Prime Minister Netanyahu
Looking back with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on his new book, “BiBi: My Story”. Also looking forward to his next government’s approach to Saudi Arabia (could we see an expansion of the Abraham Accords?); Israel’s position in the Russia-Ukraine war (will Israel’s posture change under his leadership?); and what he sees as the implications of events on the streets of Iran.
We spoke at an event hosted by The Streicker Cultural Center at Temple Emanu-El: https://streicker.nyc/
Transcript
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[00:00:00] The Abraham Accords, the peace treaties that Israel had with the four Arab states of the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, uh, Sudan, and Morocco, that didn't happen without Saudi, uh, uh, approval. I don't think Saudi Arabia is just another country, you know, just the, it's not, let's add number five. I think it's Qualitatively different, if we have peace with Saudi Arabia, I think we'll effectively be ending the Arab Israeli conflict.
I recently sat down with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for a conversation about his new book, Bibi, My Story. It was an event hosted by the Stryker Cultural Center at Temple Emanuel. The Stryker Center here in New York City, where I've spoken in the past, has a terrific offering of virtual and in person speakers and panels.
Highly recommend you checking [00:01:00] out their programs, which we'll post in the show notes. While Prime Minister Netanyahu and I had intended to focus mostly on his book, he wound up saying some interesting things about how he'll approach Israeli relations with Saudi Arabia. Could we see an expansion of the Abraham Accords?
To Israel's position in the Russia Ukraine war? Will Israel's posture change under his new government? And not surprisingly, we speak extensively about recent events on the streets of Iran and how they may change geopolitics of the region and globally. We sat down at both an interesting and tricky moment, and for some, quite worrisome.
In the realm of Israeli politics. It was after Prime Minister Netanyahu's recent election, but before his formation of a new government. In fact, it was just before he was given a mandate by the President of Israel to form a government. Against his backdrop, he couldn't say much about the concerns some in the diaspora have about the agenda.
Of specific factions within his emerging new government. But we agree that once his [00:02:00] government is formed, we'll find another time to speak when we can have more of a freewheeling conversation on these topics. That said, I was surprised by some of the things he said regarding Israeli geopolitics on Iran, Saudi Arabia, Russia, and of course.
The United States, Prime Minister Netanyahu, his book and his story and a window into his next government's foreign policy. This is call me back. Welcome and congratulations to you, Prime Minister Netanyahu. Well, thank you. Uh, anyone who assumes private public office gets a two word salutation from me.
Congratulations and commiserations. So since you're limited to one, I'll add the other one, but that's fine. Thank you. Um, it's, uh, it's good to be with you again. We have a lot to cover here. Uh, I, I was noting, uh, just the other day. That you are the first Israeli prime [00:03:00] minister to have left office and then returned to the premiership twice, right?
Ben Gurion left office and then returned once. Yitzhak Rabin left office and returned once. Churchill, actually, non Israeli prime minister, left office and returned once. There's no Israeli prime minister who's doing what you're doing, which is about to start your second return to office, which means there's a lot of it covered in this book, and we have a lot to cover today.
And before we do, I just want to spend a moment on very recent events. This is not post election punditry, uh, and I know you're in the middle of forming a government, so there's not much you can say. Not looking for breadcrumbs, uh, as to where things are going. Uh, but before we get into the book, I would just say you, you have an audience here today of, uh, people who care a lot about Israel, even if they don't live in Israel and they are I think they share your relief, uh, and many Israelis relief that, that while this was the fifth election in 44 months, there won't be a sixth one around the corner, but they also have a lot of questions about the next government.
Your agenda for the next [00:04:00] government. So before we jump into the book and some of the issues around the book, just if there's anything you can say to sort of preemptively, preemptively address some of these questions that this audience may have or that are swirling out there. Well, a lot of it is swirling because people make it swirl, but it doesn't make it true.
The important thing is, first of all, Israel has achieved stability. We were going through a roller coaster of repeated elections, sometimes twice a year. Three years of horrible instability, with obviously, horrible consequences for the country. Uh, you can't run a country like that if you keep getting, uh, you know, getting these Italian style elections.
Well, I could say that, uh, uh, once, but we are, we've beaten Italy in the frequency of our Elections and the instability of our system. So the fact that we were able to finally get a government in place and a stable one at that I think is very important. The fears about minority rights are absurd. [00:05:00] The fears about individual rights are absurd as well as a democracy, a stellar democracy.
I think one who's Commitment to democratic principles is particularly impressive given that I know of no other democracy that has been faced continuously with threats, uh, to exterminate its people and annihilate the state and yet retained, uh, complete observance of the state. civil rights and minority rights and so on.
And that has remained and will remain a staple of any government that I lead in, frankly, and something that is ingrained in the public very strongly. So these fears, uh, of the collapse of Israel, the end of Israeli democracy, when Israeli democracy has just manifested itself finally, I think are absurd and they're misplaced completely.
As far as the relationship with the United States, I don't think there's a divide, a political divide on the, uh, feeling shared by all [00:06:00] Israelis across the political spectrum, that America is the indispensable ally, as I call it. It's not just another ally, it's the indispensable ally, because it shares more than, uh, growing interest with us, and the interest is growing.
American interest in Israel is growing as rapidly as Israel is becoming a power among the nations and power of technology, innovation, intelligence, cyber, you name it. But it's also a commonality of language, of values. And I think that that is so ingrained that the American Israeli alliances Um, I think it's as solid as ever.
Uh, I spoke yesterday to President Biden. He called me to congratulate me. We've been friends for the last 40 years, um, since I came to Washington as a young diplomat and he came in as a young senator. And so through changing administrations, both in Israel and in the United States, this bond is unshakable.
So I, I wouldn't worry about that either. All right, [00:07:00] I want to start with the, the early part of your book. And the early part of your book is a lot of it is a book. Perhaps, Dan, I could add one other thing. Sure. I'm committed to doing three things. One, stopping Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons that would threaten the one and only Jewish state, but it will also threaten the United States whom they call the great Satan.
They just, uh, relegate us to small Satan. You're the great Satan. And they want to have ICBMs tipped with nuclear warheads to reach you. So we have to stop Iran. The second thing is, uh, uh, I think, uh, um, something that people recognize that we change history with the Abraham Accords, the four peace treaties with Arab states, which we forged, I forged in the last, uh, year of my previous government.
And I'm confident that we can go much further than that. That is not merely have another peace treaty, [00:08:00] but have other peace treaties that will effectively end the Arab Israeli conflict. Remember that the, uh, Palestinians were very, uh, very intransigent and really, um, don't want a peace with Israel. They want a peace without Israel, and they don't want a state next to Israel.
They want a state instead of Israel. So as long as we, people kept saying, you know, you got to go through the Palestinians to get peace with the broader Arab world. We never got there for a quarter of a The Palestinians vetoed any attempt to have peace with another Arab state. I went around them and went directly to the Arab states.
They valued the strong position that I and my governments took against Iran. They valued Israeli technology for the betterment of their people. And as a result, we were able to, uh, to break out from this conceptual Straightjacket. And I believe that we can end the Arab Israeli conflict effectively with the Arab world.
And remember that the [00:09:00] Palestinians are one to two percent of the Arab world. And they were the tail wagging the Arab body. Now that we've gotten around that, I believe that we can make peace with the 98 percent, maybe not with Syria and, I don't know, Iraq. Okay. But basically everyone else. And then get back to a realistic, uh, swivel back to a realistic solution.
With, uh, uh, with the Palestinians, uh, one that we can, how should I say this, live with, literally live with and not die with. And I think that that's what the second objective, I hope. The third is to continue, uh, doing something you reported about, Dan, which is the, the innovation revolution, uh, that has made Israel now a world power.
Probably your audience doesn't know that Israel has just passed. Under the free market policies that my government's put forward, uh, past GDP per capita of Japan, of Britain, of France. [00:10:00] And Germany, and that happened all because of the things that we put in place in the last, uh, uh, the last 15 years under my government.
So, uh, there's much more to go there. Israel will be, and is becoming one of the richest nations on earth, uh, and, uh, that is, I think, very good for Israel, very good for peace, very good for the world. Because it serves all of humanity on that last point, I would just say it's not just what your governments did in the last 15 years.
It's what you did as finance minister in the early 2000s, where I mean, there's some of the most fascinating chapters to me in the book are the chapters on the economic reform story, which have gotten less attention in the public press coverage of the book, but they are an incredible case study of of an economic miracle.
And, um, it's not just, it's not just these last 15 years, but some of the, uh, steps that were taken and reforms put in place in those early 2000s when it was, uh, not so easy to be a free market [00:11:00] reformer, uh, in Israel. So, uh, it was, it was like changing the psychology and culture of a country. Well, it required that.
That's the time that I was asked by, uh, Sharon to be, it was prime minister to be, uh, finance minister. We were in the worst. economic crisis in Israel for decades. And obviously people, my advisors told me, you know, take whatever ministry you want, but don't take finance because you'll never come back to being prime minister.
If you do, you'd have to, you know, agitate limbs, you know, cut budgets, do horrible things and so on. Uh, so, um, uh, I said, well, what do you think I want to be prime minister for? Basically, I have two goals. One, to stop Iran, and second, to build Israel's economic might, which I saw as the indispensable foundation for our military might, and the two are obviously the indispensable foundation for our national survival, because if you're [00:12:00] weak, you know, the weak get devoured.
The strong survive and the strong make peace. Don't make peace with the weak, and you don't make alliances with the weak. And to survive, Israel had to be strong, very strong. And to make it strong, it had to be transformed from a semi socialist country with 17, 000 GDP per capita to a roaring free market tiger.
And that required a series of reforms. Dozens of them. And, uh, so I decided to, uh, I said, well, maybe I won't get to be prime minister, but at least I'll get to revolutionize Israel's economy and thereby help, uh, secure its, uh, prosperity, its, uh, security and ultimately its permanence, which is what I'm, what my life mission is to do that.
Uh, and then we had to go through the, the turbulent process of, uh, transforming, as I say, assembly socialist society into a [00:13:00] capitalist one. And that was Difficult. Um, but, uh, I think Ben Linton said never let a crisis go to waste. Well, I didn't let that crisis go to waste. And, uh, we made a lot of reforms, a lot of them.
I, you talked about Iran a minute ago and I I'll get the, the early part of your book a little later, cause you brought up these issues, you brought up a normalization with the Arab world. You brought up Iran and you brought up the Palestine issue. So let's just get to those right now. When you became prime minister, when you, last time you entered.
Prime minister's office. 2009. You had a new administration in Washington, the Obama administration. That was what you write a lot about that was seeking beginning or was about to begin seeking some kind of rapprochement with Iran. You also had a revolution or what seemed like the beginnings of a revolution, the green revolution in the streets of Iran.
So there's a real threat to the regime. And you had just come from about a decade or decade and a half Of working, leading efforts to pressure Iran from inside [00:14:00] government, from the opposition, from private sector life. You have been working on a number of issues, initiatives, which you chronicle in the book and that Recall from conversations I'd had with you back then.
So you come into office and Iran seems like it's under threat. The regime seems like it's under threat and you had a regime and you had a administration watching that was was trying to calm things down and and reach some kind of approach some kind of dialogue with Iran. So here you are coming into office again and You have a similar situation with an administration in Washington that's been trying to seek some kind of arrangement accommodation with Iran, reenter the JCPOA, however stalled those negotiations may be.
And you have, you know, a real protest movement on the streets of, of Iran that seemed that they could be the greatest threat to the Iranian regime that anything I've seen in my lifetime. So it's sort of like, here you are again, you're back at it again. With very similar circumstances, [00:15:00] how does, what, what it's informed you, I guess, from the last time you've been through this and what you write about in the book in terms of how you're going to approach this now.
Well, I think you, I think you pointed out what the great difference is. There is a, um, uh, a protest movement, incredibly brave. Iranian men and Iranian women. I mean, it's startling and, uh, and something that arouses universal admiration. And the fact is now that the true face of this regime, which was always blanketed by charm offensive, by all sorts of diplomatic, uh, uh, maneuvers, uh, people are now around the world can see the true and ugly face of this regime, uh, that denies people their most basic and fundamental rights.
And so that has created a, I would say, an opportunity to coalesce forces, actually left to right almost, which wasn't the case before, [00:16:00] left to right across the political spectrum against Iran. It's not just an Israel thing. It's not just a wing of the American polity that is against Iran. Everybody's against Iran.
And this creates Political opportunities. It probably creates other opportunities as well. But if you ask me, does that change matters? Yes, it creates possibilities, but not it doesn't change the imperative. The imperative I have is that this regime that is openly committed To destroying the one and only Jewish state will not achieve its means.
And I will, as Prime Minister, do whatever I can to enable Israel to defend itself by itself against any threat. If we can have allies, fine. If not, we'll do what we need to do alone. And actually we've been doing quite a bit over the years. Cannot describe all the things in my book, uh, obviously. In fact, I described pretty much none of the things in my book except [00:17:00] one operation, which was, uh, have you ever seen the movie, uh, um, Argos?
Yeah. Argo. Argo. Yeah. Argo. Argo. Argo. Yeah. It's been an athlete. Yeah. Okay. Well, this is, uh, I call it Argo on steroids because I sent the Mossad to, um, uh, a suburb of Tehran, capital of Iran, where they, entered a dilapidated warehouse, uh, broke into it. Uh, it was a cover for Iran's secret nuclear, well, secret atomic archive.
And they broke through the, uh, the safes, very sophisticated safes, and took half a ton of material. Uh, the Iranians gave chase to them, uh, thousands of Iranian police and security officials just chasing them, uh, into Iran, and they made it out, and they brought back half a ton of material, uh, which showed that Iran was [00:18:00] lying through its teeth, that it was, as early as 20 years ago, uh, committed to developing five nuclear, uh, bombs Hiroshima bombs.
That's them 20 years ago, uh, and documented how they launched their nuclear program and how they hit it. Uh, and, uh, I described that, uh, can't describe anything else, but we did a lot of other things. I could read about them occasionally in the press, but we don't take credit for it. So when When you came into office in 2009, uh, the new administration, the Obama administration had also launched a reset, if you will, with its relations with Moscow, with Russia.
And today, linking that issue to what you're talking about with Iran, Iran is supplying drones and for all we know other, uh, armaments to Russia at a time that the West is basically at war. Uh, with Iran, either explicitly or implicitly, how does that also change the conversation with Iran in terms of what's happening with Russia, Ukraine and how you [00:19:00] approach Washington and Europe because Europe has been doubling down, tripling down on on normalization with Iran, and suddenly Iran is helping support Russia.
In a war that is working aggressively against European interests and obviously American interests. Well, maybe you should rethink their support for the, um, what they call the JCPOA, this nuclear deal with Iran, which would remove sanctions from Iran and from everyone else, including Russia. So that doesn't make sense.
They keep saying they don't want. to strengthen either party, but they are doing that if they adopt the nuclear deal, which I think right now is suspended anyway because of the, uh, those pictures emanating from, uh, from the Iran cities and showing the subjugation, uh, and, uh, uh, violence done to ordinary Iranian citizens.
We're just protesting for their basic freedoms, so I think that may have been put on hold, but the relationship between Russia and Iran, [00:20:00] uh, is, uh, is, uh, um, actually consists of two positions. On the one hand, they cooperate, as you see also in Ukraine, uh, and in many other ways. On the other hand, they were in a kind of tacit competition in Syria.
In Syria, um, after the, um, as the civil war ebbed out. They were both competing to be the dominant force in Syria. Now, the problem with the Iranian competition there was that they were trying to use Syria as a military base against Israel, essentially developing another Hezbollah like Lebanon front along our northern border with Syria.
And my position, my policy as Prime Minister was to prevent them at all costs, which meant basically using the Israeli Air Force to go against any attempts of Iranian military emplacements. In Syria directed against us, all of it was directed against us. So we had many, many [00:21:00] bombing sorties of Iranian positions, Iranian equipment, Iranian weapons, Iranian personnel.
They wanted to have their, uh, uh, an army of between 80 to 100, 000 Shiite militia commanded by, uh, Iranian generals to open up a war front. And I was equally committed to make sure they can do it. Well, in these bombing strafes and these air operations, uh, our pilots would literally run into Russian pilots because they were there with their air force.
And so they were literally within spitting distance. I mean that spitting distance from each other. And we could have had, um, basically a Russian Israeli, uh, mini war developed there, which I don't think would serve our interests to put it mildly. So I made sure that we coordinated with Russia. Uh, not to do that.
And we were able to do that. So in all other relationships, Iran and Syria cooperated in Iran and Russia cooperated on [00:22:00] matters relating to Syria, Russia had a laid back hands off policy and, um, our freedom of action in the skies over Syria was maintained. That still remains an issue, but I look also at the Ukraine tragedy and I ask myself, uh, what is it that we should be doing and not be doing?
Um, and that's something that I'm going to, it's one of the first things that I'm going to be briefed on and look into and decide how we should manage it. I've been somewhat out of it for a year and a half. Give me time to write my book, by the way. It wasn't all wasted, uh, and so I'll look into it, but it's a terrible tragedy.
If there's anything that I can do to bring it into that tragedy, believe me, I'll do it. If you deliberately stayed quiet on commenting on how the current government, the government you're succeeding has handled this delicate balance between Russia and Israel and the Russia Ukraine crisis. Yeah, you know, I [00:23:00] learned on many over a lifetime in politics, it's, you're always ahead when you economize on words, you know, give you think first, study the facts first, decide first, then talk.
Okay. Uh, you talked about the Palestinian issue a moment, a moment ago. I want to come back to that. I want to refer to a Another book that you wrote, not, not your, your biography, but this book, all right, this is a book I read in the mid nineties. You can see it there on the screen. Uh, a place among the nations, Israel and the world.
I remember reading that as a, uh, young student in which you laid out an idea that seemed preposterous at the time, which among other things, uh, peace in the Middle East. will not be achieved by an Israeli Palestinian normalization. It may ultimately play a role, but that it would have to be this sort of outside in scenario.
That Israel would have to normalize [00:24:00] with the Arab world, and then the Palestinians would join that effort rather than the other way around. You know, to use your, your, as opposed to the tail wagging the dog metaphor that you used a moment ago. Again, when the book came out, I was interested in it. I think a number of what we readers in the West are written or interested in it.
If you comment in your new book, no one in Israel paid attention to it. It barely got covered in Israel. It was, uh, either they want to slight you or they just ignored it because it seemed so preposterous. And here we are today in the middle of what seems like a real normalization effort that seems in a sense to come out of nowhere to most, uh, observers.
And You're you're entering office like a whole new world. And so the normalization is well underway. A lot of it happened while you were prime minister last time, uh, you say you want to continue it. Let's talk specifically about the country that is the sort of the golden get, if you will, Saudi Arabia. Uh, what is your based on your experience?
What is your experience about Saudi attitudes towards normalization? And do you [00:25:00] think with more time in office, which you're now going to get? Uh, that is, that is really possible in a concrete way. Yeah, I think it is, uh, and understand that the Abraham Accords, the peace treaties that Israel had with, uh, four Arab states, uh, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, uh, Sudan and Morocco, that didn't happen without Saudi, uh, uh, approval, uh, because at least some of these countries are, uh, like to know.
what their big neighbor, Saudi Arabia, is thinking about it. And I assure you, it wasn't negative about it. That's an understatement. Also remember that Saudi Arabia, as a prelude to the Abraham Accords, opened its skies for aircraft coming to and leaving from Israel, flying over Saudi airspace. So you understand that that, um, the fact that they, um, favor these agreements is expressed also in concrete Saudi actions.
Now, um, I don't think Saudi [00:26:00] Arabia is just another country, you know, just the, it's not, let's add number five, I think it's qualitatively different if we have peace with Saudi Arabia, I think will effectively be ending the Arab Israeli conflict. Because if you look at the composition of the Arab world, we already had decades ago, peace with Egypt and Jordan, waited a quarter of a century until, um, until I was able to go around the Palestinian veto to four Arab countries additional, but Saudi Arabia obviously would.
Uh, tilt the balance enormously. And uh, I think it's a worthy goal. I think it's within reach. We'll have to look into it more carefully. But yes, that would be the, that would be a tremendous success. And by the way, it would also open up all sorts of possibilities like connecting the Saudi rail system, 200 kilometers.
That's all you need to get through the system. The bridges of the Jordan right to Haifa get a direct connection [00:27:00] from the Arabian Peninsula to the Mediterranean without having to go through two straits that are always problematic because of Iran. It could also create enormous investments. It would also create the direct accessibility of, uh, to Israeli innovation and technology.
Uh, in, uh, in Saudi Arabia and the Arabian, um, Peninsula all together, it's, uh, the sharing of markets, investments, it's happened in trade. I mean, these things are taking shape before our eyes in the Abraham Accords, and people can't believe, you know, can't believe that hundreds of thousands of Israelis are visiting, uh, Dubai.
Um, and that Arabs and Israelis are embracing each other in the streets. By the way, there's a Cafe Bibi in Dubai. I intend to visit it. All right. Uh, I want to talk, you write a lot about your dealings with U. S. presidents in the book. So I want to talk about three of those presidents and your [00:28:00] impressions of them and your dealings with them.
We'll start with President Clinton, who you point out in the book tried to defeat you twice. Tried to try to intervene, uh, in, you know, not explicitly in, in Israeli elections in 1996 to help Shimon Peres win that race. And then in 1990, 1999 to help, uh, Barak, uh, defeat you. And yet you said, despite those, uh, and other sometimes heated dealings you had with the Clinton administration, he was, uh, you had this What you said was a wonderful relationship with him personally, and he found him very, uh, easy to deal with, even though there were these very tense moments.
Can you just talk a little bit about, um, your, your impression? I mean, you're, you're, you're a student of American history and politics, so I'm curious about your impressions of these American leaders. Let's start with President Clinton. Well, I wrote that it's difficult to dislike President Clinton because he has such a glint in his eye and such a And he was, it was wonderfully politically incorrect.
I mean, when, uh, came [00:29:00] to, uh, office first time in 1996, he called me up and he said, baby, I got to hand it to you. You beat us square and square. We tried to bring you down, but you, you beat us. So, so sorry. And so, yeah, it's like, how do you respond to that? How do you respond to that? Well, I'm glad I won and let's work together.
That's it. That's right. So obviously, look, my differences with American presidents, uh, uh, were not, uh, based contrary to what people think on personality differences, but on policy differences. The, at least two of these administrations were, uh, committed to this idea. that you have to solve the Palestinian Israeli problem because that's the core of the conflict, always in the singular, in the Middle East, core of the conflict.
You know, there's no place in the world that is so ripe with conflicts. As the Middle East, Arab against Arab, Arab against non Arab, Shiite against Sunnis, [00:30:00] uh, everybody against everybody and everybody hating the West, anyway. And people got the idea that, uh, you know, if only you can solve the Arab Israeli conflict, the enmity towards the West would, uh, be removed.
Well, it sort of goes back several centuries before there was an Israel. And if I assure you that if, uh, Israel were to disappear, or if you'd replace Israel with, say, Belgium, that enmity to the West would continue as long as these radical anti Western, um, and often fundamentalist forces are there. Uh, and in a way Israel is a stopgap against these radical anti American and anti Israeli anti Western forces.
So number one was the idea that you solve with a magic panacea the Arab Israeli conflict. or the Arab animosity to the West by having Israel solve the Palestinian Israeli conflict, and the way to solve the Palestinian Israeli conflict was to cede land, [00:31:00] strategic land, to the Palestinians. They'd be satisfied, they'd get the hills above Tel Aviv or around Jerusalem or within Jerusalem, and that's it.
Of course there are two problems with that. The first one is it's not true. You don't solve anything by solving the Israeli Palestinian problem because the real battle in the Middle East is between the radicals and the modernists. The fundamentalists and the modernists in Israel is definitely with the modernists.
The second problem was that the Palestinians weren't interested, as I said before, in a peace with Israel, but in a peace that would eliminate Israel. And so anytime we gave them territory, whether in Gaza or Lebanon, they used it as basically as a terrorist basis from which they launched roughly now 25, 000 rockets into Israel, uh, and more.
Uh, that didn't do anything. It just whetted their appetites to see Israel in the sea. Uh, and as long as you don't have a reformation. In Palestinian society, um, [00:32:00] then you're not going to have a change in this formula. And the only way that the rejectionist would be, uh, would be, uh, if not eliminated, then at least overcome is by having the, uh, uh, massive counterweight that would isolate them and eventually Persuade the Palestinians that they have to go elsewhere.
And I believe that that counterweight is the Arab world. So I went around to the Arab world. I couldn't persuade Clinton with that. I couldn't persuade President Obama with that. I couldn't persuade them at all. Took me a while to persuade President Trump. It wasn't immediate either. It took a while. So, uh, that was the crux of the difference on Palestinians.
There was also a difference on Iran. I thought that the nuclear deal that, um, uh, president Obama, uh, put forth with Iran would endanger the survival of Israel, and I think would endanger the United States too because it paved Iran's path with gold, hundreds of billions of dollars of, [00:33:00] uh, sanctions, relief, and investments that would be used not to better the lives of Iranians.
Look at their lives. But to build this atomic arsenal and project terrorism throughout the Middle East and beyond. And that's why I went to Congress. I described that in some detail in my book. I had an easy decision to go to the joint session of Congress and speak against a sitting American president and any American president.
whatever, you know, from whatever party, for whatever administration, is the leader of our ally. It's not something that you, uh, you do light headedly. But I, I did it because I felt that my country's survival was in peril. And so I, if Israel wouldn't raise the torch, against this deal, then it would flicker out.
And nobody's going to be more Catholic than the Pope, and nobody's going to be more pro Israel than the Israelis themselves. So as the Prime Minister of Israel, I went into the lion's den, if you will, and spoke what I [00:34:00] thought was the truth. And I'm glad to see that now many more people agree with the position that I put forward.
So it was a policy difference, not a personality difference, and not something that was driven by any other consideration. But I always say that, uh, on differences of opinion that we have with American presidents of whatever party, and I've had them with all parties, with all presidents, it's what we call differences of opinion in the family, in the mishpochah.
Uh, you know, You, you write in the book that when you first met with President Obama, when I think, I think he was then Senator Obama, you met with him in some airport or something. You guys had a private meeting. You came out of the meeting and you said to your advisor, Ron Dermer, I think we can work with this guy.
And then you fast forward in the book to being in the Oval Office with your first meeting with. President Obama, my wife said he's going to win the primaries. That's what she said. Okay. So, so she says you're going to win and she was right. Then you go into [00:35:00] the white house as prime minister and he's president and he basically all but grabs you by the lapel on your way out the door.
And says, I'm from Chicago and I'm paraphrasing here, but he basically says, you know, if people mess with us, we mess back hard and we slit people's throats. And he can use, I mean, I don't know, I can quote from the book, but it was pretty aggressive language. And it's, you say you were sort of jostled by this exchange with him.
So what, what happened, how did it go from, we can work with this guy to you come out of that first Oval Office meeting and think this is going to be. This is going to be complicated. Well, the meeting was in, uh, I think in the superintendent's office in Reagan National Airport. And he was coming back from campaigning and I was leaving Washington and that was the only place we could meet.
So it centered on, um, my, uh, suggestion to him to, uh, have a federal, uh, law in the United States to stop, uh, investments of, uh, uh, pension funds, state pension funds. [00:36:00] In Iran and he said, I'm gonna put forward a bill next week, which he did. So I was very much impressed with that. Uh, and, uh, uh, we had, you know, basically we had a very good conversation, uh, over the coming months.
I could see, um, um, flickers of policy that concern me. For example, the president spoke about, uh, Jerusalem being the united capital of Israel before an APEC audience, but he walked that back, uh, hours later or a day later. Uh, and, uh, there were other things that Concern me. Uh, so, uh, you know, the policy is the policy.
He had a different policy on Palestinians. He had a different policy on Iran. Uh, and, uh, I, I think it's. It's a question of how do you manage that? What do you do? You're a small country, um, tremendously grateful for American, uh, military support for Israel, which is an [00:37:00] investment in American defense. Uh, 75 percent of the money that, um, is given to Israel is spent buying things in the United States.
It's actually, creates jobs in the United States. And it's, uh, uh, as one Southern Senator said to me. Uh, you know, for less than 4 billion a year, we're getting the best ally. If we had, uh, uh, another Israel, uh, where Afghanistan is, we wouldn't have spent a trillion dollars in loss. Uh, so, uh, he, he thought it was a good investment.
Many Americans feel the same way, but you should know that I also, in my first speech in Congress under, during Clinton's administration, I, uh, committed to, uh, eliminate, uh, uh, Over 10 years, the financial support that we were getting, not the military support. So the economic aid. Yeah, I just got rid of it because I said, we're coming of age, we can, we can handle it ourselves.
And Israel is going to be a rich country because we'll make it a free market country, which is [00:38:00] what happened. So the differences we had were despite the fact that we valued enormously the american assistance to Israel, the fact that we shared so many things, but on matters that affected Israel's survival and were not seen that way by successive American administrations.
So it is something that I stood my ground out on is I think every, every Israeli prime minister should be doing. They don't always do it, but I always do. When you entered politics formally, It was 1988 in Israel. You were 38 years old. As you write in the book at that point, you would spend half or at least half of your life in the United States, six years of which were doing diplomatic work at the United Nations and at the Israeli embassy in Washington.
But still, it's many of your formative years. We're in the United States. In fact, that was one of the big criticisms of you when you returned to Israel and got involved in Israeli politics. And here we are today, the longest serving, uh, longest serving Israeli prime minister. As I mentioned at the beginning of this [00:39:00] conversation, the only prime minister to have returned to office twice after your your first term in office.
Um, yeah. Is that odd to you that like this person who spent so much time outside of Israel has now been this very long time serving leader of Israel? I mean, do you ever, do you ever think about the role that the United States had and who you are and how you've led and how you've approached geopolitics, statesmanship, domestic Israeli politics, your relations with the United States?
Well, I came to the U. S. for the first time as an eight year old. I didn't know a word of English. My parents lived in the Cameron Hotel in Manhattan. I went to a public school, 166. The teachers put this little Jewish girl, Judy, and she taught me a few words of English every day from, [00:40:00] you know, one of these colored books.
You see a dog. This is Spot. Spot is a dog. Run, Spot. That's how I owe Judy my English. After a year or so, I went back and then came back to the United States, spent my high school years there, and I was very lucky to be in a terrific high school. Uh, terrific teachers. Uh, and, uh, obviously again, it was a preparatory, uh, stage.
I then went to five years in the military and served as a soldier and officer in a special combat unit, commander unit, really, uh, elite force. And then went to school, uh, at MIT, uh, and worked for two years in the Boston Consulting Group. That was, uh, so my, and then called into, uh, diplomatic office, uh, later.
Um, so my years in America were really years of education, uh, uh, broken. They weren't a continuous stint. [00:41:00] They were. Uh, segments of my life in which I was able to acquire my acquiring acquaintance and a deep intimacy with American life, American values, and I grew to appreciate the United States enormously, but I never lost sight of the fact that America wasn't my home.
My home was Israel, my country was Israel, but I learned to have a tremendous respect for the United States and a tremendous confidence. in many of the things that I learned in the United States, especially the power of free markets. That's where, you know, if you ask where does the, um, shifting of Israel from, uh, almost a socialist country to a free market country, where does that emanate from?
It emanates in many ways from my experiences in the United States and seeing how Great thriving, innovative free market economy works. And I said we can replicate that. It is [00:42:00] because human nature is human nature. Give people freedom and they do wondrous things. I'm going to take a few questions from the audience that have come in.
But before I do, I just have one. I have one final question for you. Uh, your relationship with your father. Looms large in your book, and I'm, and I'm going to quote Andrew Roberts, the historian, uh, in, in, in when he posed a question to you where he basically quoted Disraeli, Benjamin Disraeli, who Disraeli famously said that he was, he felt like he was born in a library because he was the child of a public intellectual.
And I, you know, that. Similar to you in a sense, Ben Sion was this iconic historian, public intellectual, professor, professor in Israel, professor in the United States. Can you, I mean there's a lot to hear and there's a lot in the book, but just generally as you think about statesmanship and geopolitics and leading a country, what advice, I know your father gave you a lot of advice that informed, and also not later in life, but also as a child, that informed how you think about this role.
Can you just spend a couple [00:43:00] minutes sharing some of those, some of those ideas and the influence he had? Well, first of all, you know, Disraeli was only born in a library. I was born and raised in a library. Every room was covered with tomes, you know, thousands of books that my father was a great historian and read.
And obviously he influenced me in that direction. So, you know, you could always replenish. Uh, your intellectual capital, contrary to what Kissinger said. Kissinger said that once you enter public office, you, uh, you're drawn intellectual capital, you assume before that. Well, you know, you can sort of go around that if you just read it.
I read voraciously even now. So all the time, especially now, because that's also my escape, uh, uh, and my haven. Uh, but also my guide, especially history books. Now, um, you ask what is, what advice my father gave? First of all, he gave me very little, uh, in practical terms and [00:44:00] political matters. We hardly discussed politics.
This is, this may come as a shock, but he didn't waste time to say, oh, you'll have this or that problem or whatever. He would talk to me about the largest sweep of things of history of, uh, Global politics, but seldom if ever we discussed Israeli politics, he, um, he said it wasn't very different from the court politics of the, uh, the medieval Spanish kings, which he had studied the same thing.
Doesn't really, you know, people have ambitions, they have jealousies, they have, they make alliances. Uh, against one another and so on. I, I find that actually boring , but it's the necessary stuff of, uh, of, uh, of politics because that's how human beings work. Uh, but the, they compete and they cooperate. But, uh, when I went, decided to become prime minister, um, I asked him a question.
I said, what do you think is the most important quality that you [00:45:00] have to have, uh, in order to become the prime minister of Israel, to be the prime minister of Israel, not to become, to be the prime minister of Israel? And he asked me, well, what do you think? And I said, well, you have to have a vision of where you want to take the country.
I definitely had that. Uh, and you have to, uh, be resilient enough to pursue the vision, but flexible enough to navigate around the various obstacles to get you to the, uh, the goal. And he said, well, that's true of anyone leading any organization. It's true if you're a, you know, a head of a business company.
It's true if you're a head of the university. It's true of anything. So I said, so what do you think is indispensable to being the prime minister of Israel? And he shot back one word, which I thought was odd, but obviously I think differently today. He said, education, a broad and deep education, because he said, [00:46:00] otherwise, You'd be at the mercy of your clerks, right?
You have to, you have to have a grounding in, um, in history and economics, military affairs and law. You have to have that, um, and you have to have that multiplicity of deep and broad education, as he says, in order to, to know what they're telling you and to know what to ask them to tell you and to accept you.
Or put aside the various things that are given to you. And I think that this was, uh, probably the most, um, I would say the most, um, astute observation that I had. And over the years I found it, uh, getting truer and truer and truer as I made my way on the, on what is really called the greasy pole of politics.
Uh, it certainly was the case during the pandemic, actually, where you, you know, you could have easily been captured by a very [00:47:00] impressive, uh, public health bureaucracy in Israel, but you needed to manage that bureaucracy. Uh, and you needed to know stuff. Any leader needs to know stuff to, to navigate through a crisis, whether it's a security crisis or a public health crisis or an economic crisis.
Well, actually, that was fortuitous because Because I felt back on something that when the pandemic broke out, um, I recognized early on before it was declared as a global epidemic, I declared it as such in Israel, but I knew something else. I'd remember the first course I had in statistics at MIT, and the course Uh, lecture, um, described the mathematics of pandemics.
Okay. And the thing that made the deepest impression on me was that as it grows geometrically, it starts. Normally it just, you know, cruise slowly and then all of a sudden there's a ski slope. It goes up, um, like a wall. [00:48:00] And there's hardly any time from the time that it goes flat, not flat, but you know, shallow slope to a very steep slope.
And human thinking is actually counterintuitive to that. Human thinking is actually intuitive and not counterintuitive. Most people think if there's a disease that breaks out, you know, people are infected, and the infection rate will remain the same. So they're, they're, they don't understand that a great tsunami is coming.
Well, I understood that. And so I understood that I had very little time to close. the deal that I ultimately closed with Pfizer to supply Israel with millions of vaccines, uh, because I knew that, um, when that happens, when the pandemic reaches this high curve, that there'll be a vaccine war between powers that are a thousand times bigger than Israel or a hundred times bigger than Israel, and we would have no advantage.
Time was my advantage, and I [00:49:00] used what I learned at MIT in the first statistics course, class of the statistics course, to, uh, get the advantage. So, uh, I guess educate, I guess my father was right. I want to go to some questions, uh, we have from the audience. I'll start here. Uh, what will your government, this is from, uh, Gabby asks, what will your government do to fight the rising anti Semitic activity around the world and specifically in the U.
S.? As you know, there's been a lot of high profile. Um, there's the. Rate of violent anti semitic attacks has gone up, but also the public statements by celebrities, Kanye West, the athlete, professional basketball player, Kyrie Irving with the Brooklyn Nets, there's been statements that, you know, the Farrakhan like statements that one, we just thought they were gone, we just thought they were over, we thought that that was so, you know, so impolitic that no one, let alone major celebrities who had massive commercial deals and, you know, were, had so much at stake would start Trafficking in this stuff, and then it's here, [00:50:00] and it's a little unnerving as a Jew who lives in the United States in New York City.
So, you're Prime Minister of Israel. What is your reaction? Well, the most important thing is to speak out against it. Take a stand, be forceful against it. Don't, you're not going to hide it and get it. It's not, it's not a wave that will pass over your head. Like, you know, like a sunny beach. I mean, you have to take a stand.
I did, by the way, I spoke, I was asked about that. I mean, I think I'm a program of Bill Maher. Bill Maher. Yeah. And since unbelievable, you know, uh, when, uh, you know, it's an age old disease and you have to keep fighting it every age. Uh, the, the communist said the Jews were capitalists, the capitalist said the Jews were communists.
And every time somebody has a problem, you know, blame the Jews. So the Jews should speak up. First of all, nobody will defend you if you don't defend yourself. Speak out, stand up. Don't, don't be timid about it. You know, I, [00:51:00] I, I think that is the, uh, the, the starting point of, uh, of a, a response, uh, and look at the founding of Israel was never.
meant by the founding fathers of Zionism to eliminate, uh, anti Semitism. It's been around about 2, 500 years as an ideology, so it's not going to disappear so quickly. And every age has its new anti Semites and its new nodes of anti Semitism. It's not going to disappear. What the rise of the State of Israel Uh, has done is not to eliminate anti Semitism, but to allow the Jewish people to fight back against anti Semitism, violent anti Semitism, uh, in the case of the armies or the pogroms or the massacres or the holocausts that were directed against us, so we are able to defend ourselves against them, but also to fight against them with, with words, with, um, morality, with protest, protest, protest, And that should, [00:52:00] should be something that should unite Jews everywhere.
And remember, you, uh, you're fortunate to live in, uh, in a great free country. Your voices can be heard, and you should, you should make it be heard. Linda asks, as a parent of a daughter who made aliyah a year and a half ago, how important is American aliyah? to Israel? Well, uh, everyone that comes to Israel is number one welcome.
It's an individual decision, but I think that American Jews, when they come to Israel right now, well, you know, my goal is to make Americans come to Israel to, uh, to better their, uh, their incomes. You're not laughing. Okay. Uh, to improve their economic situation. Okay. You're laughing. Don't laugh. I won't remember this.
Okay. I mean, it may very well happen, but of course, that's not the reason why [00:53:00] American Jews come here. Those who choose to come here, come here because it's a Jewish state. It's because it's our ancestral homeland. It's because, uh, they're fulfilling, perhaps, uh, Zionist dreams, personal dreams that they've had, and they're all welcome to come here.
Uh, they've had a tremendous contribution. Uh, remember that, uh, uh, Israeli high tech was, uh, first recognized by American, uh, investors, many of them were Jewish, not all, but many of them were Jewish, who recognized the tremendous potential, global potential of Israeli technology, and they, uh, Uh, they, that partnership and that investment gave Israel a wondrous, uh, uh, program to move the world and move Israel's place in the world.
So that's one example, but there are many others. You, uh, there's a question here, uh, about what you would have done had you not gone into politics. So if you, if you had chosen not to choose the public life you had chosen, do you ever think about. What [00:54:00] you would have been doing instead. Yeah, well, um, you know, I didn't exactly choose this life, it more or less chose me.
Because after my, um, my brother fell in Entebbe, and I describe this, um, uh, in my book, um, I was swept into, uh, what I'd call public policy, because he only died in the War of Terror, in the most spectacular rescue mission in modern times. Uh, as Drew Liddleton, the military analyst of the New York Times called it, um, it was, he called it an operation with no precedent in military history.
Uh, but even though Yoni fell fighting terrorists militarily, he never thought that it was just a military, uh, battle. He thought it was a civilizational battle. And I changed the course of my life to basically try to recruit the free world to broader moral [00:55:00] and political battle, as well as military battle, against the forces of international terrorism.
And from there, I was swept into, um, not public policy, but into actual politics. uh, in Israel. Uh, when I when we'll share, it's as as, uh, as deputy in the there, I made my way to p a journey. Uh, but what w Um, had I not done, I was studying to be an architect, believe it or not. So practicing another kind of architecture now, or a writer, probably a writer.
I enjoy writing. All right. Last question from Eric. He asks, what was your proudest moment as an Israeli citizen or soldier? And Eric, with all due respect, I'm going to amend the question. So yes, we want to know your proudest moment as an Israeli citizen or soldier, and also your greatest regret. And you, you talked about some of your regrets in the book.
So I, I know you've, you've obviously thought about this. [00:56:00] So what's your answer to both? Well, the regrets are easy because you have a lot of, uh, you know, a lot of, uh, things that you learn over time. And the most important thing is, um, to treat, um, your fellow, your fellow politicians with, uh, uh, demonstrable respect.
And it's not that I was, um, you know, I was just a young man in a hurry. So I didn't always devote time to some of the elder people, uh, and, uh, some, but, but I think over time that corrected itself. First of all, people like Moshe Arens and, and, uh, and Shamir, once you got into office in terms of your dealings with some of the senior, yeah, I think I would have liked to spend more time with them and I didn't, uh, so things like that are obvious, but they're not.
They're not, uh, um, they're not life changing. The life changing things that I could say, I was very proud when we had the Abraham Accords, uh, when [00:57:00] after years and years of effort, we could break the, uh, you know, expand the circle of peace and open the gateway to what I think will be the ending of the Arab Israeli conflict.
I thought that was great. I was proud when we were able to take actions, which I don't itemize, um, that hurt me. rolled back Iran's quest for nuclear weapons by at least a decade. Um, but also as the, uh, departing chief of staff has said, um, and he's correct about that, uh, Israel's chief of staff, but the moment that is perhaps the most pointed.
Um, well, and I was proud of my wife and my boys, weathered political storms and often vilifications that are hard to fathom, slanderous vilifications. So I'm very proud of them and their achievements. But the most poignant [00:58:00] moment was when I, um, uh, when I learned of my brother's death in Entebbe, and even worse than that, when I had to go to Ithaca, New York from Boston to tell them about Yoni's fall.
And, uh, that moment obviously was the most, uh, difficult moment in my life. Uh, I can tell you that I had many scrapes with death, which I described in my military service. I had a few scrapes with political death, as you say, because you'd be surprised to know that somebody, um, checked this out today and gave me a statistic.
He said to me, do you know that you're the only one who came back twice, uh, in, uh, in the democracies to, uh, high political office, the highest political office? In 75 years, nobody in the world came back twice. So I've been back from the near death in the military, [00:59:00] um, nearly died in a, uh, in a firefight, um, drowned in the Suez canal in a firefight, uh, in the war of attrition that we had with Egypt, uh, was shot while rescuing, um, a plane of hostages and been grew in an airport in Tel Aviv.
You almost froze on Mount Hermon. Well, almost froze to death, um, and all, and was bitten by a scorpion, you name it, and, uh, flew in the air in multiple traffic accidents, was almost run down by, uh, uh, a phantom, uh, fighter plane. And did operations, you know, uh, you know, going, did operations in almost every country that borders Israel, right?
Going in over darkness of night. What's the almost? All right, everyone. Okay. So I've had a life full of adventures, but again, scrapes with death. But when you only died, I died. And when I had to tell my parents, uh, [01:00:00] it was like dying twice. So I was able to recover from that. And I described how. In the book.
Yeah, that section of the book is incredibly powerful. I encourage people to read it. I also encourage people to read the letters of Yoni Netanyahu, which I have here, which I feel like every every young Jew that's thinking about a Jewish life and a Zionist life and their role in the diaspora and the diaspora relations with Israel or potentially the role in Israel should read.
Uh, Yoni's letters. Um, Prime Minister Netanyahu, thank you for taking this time. I know you're incredibly busy. I encourage those who have not yet read Bibi, my story to read it. Uh, it was a wonderful discussion. Of course, we only scratched the surface. Uh, hopefully we can, uh, we can continue it at some point and go deeper on some of these topics.
But until then, uh, stay safe, stay well and, um, and best of luck as you are. Balancing a lot of [01:01:00] complex issues right now. Uh, really appreciate the time. Thank you very much, Dan, and thank you. Thank you, audience. Thank you very much.
And that's our show for today. To get Prime Minister Netanyahu's book, which I highly recommend, you can go to your favorite local bookseller or to barnesandnoble. com or to that. e commerce site, which I think these days they're calling Amazon. And of course, to keep up with programming at the Stryker Center, just go to stryker.
nyc. That's s t r e i c k e r dot n y c. Call Me Back is produced by Ilan Benatar. Until next time, I'm your host, Dan Senor.