Veteran Israeli journalist and political communications scholar Dr. Orit Galili-Zucker, who later advised both Ehud Barak and Benjamin Netanyahu, died Sunday after a more than two-year battle with cancer. She was 70.
Galili-Zucker died on August 23 at Ichilov Hospital in Tel Aviv, according to an announcement made by her son, Eran Zucker-Galili.
She had publicly disclosed that she was diagnosed with cancer in June 2024.
“With great pain I announce the passing of my mother,” her son wrote on her social-media accounts. “After a struggle of more than two years with a cruel cancer, she passed away earlier today at Ichilov Hospital.”
He described her as “a special woman, a fighter, loving, beautiful and brave,” adding that although her life had been relatively short, it had been intensely full.
“Mom was the person closest to me in the world,” he wrote. “It was always me and her against the world.”
According to the family, Galili-Zucker had decided that there would be no funeral or traditional shiva mourning period. Her son said future projects would be created to tell her story and commemorate both her personal life and her work in Israeli media and public affairs.
From Israeli journalism to political communications
Born in Jerusalem on March 29, 1956, Galili-Zucker later grew up in Tel Aviv.
Her professional life crossed several worlds that usually remain separate: journalism, academia and political strategy.
After early work connected to the Histadrut and as a parliamentary aide to MK Ora Namir, she joined the Schocken publishing group in the early 1980s and worked at the Tel Aviv weekly Ha’ir.
In 1983, she joined Haaretz, initially working on its news desk. She went on to spend approximately 15 years at the newspaper as a journalist and editor and also worked for a period as a reporter on Channel 1’s “Yoman” current-affairs program.
By the end of the 1990s, Galili-Zucker had moved increasingly toward academia.
She earned a doctorate in political science from Bar-Ilan University in 2002. Her dissertation examined what she called the “new politician,” comparing Western leaders Bill Clinton, Tony Blair and Gerhard Schröder with Israeli politicians Benjamin Netanyahu, Ehud Barak and Haim Ramon.
That research became central to much of her later work.
Studying the politicians she would later advise
Galili-Zucker specialized in political communication, particularly the transformation of politicians into media personalities and political brands.
Her 2004 book, The Tele-Politicians: New Political Leadership in the West and in Israel, examined a new type of political leader whose public image, television presence and ability to respond to changing voter preferences increasingly competed with traditional ideological identity.
Four years later, she published Contemporary Communication Politics: Online Citizenship in an Era of New Media, focusing on political communication in the emerging internet era.
She taught at Tel Aviv University and Bar-Ilan University and served from 2004 to 2006 as academic director of Tel Aviv University’s Executive MA Program in Political Leadership. She also chaired the political science professional committee at Israel’s Ministry of Education and taught on national leadership at the IDF’s National Security College.
Her career then took an unusual turn: she moved from studying political messaging to practicing it.
During Israel’s 2009 election campaign, Galili-Zucker served as a strategic adviser to the Labor Party and its leader, Ehud Barak.
Two years later, in March 2011, she joined the political camp of Barak’s longtime rival Benjamin Netanyahu.
Galili-Zucker became head of Netanyahu’s political communications team within Likud, advising on electoral and communications strategy.
Contemporary reporting also showed that her role went beyond media appearances. In 2012, she publicly discussed strategic political work Netanyahu had assigned her, including examining the possibility of cooperation between Likud and Kadima.
Her work with Netanyahu ended sometime in 2013. Contemporary and retrospective sources disagree over the exact month, although reporting at the time indicated that Likud began ending the arrangement following the January 2013 election as the party reduced expenses and reorganized its campaign operation.
The sequence was particularly striking because Galili-Zucker had gone from academically analyzing leaders such as Barak and Netanyahu, to advising Barak, and then to working directly for Netanyahu.
After leaving Likud, she returned to independent political communications work and remained a public commentator on Israeli politics.
“I am beginning a process of saying goodbye”
Galili-Zucker spoke publicly about her illness during the final months of her life.
On June 5, 2026, she wrote on Facebook that she had been diagnosed with cancer exactly two years earlier.
“I am beginning a process of parting,” she wrote.
She said a doctor had spoken to her about the end of her illness, the stages ahead and decisions she would eventually have to make. She also described efforts to obtain compassionate-use medications from abroad that might give her additional time.
The post prompted a large public reaction.
A day later, Galili-Zucker responded with characteristic directness.
“I am not yet dead,” she wrote, explaining that there was a significant gap between how she appeared outwardly and the advanced stage of her disease. She said the affection and support she had received strengthened her determination to continue fighting.
Less than three months later, her son announced her death.
Galili-Zucker is survived by her two sons, Itamar Galili and Eran Zucker-Galili.
Her career left an unusual footprint on Israeli public life. She spent years reporting on politics, then studying how politicians adapt themselves to modern media, and finally entered the political arena herself as a strategist for two of Israel’s most prominent and competing political leaders.
It was a career that placed her on both sides of the relationship between politics and the media: first observing it, then explaining it, and ultimately helping shape it.
