The Media Line Speaks to 3 New Envoys Representing Israel on the Foreign Stage

Human rights lawyer and former MK Michal Cotler-Wunsh, Jerusalem Deputy Mayor Fleur Hassan-Nahoum and Rabbi Leo Dee named to antisemitism, innovation, social initiatives roles

When Israel’s foreign minister appointed three special envoys in the last week, he simply made official the work these candidates had already been doing.

On Sunday, Foreign Minister Eli Cohen named Rabbi Leo Dee to the post of special envoy for social initiatives, and on Wednesday he appointed Jerusalem Deputy Mayor Fleur Hassan-Nahoum as special envoy for innovation and Michal Cotler-Wunsh as special envoy to combat antisemitism.

This is exciting for me to represent Israel and the values of tikkun olam to the world

“This essentially gives me a government framework for many of the projects and issues I’ve been working on already,” Hassan-Nahoum told The Media Line. “This is exciting for me to represent Israel and the values of tikkun olam to the world.”

The special envoy positions will work in “close coordination and cooperation with the headquarters of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and our missions abroad and they will be a significant force multiplier on the most important stages around the world,” Cohen said in a statement.

In appointing Dee, Cohen said that he was sure “that with the help of his big heart, special personality, and ability to reach everyone, he will be able to help a lot in the activities of the Foreign Ministry, in front of the Jewish communities in the world, as well as influential figures in government and the media.”

Cohen introduced Hassan-Nahoum and Cotler-Wunsh as “two distinguished diplomats who will bolster Israeli diplomacy, possessing proven experience and exceptional capabilities.”

After the Abraham Accords were signed in 2020, Hassan-Nahoum founded the UAE-Israel Business Council and co-founded the Gulf-Israel Women’s Forum, both of which promote economic cooperation between Israel and the Gulf states.

“Some of the biggest successes of the Abraham Accords have been achieved through Israeli innovation and partnerships with the Gulf nations,” she said.

Hassan-Nahoum plans to expand that circle. She has already been approached by India and African nations eager to know how Israeli innovation can improve their economies. She will also promote Israeli climate-oriented start-ups at the COP28 climate summit hosted by the United Nations.

Her role is not limited to promoting Israeli ingenuity abroad. Hassan-Nahoum told The Media Line that she will look for innovation that will benefit the Jewish state, including digitizing municipal and government services, which has already been done in some UAE cities.

“We need to look at how they do it there. We definitely have the innovative capacity to do it here,” she said. “It has been said that Israel is the ‘start-up nation’ and they are the scale-up nation.”

In her role as deputy mayor of Jerusalem since 2018, Hassan-Nahoum has been responsible for foreign relations, economic development, and tourism. Prior to that she served on the Jerusalem City Council. She will not be seeking another term in the upcoming municipal elections.

“I’ve always felt that because I represent the capital, not just of Israel but of the Jewish people, my role has always been broader than that of one city,” she said. “My work and activities in Jerusalem have always centered around developing the innovation ecosystem in the city, so I find this is going to be a very natural transition.”

For Cotler-Wunsh, combating antisemitism has been part of her resume as a human rights lawyer and a Knesset member for the Blue and White party. In 2021, she convened a Knesset hearing with representatives of social media platforms to address online antisemitism which resulted in co-founding an interparliamentary task force for combatting antisemitism.

Much of her recent work has focused on the “mutations and permutations” connecting the rising scourge of antisemitism online, on university campuses and on the streets.

“I spent the better part of the last three years advancing an initiative for a multi-partisan global collaboration with regard to online antisemitism, recognizing it is a global challenge that transcends borders and boundaries,” she told The Media Line on Thursday. “This is critical in view of increased data and understanding that what happens online doesn’t stay online. The proliferation of online antisemitism leads to real-world harm.”

Cotler-Wunsh will also focus on definitions and words—such as apartheid and genocide—which she says have been weaponized to demonize, delegitimize and apply double standards to Israel, fueling antisemitism while enabling genocidal organizations and regimes such as Iran.

“There are certain terms that had to be coined in order to separate them from all other crimes that we know,” Cotler-Wunsh said. “If you use them flippantly or falsely, you minimize their severity and at the same time undermine the possibility of identifying and addressing the real issues.”

We are at a historic junction. It is a pivotal moment that we have to face, internally as well. With sovereignty comes tremendous responsibility, but it is ours to solve.

As Israel’s internal debates spill into international headlines, Cotler-Wunsh says it is important to distinguish between legitimate criticism of Israel and delegitimization of its right to exist.

“We are at a historic junction,” she said. “It is a pivotal moment that we have to face, internally as well. With sovereignty comes tremendous responsibility, but it is ours to solve.”

Cotler-Wunsh will overlap in the position for a few weeks with her father, human rights lawyer and activist Irwin Cotler, Canada’s former minister of justice and current envoy for preserving Holocaust remembrance and combating antisemitism.

She will fill the position formerly held by actress Noa Tishby who was removed from the position after she sided with the protest movement against the government’s proposed judicial reform.

Rabbi Leo Dee became known in Israel for his response after tragedy struck his family earlier this year. His wife Lucy, 48, and two daughters, Maia, 20, and Rina, 15, were murdered by Palestinian terrorists as they drove through the Jordan Valley on April 7.

“I’m told that my approach, which was to say that I love the Palestinians and I hate the terrorists, was a little bit more sophisticated than what people expected,” he said. “The ability to differentiate between Palestinians who are partners for peace and those who would not be partners for peace is an important distinction that should be made in the public arena.”

Dee has been tapped to “represent the true Israel” to the Jewish Diaspora and the world. His book “Transforming the World: The Jewish Impact on Modernity,” is set to be republished next month in English and translated into Hebrew.

The “real Israel” includes social innovations, from the ideas of the weekend and marriage which originated from the Torah to many modern inventions such as Waze, he told The Media Line.

Long before he was considered for this position after terrorism reshaped his life, the Dee family practiced these ideals. Three of the Dee daughters, including Maia, participated in a mixed Israeli-Palestinian summer camp and the family maintains friendships with their Arab neighbors.

If we don’t differentiate between peaceful Palestinians and terrorists, we end up fueling the terror

Dee criticized the Palestinian Authority for financing terrorism and called on Israelis and Jews worldwide to express solidarity with Palestinians and other Arabs suffering under dictatorships and human rights violations.

“This simplistic approach to Arabs … which paints them all with the same brush as all being good or all being bad, is one of the causes of the unrest,” he told The Media Line. “If we don’t differentiate between peaceful Palestinians and terrorists, we end up fueling the terror.”