Government-backed science conference to improve 'Israel’s image in the world'

The Israeli government will host a gathering of young scientists later this year as part of efforts to improve the image of a state internationally associated with occupation and military brutality.

In what the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) is calling its “flagship project”, an estimated 400 young scientists from around the world will meet in Jerusalem in August.

Nobel Prize laureates will also be part of the “World Science Conference”, which was postponed from last summer due to the assault on Gaza.

The conference is jointly organised and hosted by the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, whose president Menahem Ben-Sasson hailed the event as “an important national project” and “wonderful opportunity to expand Israel’s positive image in the academic and scientific fields.”

According to Yuval Rotem, director of the public diplomacy department in the MFA, meanwhile, the “unprecedented initiative” is a chance for “the exposure of Israel as a state which promotes innovation, creativity and entrepreneurship.”

The young participants of the conference are a select group of science geniuses – the best in every state. In that sense some of them will surely shape public opinion in their countries, hence the great importance which the MFA ascribes to the conference and to its contribution to the strengthening of Israel’s image in the world.

Israeli media reported that the aim is to give the young scientists a “once in a lifetime experience” and thus “turning them into ‘ambassadors’ for Israel in the world.”