The head of the Security Policy Institute at Israel’s Defense and Security Forum (ISDF) believes that fighting antisemitism requires something closer to an organized security campaign: identifying where narratives originate, exposing what the organization considers disinformation, developing counter-narratives, and mobilizing supporters around the world.

“Just as Israel learned to fight offensively in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, and Iran rather than waiting inside its borders, we need an offensive strategy against antisemitism,” Medina said.

It is an approach that reflects the broader evolution of ISDF, known in Hebrew as Habitchonistim, or “the security guys.” Founded six years ago by Maj.-Gen. (res.) Amir Avivi, the organization brings together former senior figures from Israel’s military and security establishment and seeks to apply their experience to what it sees as the country’s most pressing security challenges.

“ISDF was established by people who realized that Israel’s security system needed an additional mechanism for oversight, correction, and identifying deviations in national security policy,” Medina explained. But the organization is not intended to serve as an alternative to the security establishment itself. Instead, it seeks to provide an experienced professional body that can examine security issues from what he describes as a “national, Zionist, and security-oriented” perspective.

Today, the movement counts 60,000 Israeli members and approximately 8,000 members outside the country (mostly in the US). It includes hundreds of former security personnel – among them dozens of senior figures, generals and major generals, as well as former heads of the Mossad, Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency), police and military.

Medina identified two things he believes ISDF has built over the past six years: professional credibility due to the plethora of military experts in its ranks, and a security-focused approach to defense policy and strategy.

“People listen to us,” he said. “We sit with decision-makers – the prime minister, security minister, head of Border Police, chief of staff. We write policy and strategy papers on core issues. We meet with policy-makers internationally.”

But the Bitchonistim are not interested in boasting of their expertise and patting themselves on the back. ISDF’s very clear goal is to change what it considers foundational issues in the security apparatus – “to wake up the system and present a different reality.”

For Medina, the organization’s guiding phrase – “Security of Israel for generations” – captured that philosophy perfectly. The word “generations,” he said, connects security with history, identity and the future. “We are not a religious movement,” Medina said. “But what brings us here, what keeps us in this land, is reconnecting the glue of all of us to the spirit that brought the Jewish people here to establish this miracle. We can’t just learn military strategy just from Harvard, Oxford, or Singapore. Our environment is completely different.”

A major focus on education is a major part of how ISDF aims to navigate that environment. The organization teaches thousands of young people in high schools and mechinot (pre-military academies) around the country. Their own mechina in the Negev teaches security and military leadership alongside Zionist activism and an understanding of what the organization sees as Israel’s “unique security interests.”

Recent additions include a mechina for young people looking to join the police or border patrol, as well as a haredi (ultra-Orthodox) mechina designed to encourage participation in national security and face the unique challenges haredim face when entering the military. ISDF members also lecture in advanced military courses, police academies, and national security colleges.

ISDF representatives meet regularly with senior decision-makers, including the prime minister, security minister, Border Police leadership, and IDF chief of staff. The organization produces policy and strategy papers addressing current IDF operations – ground maneuvers, buffer zones, and strategies for evacuations of hostile populations in southern Lebanon or Gaza as a part of an effective combat strategy against Hamas and Hezbollah in densely populated areas.

Its activities also extend beyond Israel. ISDF representatives meet regularly with military attaches, foreign ambassadors, US senators, European Parliament members, and representatives of the European Union. The Bitchonistim seek to provide what Medina described as “clean, professional, and independent” Israeli analysis.

Financially, ISDF operates as a nonprofit. Medina said the organization does not have a single donor dictating its agenda and instead speaks according to what it views as the professional interests of Israel’s security and the Jewish people.

While Gaza, Hezbollah, Iran’s nuclear threat, and Palestinian terrorism in Judea and Samaria remain part of ISDF’s regular security work, Medina said the organization is increasingly looking at two additional fronts. The first is what he called “The War for the Homefront.”

That effort focuses on internal security and sovereignty, including terror financing, arms smuggling, illegal weapons and what the organization sees as a loss of governance in the Negev, Galilee and mixed communities inside Israel.

The second is the “Global Antisemitism & Delegitimization Front.” According to Medina, ISDF sees an intersection between radical Islamist movements and elements of the far Left that it describes as a “Red-Green alliance,” which it said is targeting Israel and Jews worldwide.“This isn’t just happening in Europe,” Medina said, pointing to what he described as funding in US academia, think tanks and media. “The immediate result is that Jews everywhere pay the price.”

For ISDF, responding to antisemitism requires more than documenting its prevalence. Medina contrasted the organization’s proposed approach with organizations that, in his characterization, primarily produce reports documenting increases in antisemitic incidents or focus on defensive physical security measures such as guards, cameras, and fences.

ISDF instead wants to identify what it considers the hubs generating blood libels, false narratives, and disinformation campaigns. “We need to expose the lies, dismantle malicious narratives, and push back using digital tools, legal action, consciousness/influence campaigns, and strategic outreach,” he said.

This involves creating an operational center that can identify trends, develop counter-narratives, and equip supporters around the world with information. Those supporters, he said, could include Jews, Zionists, Evangelicals, and allies in Africa and Asia. The goal is to build a system that can identify emerging narratives and respond to them, rather than waiting until they have already spread.

The focus on antisemitism reflects what Medina sees as a direct connection between Israel and Jewish communities abroad. He pointed to antisemitism combined with radical Islamism as a threat to Jewish communities in the US, Australia, Europe and the UK. For ISDF, the security of Israel and the security of the Diaspora are intimately connected.

ISDF’s leadership views its mission statement and core values as so essential and universal that to them it is unconscionable for the organization to identify or be viewed as a political one. “We are not a political body; we have no political affiliation. Senior IDF commanders who grew up in our ranks or who are part of us belong to all kinds of political spectrums – whether it’s [Gadi] Eisenkot, Yair Golan, or others.

“When I say, ‘The State of Israel needs secure borders,’ or when I say, ‘We need to deal with illegal weapons in Arab society,’ people say, ‘Ah, you’re right-wing, you’re racist, you’re this or that.’ Excuse me, what does taking illegal weapons out of the streets have to do with Right or Left? What does wanting secure borders so our children can live safely have to do with Right or Left? …Back in the ’30s and ’40s, Ben-Gurion, Jabotinsky, or anyone else – did they argue about whether this is a Jewish state or whether it needs secure borders? Everyone agreed on that.”

The organization’s emphasis on Jewish identity, secure borders and national security is sometimes labeled right-wing, Medina said, but he questioned the basis for that categorization. “Israel was founded as a Jewish state for the Jewish people with Zionist defense principles,” he said. For an organization whose Hebrew name translates simply to “the security guys,” the definition of security is consequently broad.

It encompasses military strategy and internal sovereignty, education and government policy, Israel’s relationship with the Diaspora, and – increasingly – the battle over how Israel and Jews are represented around the world. For Medina and ISDF, all of those efforts ultimately return to the same idea that brought him to ISDF in the first place: “Security of Israel for generations.”