Dan Diker

B. Daniel Diker (born in New York), is a former secretary general of the World Jewish Congress (WJC), an umbrella group representing Jewish communities and organizations in nearly 100 countries around the world. Diker began his term as Secretary General designate in December 2010, and was formally elected WJC secretary general on 20 June 2011 by the WJC Governing Board in Jerusalem, Israel. In December 2012, the London-based Jewish Chronicle newspaper reported that Diker had announced his resignation effective January 2013, citing "administrative reasons." According to the article, WJC President Ronald S. Lauder praised Diker's "enthusiasm and dynamism" and said that his "love of Israel and the Jewish people is second to none..."

Prior to becoming WJC secretary general, Diker had served as the WJC's director for Strategic Affairs, and as WJC Middle East adviser on policy and diplomacy. He succeeded Michael Schneider, who served as the organization's secretary general since 2007.

Professional career

Diker earned a BA cum laude from Harvard University and pursued his MBA at the Harvard Graduate School of Business before pivoting and receiving an MA in government and counter-terrorism and homeland security studies, summa cum laude, from the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya.

Diker is a respected foreign affairs analyst and Middle East expert. From 2006 to 2010, he served as director of the Institute for Contemporary Affairs at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, headed by Israel's former Ambassador to the United Nations, Dore Gold, where he was also senior foreign policy analyst since 2002. Today, Diker is a Fellow and senior project director at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, where he heads the Program to Counter Political Warfare and BDS.

Diker also served as an adjunct fellow of the Hudson Institute in Washington and currently serves as a Research Fellow at the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism at the IDC Herziliya and a foreign policy fellow at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. Diker has authored several books on the global BDS movements for the JCPA including: "BDS Unmasked: Radical Roots, Extremist Ends"(2016), "Students for Justice in Palestine, Unmasked" (2017) and "Defeating Denormalization: Shared Palestinian and Israeli Perspectives on a New Path to Peace" (2018).

From 1984 to 1987, Diker worked on Wall Street, first as a marketing professional at Drexel Burnham Lambert, and then as an advisor to the co-chairman on investment banking at Shearson Lehman Brothers.

Diker spent some time acting, including a small role in Delta Force 3: The Killing Game.

Diker often appears as a commentator and analyst on Israeli and Middle Eastern affairs on a variety of news networks, including CNN, Russia Today, BBC, ABC News, Fox News, and Al Jazeera news channels and as a Middle East Affairs commentator for Israel's IBA English News. His articles have appeared in the New York Sun, The Jerusalem Post, Makor Rishon, as well as the academic journals Middle East Quarterly and Azure.

Diker was the Executive Producer of a private online radio station confusingly named Voice of Israel (no connection to the official Kol Israel/"Voice of Israel"), which operated between 2014-2015. He was also their National Security Analyst and the host of "National Security, a weekly radio program dealing with issues of national security in Israel and around the world. He is also the host of Counter Terrorism Today on IDC International Radio.