Zvi Rafiah

Fall 2002
Visiting Fellow
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For the past almost 30 years Mr. Rafiah has been closely following the U.S. domestic political scene. He has long been recognized in Israel as a leading expert on American affairs, and is frequently referred to as a resource for information and analysis on the American political scene, as well as American-Israeli relations. He is holds a Master degree in American Government from Georgetown University in Washington D.C.

Mr. Rafiah has served 21 years in the Israeli diplomatic service. His last assignment abroad, between 1973-1979, was Minister-Counselor at the Israeli embassy in Washington, serving as the liaison for the Embassy with both Houses of the U.S. Congress, along with other domestic political organizations.

For the past twenty two years, since retiring from the diplomatic service in 1980,
Mr. Rafiah has been active as a Consultant on American affairs to a number of major Israeli industries, assisting and lobbying for them in developing their business interests in the U.S. in cooperation with U.S. industries. Every year, in this capacity, Mr. Rafiah has been traveling frequently to Washington, where he maintains extensive contacts with members of both the Legislative and Executive branches well as with members of the media and public policy centers. He also attended many presidential election conventions, both Republican and Democratic.

For many years, Mr. Rafiah has been a frequent commentator on Israeli Radio & T.V. on the domestic American scene as well as Israel-U.S. relations. For example, on the night of the last three U.S. presidential elections day, he was the in-house commentator of  “Kol Israel”, Israel State Radio, commenting on and analyzing the presidential and congressional election results, as they were coming in .

Before his tenure at the Israeli embassy in Washington, he served at the Israeli diplomatic missions in Teheran, Iran (1961-1963) and Ankara, Turkey (1964-1968). He was born in Israel in 1935 and resides in Tel-Aviv, Israel. He is married to
Moria Rafiah and has three children and five grandchildren.

Disclaimer: This information is accurate for the time period that this person was affiliated with the Institute of Politics.

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