The Abraham Bridge Initiative (TABI)

An Innovation Laboratory for Strategic Peace and Regional Young Leadership

The Abraham Bridge Initiative (TABI) is a next-generation strategic student/young-adult initiative born in the Shimon Peres Fellowship in Reichman University's Raphael Recinati International school in Herzeliya, Israel and is today independent. It's designed to advance Israel’s long-term regional interests through non-naïve peacebuilding, leadership development, and policy-relevant innovation.

Founded on the belief that durable peace is not achieved through slogans, strategic concessions, or symbolic gestures, TABI operates as a regional innovation laboratory—testing, refining, and scaling practical frameworks for cooperation between Israel and its neighbours, with a particular focus on Abraham Accords countries and emerging regional partners while promoting new normalization agreements. TABI’s work is grounded in realism: acknowledging geopolitical constraints, power asymmetries, and historical grievances, while actively building new networks of trust, leadership, and mutual interest across borders.

Advancing Israel’s Strategic Interests in the Region in a time when Israel's reputation has been smeared and it's citizens have been demonized.

TABI directly promotes Israel’s national and regional interests by:

1. Strengthening the Abraham Accords ecosystem through sustained people-to-people, academic, and leadership-level engagement beyond formal diplomacy.
2. Promoting and researching new ways to "bridge" towards new normalizations and additional partners to the Abraham Accords.
3. Giving a safe space to regional peace advocates who show willingness and desire to make peace with Israel and a secondary-channel to influence and impact.
4. Cultivating credible partners, voices, and young rising leaders who engage Israel from within their own societies and build bridges towards each other—essentially building friendships over tarnished reputations and showing the humanity of each side.
5. Developing informal diplomatic channels that complement state-to-state relations and provide strategic flexibility during periods of political tension.
6. Countering radicalization and zero-sum narratives by offering a credible, principled alternative rooted in responsibility, realism, and shared regional futures.

What Makes TABI Unique?

1. A Non-Naïve Approach to Peace

TABI rejects performative coexistence and ideological abstraction. Its programs are designed around hard constraints, research, real incentives, and long-term strategic thinking—ensuring dialogue produces outcomes, not illusions.

2. An Innovation Laboratory Model

TABI pilots new formats—policy simulations based on research, and from there—projects, and cultural diplomacy platforms—then refines what works and discards what does not. This experimental mindset distinguishes TABI from traditional NGOs.

3. Leadership Before Mass Mobilization

Rather than broad, shallow outreach, TABI focuses on high-potential leaders, professionals, and influencers capable of shaping discourse, institutions, and policy in their respective societies.

4. Inside-Out Public Diplomacy

TABI strengthens Israel’s regional standing by first reinforcing confidence, clarity, and responsibility within the Jewish and Israeli young leadership sphere, then extending outward—ensuring authenticity and credibility abroad upon a stable and concrete foundation.

National Recognition and Endorsement

TABI’s vision and impact have received public recognition at the highest level of the State of Israel, including a public endorsement by the President of Israel, Isaac Herzog, underscoring the initiative’s national importance and strategic relevance. This endorsement reflects TABI’s alignment with Israel’s broader diplomatic and societal interests, as well as its credibility as a serious, forward-thinking platform for regional engagement.

Why This Project Matters Now

At a moment of profound regional uncertainty—marked by polarisation, conflict, eroding trust and blind hatred—Israel requires innovative, responsible, and social bridging frameworks that go beyond crisis management. TABI provides exactly that: a measured, principled, and future-oriented platform capable of shaping the next generation of young regional leaders who'll design Israel's relationships. Supporting TABI is supporting Israel's public image, it's supporting her connectivity to her region, and it's supporting her future via these same growing and influential young leaders.

Support from partners such as the Merit Spread Foundation enables TABI to scale its impact, deepen its regional reach, and continue building the intellectual and human