2015, he served as a legal advisor at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, where he headed the Laws of War desk and advised diplomats on humanitarian law, the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, and the sanctions regime. Afterward, he served as a strategic adviser at the Joint Chiefs of Staff on international strategic matters (including Israel's legitimacy to defense itself) and led international collaborations. Among other things, he led to the existence of an academic conference in Israel on the topic of combating terrorism, in which for the first time the NATO alliance was also involved.

In 2016, Ezra was chosen as a Forbes 30 under 30 honoree.

Simultaneously, Ezra began his Ph.D. studies in law at Tel Aviv University, in the fields of international and constitutional; there, he deals with international legal aspects of countries declaring war. During his studies, in 2022, he published an article in one of the world's top ten international law journals.

## Lectures

Ezra is a global lecturer. His lectures deal with his double perspective on war – based on his operational experience (as a fighter in an elite unit), and his legal experience (as someone who dealt in the field of LOAC) – and the challenges of the State of Israel in the international, political and public diplomacy fields. They were presented to thousands of viewers in hundreds of lectures in Israel and around the world. In 2019, Ezra was invited to deliver his lecture at the prestigious lecture project, Talks at Google.

## Director of the National Public Diplomacy Unit

In 2021, Ezra was appointed to the position of Director of the National Public Diplomacy unit in the Prime Minister's Office. He served under three Prime Ministers (Naftali Bennett, Yair Lapid, Binyamin Netanyahu), and two heads of the National Public Diplomacy Directorate (Elad Tana, and Lior Hayat). As part of his role, Ezra was responsible for coordinating and integrating public diplomacy and information among all official elements in the State of Israel, on issues of national importance, regarding all target audiences. He led the revival of the National Public Diplomacy Forum, coordinated many public diplomacy efforts, including the visit of US President Joe Biden to Israel in 2022, as well as complex security operations (such as Operation “Breaking Dawn” and the 2022 Ramadan), and was involved in national force-building projects on behalf of Israeli public diplomacy.

