Bringing the East's Best Lessons to Recover the West
Countering ideological extremism with proven frameworks from the moderate East — to restore the soul of democratic nations.
We bring the most effective deradicalization expertise developed across the Middle East to the United States and Western democracies — where it is needed most urgently.
4
Core Programs
East→West
Knowledge Transfer
6
Civilizational Pillars
2023
Founded
Our Core Mission
The East Has Lessons the West Desperately Needs to Hear
Decades of confronting extremism across the Middle East, the Gulf, and North Africa have produced battle-tested frameworks for deradicalization, narrative reform, and cultural inoculation. These are not abstract theories — they are hard-won methods proven in societies facing existential ideological threats: identity-based radicalization, boycott campaigns, and weaponized media capturing institutions from within.
The United States now faces the same playbook. ELI's mission is to accelerate the transfer of Eastern lessons westward — before democratic institutions pay a higher price.
Named for Emma Lazarus, we hold that America's greatness lies in its capacity to learn, integrate, and renew itself.
The East
Proven deradicalization frameworks from decades confronting Islamist, nationalist, and tribal extremism across the MENA region.
→
Knowledge Transfer
ELI adapts, translates, and operationalizes Eastern counter-extremism expertise for Western democratic contexts.
The West — Focus: USA
American institutions, communities, and policymakers armed with evidence-based tools to counter radicalization and restore civic cohesion.
↑
The Outcome
Renewed nation-states with resilient civic identities, restored democratic culture, and populations inoculated against capture.
"The same patterns of radicalization I grew up watching in Morocco — the calls for boycotts, the institutionalized antisemitism, the slow capture of schools and discourse — and the long work of inoculating communities against them: I now see all of it in American universities, on social media, and in community centers. We have been here before. We know what works."
— Chama Mechtaly, Founder
What We Do
Our Four Programs
01
🔥
Cultural Deradicalization & Denazification
ELI's flagship framework — anchored by the Abrahamic Summit for Deradicalization — is a replicable model, co-deployable with universities, think tanks, government agencies, and civil society. The methodology stays consistent; partners and contexts adapt.
02
🕊️
Interfaith & Cross-Cultural Dialogue
Drawing from the Sephardi legacy of coexistence, we build spaces where spiritual leaders and activists engage in honest dialogue — not interfaith for optics, but interfaith as infrastructure for civilizational renewal.
03
✍️
Digital Narrative Reform
Training influencers and content creators across the Middle East and diaspora to dismantle extremist messaging, counter foreign-funded propaganda, and reclaim digital spaces for nuance and truth.
04
📋
Policy Briefings & Regional Strategy
White papers, summits, and advisory services that translate cultural intelligence into concrete policy — bridging narrative and governance so strategy shapes the story societies tell about themselves.
A New Architecture
An Abrahamic Narrative Security Architecture for America and the World
Extremism fights with stories before it fights with weapons. It captures institutions, erodes shared identity, and recruits through belonging. Countering it requires an equivalent architecture: a coordinated system of narrative production, distribution, and institutional defense at the same scale as the threat.
ELI is building that architecture — grounded in the one framework capacious enough to unite Jewish, Christian, and Muslim moderates: the Abrahamic tradition of liberty, pluralism, and coexistence.
👁
Layer I
Intelligence Layer
Real-time monitoring of the narratives attacking Abrahamic democratic identity, across platforms and languages — early warning before extremist frames capture mainstream discourse.
What We Track
Campus radicalization patterns
Boycott campaign infrastructure
Foreign-funded narrative operations
Identity-capture in civic institutions
🔵
Layer II
Counter-Narrative Layer
Producing and distributing the alternative story through trained voices inside communities — imams, rabbis, priests, educators, and influencers who carry credibility no outsider can manufacture.
How We Build It
Abrahamic Summit programming
Academic curriculum (Accords Framework)
Digital influencer training
Interfaith narrative infrastructure
🏛
Layer III
Institutional Layer
Embedding narrative resilience into schools, seminaries, civic organizations, and media — so communities develop lasting structural immunity rather than constant external intervention.
Where We Embed
Universities and curricula
Religious institutions
Policy and government partners
Media and civil society
Flagship Curriculum
The Abraham Accords Framework for Regional Integration & Peace Education
A complete academic framework built on the diplomatic breakthrough of the Abraham Accords — translating normalization from a set of state agreements into a teachable model of regional integration.
It equips students, faculty, and practitioners to understand how former adversaries build durable peace, and to carry that logic into classrooms, communities, and policy work in the West.
Abraham Accords
The architecture, incentives, and diplomacy behind the most significant normalization breakthrough in a generation — taught as a working model, not a headline.
Regional Integration
How trade, security cooperation, energy, and people-to-people ties convert political agreements into shared interests strong enough to outlast any single government.
Peace Education
The pedagogy that makes integration durable — historical empathy, indigenous restoration, and the civic resilience that keeps young people out of extremist narratives.
Work With Us
Partner With the Institute
Whether you are a policymaker, foundation, academic institution, or community leader — ELI offers frameworks, briefings, training programs, and strategic partnerships.
✉
chama@emmalazarusinstitute.org
🌐
emmalazarusinstitute.org
📍
United States & International
Message received.
Thank you for reaching out. Chama will be in touch personally within 48 hours.
Our Foundation
Vision & Mission
We believe the greatest threat to Western democracy is not external military force — it is the internal erosion of shared identity, civic culture, and the belief that free societies are worth defending.
The Problem
A Fracture Between Worlds
The gulf between the Democratic West and the Moderate East is not inevitable — it is manufactured. It is the product of ideological actors who profit from polarization, extremist funding networks that amplify the worst voices on both sides, and a failure of institutional imagination.
The United States is experiencing its own radicalization crisis — from campus antisemitism to domestic extremism — mirroring patterns well-documented in the Middle East. The tools exist. They have been tested. What's missing is the bridge.
The Solution
ELI as the Bridge
The Emma Lazarus Institute is uniquely positioned to serve as this bridge — founded by a Moroccan born-American trained public voice.
We take proven Eastern deradicalization methods — tested in societies that have already faced what the West is now beginning to encounter — and adapt, translate, and deploy them for American and Western contexts.
What We Stand For
Six Pillars of Civilizational Renewal
01
People-First Governance
Institutions that serve citizens, not ideologies — accountable to the needs of pluralistic societies.
02
Prosperity & Opportunity
Economic marginalization is the soil extremism grows in. Inclusive prosperity is inoculation.
03
Tolerance & Inclusion
The Sephardi legacy of convivencia — genuine coexistence, not merely tolerance — as foundation for enduring social peace.
04
Protection of Religious Sanctity
Authentic religious freedom, distinguished from the weaponization of faith that extremism depends on.
05
Moderation & Cooperation
Moderate majorities must be organized, amplified, and institutionally supported to prevail against extremist minorities.
06
Regional & Global Safety
Security frameworks that treat ideological deradicalization as equal in importance to military and intelligence countermeasures.
Our Heritage
A Tradition of Convivencia
The Sephardi civilization produced centuries of Jewish-Muslim-Christian coexistence — in Andalusia, in Morocco, in the Ottoman Empire. That legacy is not sentimental nostalgia. It is an operational model: a civilization that built genuine pluralism under conditions of pressure and difference.
ELI draws from that model, treating Sephardi coexistence not as historical footnote but as living architecture for democratic renewal.
The Woman Behind the Name
"Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free."
— Emma Lazarus, The New Colossus (1883)
Abraham Accords · Regional Integration · Peace Education
The Abraham Accords Framework
A framework for regional integration and peace education — translating the diplomatic breakthrough of the Abraham Accords into a teachable model of how former adversaries build durable, interest-based peace.
Built for universities, think tanks, and government training programs that need more than commentary on the Middle East — they need the working logic of integration.
Foundations
Three Strands, One Curriculum
The framework rests on three interlocking commitments. Taken separately they are a diplomacy course, a political economy course, and a civics course. Taken together they explain how peace is made, held, and taught.
Abraham Accords
The architecture of normalization — what made it possible, how it was negotiated, and which incentives sustain it. Students study the Accords as a live diplomatic system rather than a signing ceremony.
Regional Integration
Trade corridors, security cooperation, energy interdependence, technology transfer, and people-to-people exchange — the mechanisms that turn agreements between governments into shared interests between societies.
Peace Education
The pedagogy that makes integration durable: historical empathy, indigenous restoration, civic resilience, and the analytical habits that inoculate students against extremist narratives on all sides.
The Integration Record
August 2020
Israel–UAE Normalization Announced
The first Israeli–Arab normalization agreement in over two decades, and the opening case study in how regional interests can override a frozen conflict paradigm.
September 2020
The Abraham Accords Signed
Israel, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain formalized relations in Washington — establishing the framework name and the diplomatic template that followed.
Late 2020
Sudan and Morocco Join
Normalization extended across North Africa, adding the Amazigh and Jewish-Moroccan heritage dimension that grounds the curriculum's indigenous restoration work.
2021 – 2022
From Agreement to Infrastructure
Embassies, direct flights, the Israel–UAE comprehensive economic partnership, and the Negev Forum converted political breakthrough into functioning economic and security architecture.
2023 – Present
Integration Under Pressure
Regional war tested the Accords and revealed which ties hold and why — the most instructive material in the entire course, and the reason integration must be taught rather than assumed.
The Classroom
Where the Next Decade Is Decided
Peace built between governments is inherited by students. This framework exists so the generation now in university understands what was built, why it matters, and how to extend it.
The Framework
Six Pedagogical Pillars
The teaching method behind the framework. Developed with Ambassador David Govrin. Published in the Journal of the Middle East and Africa. Presented at the Shifting Paradigms Conference, University of Cincinnati.
Pillar 01
Transformative Learning
Reframing the cognitive and emotional landscape through which students encounter political conflict — from single-axis critique to multi-dimensional analysis.
Pillar 02
Critical Pedagogy
Equipping students to interrogate their own ideological formation, distinguishing genuine inquiry from academically-laundered political programming.
Pillar 03
Indigenous Restoration
Recovering the historical and cultural roots of Jewish, Arab, Amazigh, and other regional identities from the distortions of nationalist and Islamist narratives.
Pillar 04
Identity-Protective Cognition
Building the psychological resilience that protects civic identity from radicalization without requiring conformity or suppression of dissent.
Pillar 05
Strategic & Historical Empathy
Training students to model the decision-making logic of actors whose choices they find morally troubling — the foundation of serious integration and peace-education practice.
Pillar 06
DIME Assessment Architecture
Applying Diplomatic, Information, Military, and Economic lenses to regional conflict analysis — standard in professional security work, absent from most academic Middle East curricula.
Curriculum
15-Week Syllabus
A complete academic course covering the Arab Spring through Saudi-Israeli normalization — built for universities, think tanks, government training programs, and institutional partners.
Week 01
The Arab Spring: Causes, Trajectories, Outcomes
Week 02
Political Islam: Origins, Varieties, Trajectories
Week 03
The Muslim Brotherhood Network
Week 04
Iran's Regional Strategy & Proxy Architecture
Week 05
The Gulf States: Between Modernization & Extremism
Week 06
Israel-Arab Relations: From Conflict to Integration
Week 07
The Abraham Accords: Architecture & Implications
Week 08
Narrative Warfare & Information Operations
Week 09
Deradicalization: Eastern Models & Methods
Week 10
Campus Radicalization: Patterns & Interventions
Week 11
Antisemitism: Old Forms, New Vectors
Week 12
Islamophobia & Anti-Muslim Radicalization
Week 13
Digital Ecosystems & Radicalization Infrastructure
Week 14
Abrahamic Coexistence: Models & Mechanisms
Week 15
Saudi-Israeli Normalization & the New Regional Order
Licensing
Partnership Tiers
The Abraham Accords Framework is available for institutional licensing across three engagement levels.
$3K
Entry
One-Time Briefing
A single high-level briefing on the framework for your leadership, faculty, or board. Includes framework overview, case studies, and Q&A session.
$10K
Annual
Annual License
Full curriculum license with faculty support, ongoing updates, and direct access to ELI's research and expertise throughout the academic year.
$25K+
Partnership
Strategic Partnership
Deep institutional integration — co-convening summits, joint research, advisory relationships, and co-deployment of ELI frameworks within your organization.
License This Curriculum
Bring the Abraham Accords Framework to Your Institution
Thank you — Chama will be in touch within 48 hours.
The People
Team
Founder & Executive Director
Chama Mechtaly
Founder & Executive Director
Chama Mechtaly is a policy entrepreneur, cultural strategist, and painter working at the intersection of geopolitics, art, and identity across the Middle East and the West. As Founder and Executive Director of the Emma Lazarus Institute, she advances deradicalization, regional integration, and cultural diplomacy through policy, media, convenings, and summits.
Born in Casablanca to a Muslim mother and a father of Amazigh-Jewish heritage, she has spent her life painting Jewish stories, recovering indigenous Amazigh-Jewish identity, and building the cultural and narrative infrastructure that makes normalization real. In 2015, Moroccan authorities- under the PJD islamist government- threatened her with six months to two years in prison for exhibiting "Drapeau Marocain Revisité" — a painting of the Moroccan flag with a Star of David, reclaiming a historical version of the flag that predated French colonial modification. Five years later, Morocco normalized with Israel. That arc is not coincidental background — it is ELI's thesis: bottom-up cultural work precedes and shapes top-down diplomacy.
Recognized as a pioneer of the bottom-up movement of the Abraham Accords, she has spent years deepening the fabric and texture of normalization beyond the diplomatic framework — building the people-to-people relationships, cultural infrastructure, and narrative architecture that make peace durable. An acknowledged expert on Muslim-Jewish dialogue and normalization, she has advised governments and NGOs across the Accords ecosystem, including the Atlantic Council's N7 Initiative and Sharaka. In early November 2023, she was the first person to name Qatar as a nefarious actor on U.S. mainstream media — on Newsmax — holding it accountable for its role in October 7th. She writes about the Gulf and soft-power Islamism for Quillette.
She designed and led the first Abraham Accords Deradicalization Summit, convening policymakers, influencers, and institutional leaders across the U.S., Europe, Israel, and the Gulf, and authored a foundational policy paper on Abraham Accords deradicalization for European policymakers. Her work has been featured in international media, including a feature documentary by Saudi Arabia's Asharq News.
She serves on President Isaac Herzog's Voice of the People Global Council and is an Atlantic Council Millennium Leadership Fellow and WIN Fellow, recognized by the Middle East Policy Council on its 40 Under 40 list. She studied International Relations, Conflict and Coexistence Studies, and Hebrew at Brandeis University. She is also the founder of the heritage design brand Moors & Saints and an exhibiting painter — twice at the Jerusalem Biennale, including her first participation sent quietly under threat of censorship, and at the landmark UAE–Israel "Maktoub" calligraphy exhibition — whose work uses art as a tool for identity repair, cultural transformation, and inoculation against extremism.
Abraham AccordsCounter-ExtremismCultural DiplomacySephardi HeritageMENA PolicyAI Integration
Advisory Board
Ariel Frenkel
Advisory Board — Strategic Communications & Cultural Influence
Media strategist, human rights advocate, and speaker. Redirected a national television platform to social impact work. Keynote at the 2024 JWI Summit, facilitator at the Berlin Deradicalization Summit. Named to the J100 list of top global influencers in Jewish life and JWI "Women to Watch." Advises on ELI's communications strategy across media, grassroots, and international platforms.
Media StrategyNarrative DesignCultural Diplomacy
Jason Olson
Advisory Board — Counter-Terrorism & Interfaith Strategy Board of Peace — Director of Deradicalization
Scholar, educator, and policy practitioner. His work on the "Conflict to Integration" paradigm shift — published in the Journal of the Middle East and Africa — forms a core intellectual foundation of the Abraham Accords Framework curriculum. As Director of Deradicalization at the Board of Peace, he brings the institutional infrastructure to deploy ELI's frameworks across American academia.
Counter-TerrorismJewish StudiesICT HerzliyaBoard of Peace
Based in the UAE, Eitan Charnoff operates at the intersection of Israeli-Gulf relations, humanitarian strategy, and regional security. Former Kurdish Affairs Spokesperson at the Knesset and volunteer firefighter and medic. Nearly two decades of experience spanning diplomatic engagement, disaster relief, and Gulf business development. Deep roots in the Abraham Accords ecosystem and UAE networks central to ELI's East-West mission.
Advisory Board seat available for the right partner. ELI is building a board that reflects the full breadth of its East-West mission.
Team
Eli
Eli
AI Operations & Research Layer
ELI's in-house AI — handling research synthesis, narrative monitoring, multilingual outreach, policy brief drafting, and stakeholder communications — enabling the core team to operate at the scale and responsiveness of a much larger organization, while keeping human judgment at the center of every strategic decision.
NA
Natalie Almog
Research & Strategic Communications Intern
Natalie supports ELI's research, writing, and publishing operations — contributing to policy digests, background memos, content strategy, and curriculum publication. Her focus areas include Gulf-Israel regional integration, Abraham Accords expansion, and the Abrahamic security architecture ELI is building.
Research & AnalysisStrategic CommunicationsGulf–Israel Integration
ELI is a founder-led institute, deliberately lean — because the work demands proximity, judgment, and trust. Every partnership goes through Chama Mechtaly directly. Technology handles what it does well, so human attention goes where it matters most.
What the Founder Does
Strategic partnerships and relationships
Intellectual framework and policy judgment
High-stakes convenings and briefings
Cultural intelligence and community trust
Final review of all published research
What Technology Handles
Multilingual monitoring: Arabic, Hebrew, French, English
First-draft policy briefs and white papers
Narrative threat tracking across platforms
Partner communications and scheduling
Always-on inquiry response for visitors
ELI Intelligence Assistant — Live Demo
ELI
Welcome to the Emma Lazarus Institute. I can explain our deradicalization framework, explore partnership opportunities, or connect you with our research. What brings you here today?
