Ariel (Eli) Levite was the principal deputy director general for policy at the Israeli Atomic Energy Commission from 2002 to 2007. He is a nonresident senior fellow in the Nuclear Policy Program and Cyber Policy Initiative at the Carnegie Endowment.
Prior to joining the Carnegie Endowment in 2008, Eli was the principal deputy director general for policy at the Israeli Atomic Energy Commission from 2002 to 2007. He also served as the deputy national security adviser for defense policy and was head of the Bureau of International Security and Arms Control (an assistant secretary position) in the Israeli Ministry of Defense. He was the co-leader of the Discriminate Force Project at the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC) at Stanford University.
Before his government service, Eli worked for five years as a senior research associate and head of the project on Israeli security at the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies (subsequently renamed INSS) at Tel Aviv University. He has taught courses on security studies and political science at Tel Aviv University, Cornell University, and the University of California, Davis. He is a member of the Board of Directors of the Fisher Brothers Institute for Air and Space Strategic Studies.
He is a Chevalier dans l’Ordre National de la Légion d’Honneur.
Eli has published extensively, most recently “Understanding Cyber Conflict: 14 Analogies” and “Three Ways to Break the Nuclear Stalemate with North Korea,” both with George Perkovich for the CEIP Nuclear Policy Program. Some of his more recent publications include: "Israeli Strategy in Transition, in Shaper Nations: Strategies for a Changing World; “From Dream to Reality: Israel and Missile Defense,” in Regional Missile Defense from a Global Perspective; “Will Nuclear War Break Out in the Middle East?;” Do Nuclear Weapons Have a Future? and “Reflections on Nuclear Opacity.”
A wonderful friend and adviser, his contributions at the Institute included the Nuclear Middle East, Iran’s Nuclear Ambitions, and the convening of a professional workshop on the State of the State in the Middle East and North Africa He was an Institute INSPIRE Fellow in 2011. I had the honor of awarding him the Dr. Jean Mayer Award for Global Citizenship