Ksenia Svetlova is an expert in Middle Eastern affairs, radical Islam and modern Egypt. She is a senior research fellow at the Institute for Policy and Strategy (Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya), and Senior Policy Fellow at the “Mitvim” Institute for Foreign Policy.

Svetlova was a member of the 20th Knesset on behalf of the Zionist Union coalition. In her time at the Israeli parliament, she was member of the Foreign affairs and Defense and Aliyah and Absorption committees.

Before the 2015 Knesset elections, Ksenia Svetlova worked as a writer and commentator on Arab Affairs for Channel Nine as well as an reporter for the Jerusalem Post, BBC, Kommersant (Jerusalem), and others. Through her journalistic work, she has visited many Arab countries, including Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Bahrain, UAE, Egypt, and Malaysia. She covered the war in Iraq from a U.S. battleship in the Persian Gulf, has many years of experience working in the Palestinian territories, and has published exclusive articles from Tahrir Square during the Egyptian Revolution.

Ksenia Svetlova holds a BA and MA in journalism and Middle Eastern Studies from Hebrew University in Jerusalem.