Professor Jonathan Rynhold is the Head of the department of Political Studies.

He received his PhD in International Relations from the London School of Economics & Political Science (LSE) in 1998. In 2012-13 I was the Schusterman Visiting Professor of Israeli Politics at the George Washington University in Washington DC.

Prof. Rynhold’s research focuses on US-Israeli relations, Israeli foreign policy and the role of political culture in foreign policy.

In this vein, he has authored many publications, for example on, the security barrier, the Gaza disengagement, and the role of peace and security in Israeli elections.

His book entitled The Arab-Israeli Conflict in American Political Culture, published by Cambridge University Press in 2015, won the annual Israeli Association for Political Science book prize.

Prof. Rynhold is regularly interviewed by a wide variety of news outlets, which have included the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, Reuters, CNN, The Daily Telegraph, El Pais, Libération, De Spiegel, Al Jazeera, Xinhua, the Jerusalem Post, Times of Israel and Ha'aretz.