Ben-Dror Yemini

Ben-Dror Yemini, born on April 17, 1954, is an Israeli journalist, editor, columnist and publicist who trained as a lawyer. For decades, he has been one of the prominent voices in Israeli journalism on the character of the State of Israel, its standing in the world, antisemitism and relations between Jews and Arabs. His writing combines a distinctly Zionist argument with historical comparison, data and research, and he has addressed both Israeli readers and international audiences through articles in English.

His career is distinctive because it crosses several spheres: Mizrahi and social activism in the 1980s, legal work and public service, daily journalism, opinion-page editing, book writing and participation in debates about Israel as a Jewish and democratic state.

Early life: Mizrahi identity, law and public service

Yemini was born in Givat Amal Aleph, Tel Aviv, to a Jewish family of Yemeni origin. He attended Moriah Elementary School and Chelouche High School, studied history at Tel Aviv University and law at the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya, and completed his legal internship at the law office of Yaakov Weinroth. After practicing law for several years, he served as an adviser to the Ministry of Immigrant Absorption and as the ministry's spokesperson. These positions gave him direct experience of government, immigration absorption and the practical challenges of building a shared Israeli society.

During the 1980s, he was active in Mizrahi and social affairs. In 1986 he published Political Punch, a critique of Israeli politics and society, and in 1989 became the first editor of the combative social magazine HaPatish. He hosted radio programs, was active in the Tzomet party and later joined the Labor Party alongside Binyamin Ben-Eliezer. He also directed a public-activist training program at Tel Aviv University, combining commentary on society with efforts to encourage civic participation.

In the early 1990s, Yemini appeared with Ehud Manor on the Arabic-language learning program Ta'alem Veta'alem, hosted by Kamal Rian. The program reflected his continuing interest in Arabic, Arab society and the possibility of a broader Israeli dialogue with the region.

Journalism, editing and public commentary

Yemini began his journalistic career in the mid-1980s. From 2003 until the collapse of Maariv in 2014, he edited the newspaper's opinion section and wrote a weekly political column in its weekend supplement. In that role, he was not only an individual writer but also an editor who helped shape the agenda of a major section of Israeli journalism and determine which voices and subjects entered the public conversation.

Beginning in 2009, he also maintained a blog on Maariv's nrg website, where his columns and opinion pieces appeared alongside links, references and translations. After moving to Yedioth Ahronoth in spring 2014, he continued writing columns for the newspaper and articles in English for ynetnews and The Times of Israel. Writing in English extended his reach and made his arguments part of international discussions about Israel, Zionism and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Yemini participated in drafting the Kinneret Covenant and was a member of the Forum for National Responsibility, which brought together figures from the Israeli right and left who sought dialogue between political camps and social sectors. He was invited to run for the Knesset on Tzipi Livni's “The Movement” list before the nineteenth Knesset election, but declined because he preferred to influence public life through journalism. That decision expresses the importance he has consistently assigned to the press as a form of public service.

Zionism, peace and the Jewish-democratic state

At different stages, Yemini described himself as a Zionist leftist and later as a Zionist patriot who did not belong entirely to either the right or the left. Over the years, he supported a negotiated settlement and a Palestinian state alongside Israel, expressed support for dividing Jerusalem and for the Geneva Initiative, opposed Jewish settlement in Arab neighborhoods of Jerusalem, and advocated separation between Israelis and Palestinians, even when he regarded unilateral measures as difficult and risky.

At the same time, he strongly rejected a Palestinian right of return, which he viewed as a threat to Israel's continued existence as the nation-state of the Jewish people. His writing distinguishes between legitimate criticism of Israeli policy and the denial of the Jewish people's right to self-determination. For many readers, this framework connected Zionism, security, human rights and the need for a political agreement.

Yemini has supported Israeli defensive operations against terrorism while emphasizing the duty to investigate violations, examine military conduct according to moral and legal standards, and punish wrongdoing when necessary. He has therefore presented Israel's defense not as a rejection of morality, but as part of the responsibility of a Jewish and democratic state.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the international debate

Since the Second Intifada, Yemini has written extensively against what he regards as incitement against Israel and has used comparative analysis to examine the conflict. His articles have addressed refugees, comparisons between the Palestinian refugee question and the experience of Jews from Arab countries, the status of Israel's Arab citizens, international support for the Palestinian Authority and claims that Zionism was responsible for worsening relations between Jews and Muslims.

During Operation Cast Lead, in late 2008 and early 2009, he published a three-part series presenting his arguments about Hamas, Israel's response and international criticism. He compared the operation with NATO campaigns in Kosovo and Afghanistan and directly engaged commentators who accused Israel of moral failure. According to the supplied material, the articles were translated into several languages and published in newspapers abroad, extending his influence beyond Hebrew-speaking readers.

In 2009, he sharply criticized the Goldstone Report and called for an Israeli commission of inquiry to examine the allegations and establish the facts. Even when his language was forceful, he argued that Israel should protect its credibility through institutional investigation rather than public diplomacy alone. He later wrote about other conflicts, the Gilad Shalit prisoner exchange, the Syrian civil war and the rise of ISIS, stressing the danger of focusing exclusively on Israel while ignoring massacres and other crimes in the Middle East.

Antisemitism and delegitimization

A central theme of Yemini's work is what he calls the new antisemitism. Together with Amnon Rubinstein, he was among the Israeli journalists who wrote extensively about the ways hostility toward Israel can, in his view, become a denial of the Jewish people's right to self-determination. He popularized the expressions “antisemitism in the guise of anti-Zionism” and “politically correct antisemitism,” arguing that one-sided comparisons and the demonization of Israel can revive older patterns of anti-Jewish hatred in new language.

His book Industry of Lies, published in Hebrew and later in English as Industry of Lies: Media, Academia and the Israeli-Arab Conflict, develops his analysis of media reporting, academic research and political advocacy concerning the conflict. The supplied material describes the book as relying on historical comparisons, factual reviews, studies and statistical data. Its significance lies in the attempt to move debate from general accusations toward the examination of sources, numbers and context.

Yemini has strongly opposed the BDS movement. He argues that its demand for a right of return and its vision of Israel as a state that is no longer the nation-state of the Jewish people indicate, in his view, a rejection of Israel's existence rather than criticism of a particular policy. In 2021, he received the Tel Aviv Journalists' Association Lifetime Achievement Award, in part for his long campaign against BDS and the new antisemitism. In 2003, he received the Abramovich Prize for Media Criticism from the Public's Right to Know association.

Israeli society, law and state institutions

Yemini's work extends beyond Israel's foreign relations. He has written about Israeli society, Mizrahi representation, the judiciary, religion and state, and the integration of different communities into public and economic life. He has criticized judicial activism by the Supreme Court and supported strengthening the separation of powers and limiting the transfer of political decisions from the Knesset to the courts. At the same time, he criticized the Nation-State Law as unnecessary and harmful, while not describing it as racist.

He has called for Haredi education to include core subjects such as mathematics, English, civics, history and science in order to promote wider participation in the economy and society. He has criticized processes of religious extremism and the exclusion of women, while also arguing that public decisions should be made in the political arena rather than through judicial shortcuts.

Regarding Ethiopian Jewish immigration, he opposed concentrating immigrants in weak neighborhoods and separate educational systems, advocating integration throughout Israeli society. In this position, his personal background as the child of Yemeni Jews intersects with a broader concern about ethnic and geographic exclusion. He has also written about the cost of living, unequal distribution of civic burdens, policy toward migrants and asylum seekers, and postmodernism and political correctness, which he believes can narrow open debate.

Writing Jewish and Israeli memory into the public conversation

For many years, Yemini published an optimistic Independence Day essay celebrating Israel's achievements and contributions to humanity. These essays allowed him to remind readers that alongside conflict, war and failure, Israel is also a story of construction, innovation, immigration, public institutions and contribution to the wider world.

His Jewish identity is described as national, cultural and traditional. Although he does not define himself as religious, he attends synagogue on Friday evenings and sent his children to a state-religious school. For him, Judaism is not only a private faith but also historical memory, national belonging, mutual responsibility and the right of the Jewish people to live in a state of their own.

Why Ben-Dror Yemini belongs in Moreshet

Ben-Dror Yemini merits inclusion in Moreshet because his career reflects several formative debates in the modern Jewish people and Israeli society: how to defend a Jewish and democratic state, how to confront antisemitism in new forms, how to remember the history of Jews from Arab countries, and how to conduct public arguments about security, peace, law and identity.

He did more than express a personal opinion. As an opinion-page editor, widely read writer, author and participant in initiatives for national dialogue, he influenced how Israelis and international audiences discussed Israel and Zionism. His books and articles made the conflict, refugee history and antisemitism subjects of sustained public debate, while his Mizrahi and social activism highlighted immigration, integration and the struggle against discrimination as essential parts of the Zionist story.

In this sense, Moreshet.com preserves through his profile not only a journalistic career but also a chapter in Israeli intellectual history: the attempt to use words, evidence and open argument to defend Jewish memory, Israeli sovereignty and the possibility of a complex society that continues to debate its future.