Since resigning from his government post last week, Natan Sharansky has decided to join one of Israel’s most distinguished research institutes, where he’ll be writing a book about Israel’s role as the nation state of the Jews. (Disclosure: I’ve worked for both Sharansky and Shalem.) “We are in the middle of fighting two big wars–terror and the new anti-Semitism,” Sharansky said. “Both are directed at undermining the legitimacy of the Jewish state. We have to fight not only with the army, but on the intellectual level.” The Shalem Center’s press release says Sharansky will also continue to advocate democratization throughout the world, and particularly in the Arab world.