#389 – Benjamin Netanyahu: Israel, Palestine, Power, Corruption, Hate, and Peace
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The following is a conversational Benjamin, yahoo, prime minister of israel, currently serving his sixth term in office. He's one of the most influential, powerful and controversial men in the world, leading a right wing coalition government at the center of one of the most intense and long lasting conflicts in crisis in human history.

As we spoke and as I speak now, large scale protests are breaking out all over israel, over the government's proposed judicial reform that seeks to weaken supreme court in a bold accumulation of power, given the current intense political battles in israel. Previous intention to speak for three hours was adJusting to one hour for the time being, but we agreed to speak again for much longer in the future. I will also interview people who harshly disagree with a word spoken in this conversation.

I will speak with other world leaders, with religious leaders, with historians and activists, and with people who have lived and have suffered through the pain of war, destruction and loss that stoke the fires of anger and hate in their heart. For this, I will travel anywhere, no matter how dangerous, if there's any chance you may help add to understanding and love in the world. I believe in the power of conversation to do justice, to remind us of our common humanity.

I know i'm under qualified and underscores for these conversations, so I will often fall short, and I will certainly be attacked, derided and slenderer, but I will always turn the other cheek and use these attacks to learn, to improve. And no matter what, never give entire innis m this life, this world of ours, is too beautiful not to keep trying, trying to do some good in whatever way each of us know how I love you all. And now a quick view.

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You're loved by many people here in israel in the world, but you're also hated by many. In fact, I think you may be one of the the most hated men in the world. So if there's a Young man or Young woman listening to this right now who have such hate in their heart, walking you say to them to one day turn that hate into love.

I disagree with the premise of your question. Uh, I think I have I ve enjoyed a very broad support around the world. There are certain a corners in which we have a we have this animosity that you and it's sort of premiers and some of the uh the newspapers and news organs and so on and the and the the united states, but certainly doesn't reflect the the broad support that I have.

I just gave up, uh, I an interview, an iranian channel, sixteen million hours. I gave another one, just did a another video, uh, a few years of twenty five million views from me. Iran certainly no hate there.

I have to turn, not from the regime. okay? And when I go around the world, and i've been around the world, uh, people want to hear what we have to say. What I have to say is a leader visual whom they respect increasingly as a arising power in the world. So I disappear with that.

And the most important, I think, that goes against what you said, is the respect that we received from the airport and the fact that we made four historic basic means with countries. They made IT with me. They didn't make IT with anyone else, and I respect them and they respect me, and probably more to come. So I think the premise is wrong.

That's all. Wow, there's a lot of love. Yes the a lot of leaders are collaborating are resort .

no but it's a spectrum .

um but there is people who um don't have good things to say about as a who do have hate in their heart for israel. And what can you say to those people?

Well, I think they don't know very much. I think they guided by a lot of ignorance they don't know about as well. They don't know that is really as a Stellar democracy that IT happens to be one of the most advanced ety on the planet, that what israel develops helps uh humanity in every field and medicine and agriculture and uh and the environment and telecoms and talk about A I in a minute but changing the world for the Better um and spreading this is among uh six continents we've said rescue teams more than any other country in the world and where one ten to one percent of that was population. But when there is an earth earthquake or a devastation in the hate or in the Philippines as well, is there when there is an earthquake devastating ating earthquake in turkey, turkey, israel was there, uh, when there's something in map is, well, is there and it's the second country, is the second country, uh, after in one case india, or after another case in the united states, israel is there? Tiny israel is a benefactor to all of the humanity.

So you're student history. If I can just linger on the first of connotation of hate, that part of human nature. If you look at one or two, what do you learn from human nature? From the rise of the third rike and the rise of somebody like a hitler and they hate the premise that well.

what i've learned is that you have to nip bad things in the bud. You have to there's a living term that says up to pinkey stop bad things when there's small ah and the deliberate hatred, the um incitement of hatred against the one community, uh demonization, digitalization that goes with the a is is a very dangerous thing. And that happened um in the case of the jews, what's started with the jews soon spread to all of humanity.

So what we've learned is that what we should we should never, and i'd never set aside and say, oh, they're just threatened to destroy us. They won't do IT if somebody threats to eliminate you, as iran is doing today and as hitler did then, and people discounted IT. Well, if somebody threatens to an aleg, uh, take them seriously and act to prove IT early on, don't let them have the means to do so, because that may be too late.

So in those threats underlying that hatred, how much of this is anti zonis m and how much of IT is anti semitic? M, I.

stinger ish between the two, you can say, well, i'm OK with juice, but I just don't think there should be a jews state like saying, i'm not in to america. I just don't think there should be an america.

That's basically what what people are saying these of the anti a antisemitic m and antithesis uh when you're say antismoking are saying the jewish people don't have a right to have a state of their own uh and that uh that is a denial of of a basic a basic principle that uh, I think completely unmasks what is involved here today. Antisemitism is antin. Those who oppose the jew's people oppose .

the jews state. If we jump from human history to the current particular moment, there's protest in israel now about the proposed geral reform that gives power to your government to overwrite the supreme court. So the critics say that this gives too much power to you, actually making you a dictator.

Well, that's ridiculous. The mere fact that you have so many demonstrations in protest, some, some dictatorship, A A lot of democracy here, more, more and bunk, tious and bora, robust than just anywhere on the planet.

Can you still men? The case that this gives this may give too much power to the the coalition government, to the prime minister, not just to you, but to those who follow. No.

I think that's complete hogwash because I think there's there's a very few people are demonstrating against this. Quite a few, quite many don't have an idea what is being disgust. They're basically being slogan ized.

You can slogan ize you know something about um not mass media right now but the social ln network. You can basically feed deliberately with big data and big money. You can just feed, uh, slogans and get into people's minds.

I'm sure you don't think executed because you can tell me more about that. And you can create mass mobilization based on these absurd slogans. So here here is where I come from and what we're doing, what we're trying to do and what we've change in what we're trying to do.

I'm a one thousand nine century democrat in my small ideas, in my views, that is, I will I ask the question, what is democracy? okay? So democracy is is the willow of the majority and the protection of the rights.

So they call IT the rights of the minority. But I say the rights of of the individual. Okay, so how do you baLance the two? Okay, how do you get the, how do you avoid mobots racy? Okay, and how do you avoid dictatorship? The opposite side is the way you avoided ded is something that was built essentially by british philosophers and french philosopher, but uh, was encapsulated by the founding fathers of the united states.

You create a baLance between the three branches of government, okay, the legislative, executive and the judicial and this baLance is what assures the baLance between majority rights and individual rights um and you have to baLance all of them okay that baLance was maintained in israel in the first fifty years and was uh gradually h over overtaken and basically broken by the most activist judicial cord on the planet. That's what happened here. And the gradually over the last uh two three decades the the court arrogated for itself the powers of the parliament and the executive.

So we're trying to bring you back into line, bring you back into line into what is common in all parliamentary democracies and in the united states. Doesn't mean taking the penguin from one side and bring you to the other side. We want checks and baLances, not the arrival part.

Just as we say, we want an independent judiciary, but not in all powerful judiciary. That baLance does not mean bring you back into line, doesn't mean that you can have the h the parliament archest c override any decision that the spring court does. So I pretty much early onset after the judicial reform was introduced, get rid of the idea of a sweeping override clause that would have with sixty one votes.

That's majora one you can just analyze any supreme court decision. So let's move IT back into the center. So that's gone.

And most of the criticism among the judiciary form was based on a on a an unlimited overside claws, which I ve said is simply not going to happen. People are discussing something that already for six months, does not exist. The second point that that we receive criticism among was the a the structure.

How do you choose supreme power judges? OK? How do you how do you choose them? Uh, and the critics of a the reform are saying that the idea that elected officials to choose supreme core judges is the end of democracy.

If that's the case, united states is not a democracy. Now there is france, and I I know just about every, uh every democracy on on the plan. So there is a view here that you can't have the sorted hands of elected officials, a involved in the choosing of judges.

And in the israeli system, the judicial activism went so far that effectively the setting judges have an effective veto and and choosing, uh, judges, which means that this is a self selecting court that just perpetuate itself. And we want to correct that again, want to corrected in a baLance way, and that's basically what we're trying to do. So I think there's a lot of this information about that. We're trying to bring israeli democracy to where I was in its first fifty years and IT was A A Stellar democracy, still is as well as a democracy will remain a democracy uh viBrant democracy and believe me, the fact that people are arguing and demonstrating, uh, in the streets and protesters just is the best proof of that. And that's how will remain.

We spoke about the tech companies offline. There's a lot of tech companies nervous about this judicial reform. Can you speak to why a large and small companies have a future in israel?

Because this is a free market economy. I had something to do that I ve introduced the dozens and dozens of free market reforms that made as well. Move from seventeen thousand doors per capita come to, uh, within visual time to fifty four thousand doors.

That's nominal GDP per capital, uh, according to the I M F. And we've overtaken in that a japan, france written germany. And how did that happen? Because we at least the the genius that we have in the initiative and the entrepreneurship that is late me in our population and to do that we had to create free Marks.

So we created that. So israel has one of the most viBrant free market economies in the world. And the second thing we have is a permanent investment in a conceptual products, because we have a permanent investment.

In um uh in the military, in our security services, creating uh basically knowledge workers will then become knowledge and proper nose. And so we create this this structure and that's not going to go away. There's been a decline in investments in the high tech globally.

I think that's driven by manufacturer. But the most important one is the interest rate, which which I think will IT will fluctuate up and down. But israel will remain a very attractive country because IT produces so many, so many knowledge workers in a knowledge based economy, and it's changing so rapidly.

The world is changing. You're looking for the places that have, uh, innovation. The future belongs to the to those who innovate as well as the a preeminent innovation nation.

IT has few competitors and if we would say, alright, where do you have this close cross disciplinary, uh, fermentation, various skills and areas outside it's in israel. I don't tell why we used to be just telecoms because people went out of the you military intelligence r nsa, but that's been now broad base. So you find IT in medicine, you find IT in the a biology, you you find IT in agreda, you finit everywhere.

Everything is becoming technologies and in israel everybody is dealing and everything and that's that's a pot uh, reservoir of talent that the the world is not onna pass up and in fact is coming. We just had in video coming here, uh, and they decided to build A A supercomputer in is, well, wonder why we've had until coming here and deciding down to invest twenty five billion dollars just now, uh, in a new plant in this. Well, I wonder why. I don't want to why they know why, because the talent is here and the freedom is there, then IT remains .

so so you had a conversation, body eye with the same altman of opening eyes with you on what was the content of that conversation? What's your vision for? So this very highest of tech, uh, which is artificial intelligence regard for the .

people I talk to OK and I I understand that they understand things I don't understand and I don't pretend to understand everything, but I do understand one thing. I understand that the AI is developing at a geometric rate and most in in political life and life in general, people don't have an intuitive grasp. The geometric growth, you understand things basically in the linear increment.

And the idea that you're coming up ski slope is very fine to people that don't understand IT. And there are naturally also sort of taken a back. But because what do you do? okay.

So I think there several conclusions from my conversations with the with them and from my other observations that i've been talking about for many years, i'm talking about the need to do this. Well, the first thing is this, there is no possibility of not entering a with full force. Secondly, there is a need to regulation.

Third is not clear there will be global or a regulation. Fourth, it's not clear where IT ends up. I assume cannot say that now you might say, does IT come to control us? Okay, that's a question. Does IT come to control us? I don't know the answer to that.

I think that is as one of observation that are held from these conversations is if he does come to control, that's probably with the only chance of having universal regulation because I don't see anyone anyone deciding to um you know to uh avoid the race and and CoOperate unless you have that thread doesn't mean you can't regulate A I within countries even without that understanding. But IT does mean that there is a limit to regulation because every country will want to make sure that it's does not give up competitive advantage if there is no universal regulation. I think that right now, this is ten years ago, I read, I read a novel.

I don't read novels, but I was forced to read one by scientific adviser. I read history. I read about economics.

I read about technology. I just don't read novels. okay? And this time follow churchill.

You know, he said, fact is Better than fiction. Well, this fiction would become fact. And then IT was a book. IT was a novel about a, uh, a chinese americans future cyber war.

And I read the book one sitting called in team of experts, and I said, I let's let's turn israel into one of the world's five cyber powers and let's do IT very quickly. And we did that. We did exactly that.

Uh, I think A I is bigger than that then related to them because they affect, well, cyber affects everything, but I will affect IT even more fundamental. And the joining of the two could be very powerful. So I think in in israel, we have to, we have to do IT anyway for security reasons and we're doing IT.

But I think to what about what about our database that are already per very robust on on the medical records of ninety percent of our population? What do we stick a genetic database on that? What do we do other things that can bring magical, what seems are, are seem in magical cures and drugs and the medical instruments for that.

That's one possibility we have IT in. As I said, in every single field, the conclusion is this, we have to move on A I. We are moving on A I just as we moved on cyber. And I think israel will be one of the leading a, one of the leading A I uh powers in the world. The questions, I don't have an answer to us.

Where does he go? How much does he eat to up on on jobs? There's an assumption that i'm not sure is true that all previous the two big uh previous revolutions in the human condition, namely the agricultural revolution and the industrial revolution, definitely produce more jobs than they um than they consumed okay, that is not obvious to me at all. I mean, I can see new jobs creating and yes, I have that you know that that comforting statement but it's not quite true because I think on baLance, there probably consume more jobs many more jobs than they will a create at .

least in the short term. And we don't know about the long term.

I don't know about the long term, but I I used to have the comfort being a free market guy always said, you know, we're going to do small jobs and you know by, I don't know, limiting certain government jobs.

We actually in putting out in the market IT will create more jobs, which obviously happened, you know, we had one telecom company of a government company when I said we're going to be going to create competition, they said you're gona run this out. We're not going to have more workers. Yeah, they had thirty thousand workers.

They went down to the seven, but we create another forty thousand in the other company. So that was a comforting thought. I always knew that was true.

okay? Not only that, I also knew that wealth would spread by opening up the markets completely opposite to the uh socialist and semi socialist Green that they had here. Ah they said you're going to make the rich richer and the poor poor now and make everyone richer.

And actually the people enter the job market because of the reforms we did actually became a lot richer and the the lowest the lower um latter's of h the society omy a measure。 But here's the point. I don't know I don't know that we will not have what uh on most calls, the end of scarcity.

So you'll have the end of scarcity will have enormous productivity. You know very few people are producing enormous added value. You're going to have to tax that to pass IT to the others.

okay? You can have to do that. That's a political question. I'm not sure how we answer that. What if you tax and somebody else doesn't tax, you're going to get everybody to go there? That's an issue and international issue that we can we have to do with.

And the second question you have is suppose you solve that problem and you deliver a money OK to those are um not involved in the AI economy. What do they do? The first question you ask somebody when you just met after the polite, you know the politic extension is what do you do right? Well, people to find themselves by their profession, uh, and it's gonna difficult if you don't have a profession, and you know, people will spend more time self searching, the more time and in the arts, more time and leisure. Understand that if you have to bet that will animate many more jobs, then IT will create and force a structural change in our economics, in our economic models and in our politics and our natural it's gonna。

And that's something we have to respond to at the nation level. And just as a human civilization, both the threat of A I to just us is a human species. And then the effect on the jobs. And like you said, cyber security.

you think you think is going to we're going to lose control?

no. I first, while I do believe maybe not heavily, that you will create more jobs than IT takes.

write that down and will check out the some record and you know we don't say will check IT after our lifetime. Now well.

in a few years will see. I'm really concerned about cyber security and the nature how that changes with the power vye in in terms of existential threats, I think they're be so much threats that aren't existential along the way that that the thing i'm most concerned about versus A I taking complete control and becoming supercede ding the human species, although that is something you should consider seriously uh， because of the exponential growth of .

its cape of actually the experiential growth which we understand, uh is before us. But we don't really is very hard to project .

forward to really understand and exactly right.

So you know, i'm so ideal with what I can, where I can affect something I tend not to worry about things I don't control because it's a third point. No, there's no point. I mean, you have to decide what you spend your time on.

So I think in practical terms, I think will make will make israel, uh, a formidable AI power. We understand the limitation of scale, computing power and other things. But I think within those limits, I think we can make you this meracle that we we did in many other things. You know we do more with less and OK if it's water, the production of water or the production of you, the production of knowledge or the production cyber capabilities defense another um we just do more well with less and I think and we're going to do a lot more uh, with a relatives, small but highly gifted population, very gifted.

So taking a small attention as we talked about offline, are you have A A background in tech ondo? Yes, have trained with both. This is a quick question. Who you have? Who you betting on in a fight?

Well, I refuse to answer that.

I will say this, such a politician.

But of course, here i'm a politician. I'm openly telling you that i'm dodging the question, okay, but i'll say this. You know, I actually, I spent five years in our special forces in the military, and we barely spent a minute on martial arts, actually learning tech one dell later when I came to IT, wasn't even at MIT.

M I T. I think I did karadi, but when I came to the U. N, I had a martial art sex for taught me, which was kind of interesting.

Now the question you really have to ask is, why did we learn martial arts in the special? Uh, 原来。 And the answer is there's no point if you signed inDiana Jones, you know there's no point you just, you know pull the trigger that's simple. Now I don't expect anyone to pull the trigger on this combat. I'm sure you'll make sure that doesn't happen.

Yeah I mean, martial art is is kind of is bigger than just combat. It's this kind of journey of humility. And he has a is an art form.

A truly is an art. What is fascinating? Two figures and tech are facing each other. And I wanna ask a question of who you would face and how you would do.

But but I am facing opponents all the time, all the time, part of life, but part of life. Ah i'm about cy.

no, it's OK. No part of life is .

competition, you know, you know, the only time competition ends is death. But you know, political life, economic life, cultural life is gage continuously creativity and competition. And um the problem I have with that, as as I mention early just before we began the podcast, is that at a certain point, you want to put barriers to monopoly. And if you're in a really able competitor, you're gonna create a monopoly that so what Peter till says is the natural course of things is what I learned. And now basically in the boston consulting room, if you are very able competitor, you'll create scale advantages to give you the ability to lock out your competition.

And as a prime minister, I wonder, assure that there is competition in the market that you have to limit a limit this competitive power to certain point and that becomes increasingly hard uh, in the in the world where everything is intermix, where do you define market segments? Where do you define a monopoly? How do you do that? That is very that that actually conceptually I find very chAllenging because of all the dozens of political um of economic reforms that i've made.

The most difficult part is the conceptual part. Once you have you ironed out, you say, here's what I want to do, here's the right thing to do that you have a practical problem of overcoming union resistance, political resistance, press calamy um you know opponents but from this or that corner that's a practical matter. But if you have a conceptually defined, you can move ahead to a reform economies or reform education or reform transportation, find in the question of of the growing power of large companies, big tech companies, to monopolize the markets because they're Better added, they provide a service they provided lower cost, uh, rapidly decline cost.

Where do you stop? Where do you where do you stop in a monopoly power is a crucial question, because there also becomes now a political question. If you are mass, enormous amount of economic power, which is information power, you know, that also monopolizes the political process, which creates these are real questions that are not obvious. I don't have an obvious answer because, as I said, as a sixteen century democrat, these are questions of the twenty first century, which people should should begin to think, do you have a solution to that?

The decision of monopoly is growing, arbitrary, unstoppable in power.

economic. Therefore, political power mean.

some of that is regulation. Some of that is competition.

You where to put to draw the line, start breaking up, meeting. And two, you know, it's not that simple.

Well, I believe in the power of competition that there will always be somebody that chAllenges the big guys, especially in the space of A I. The more open source movements are taking hold, the more the little guy can become the big guy.

So you're saying basically the regulatory the regulatory instrument is the market.

In large part, in most part, that's the hope. Maybe i'm the dreamer .

that's been in many ways by policy up to now, okay, that the best regulator uh, is the market. The best regulator in economic, uh, economic activity is the market and the best regulator in political matters is a political market that's called elections. That's what that's a regulate.

You know you have a loud government uh and people make lousy decisions. Uh you don't need you know the wise man raised above the, uh you know the the masses to decide what is go to what is bad. Let the masses decide.

Let them vote every four years or whatever, and they throw you up. By the way, that happened to me. There is life after political and death.

There is actually political life. I was reelected five or six times, and this is my six term. So you know that I believe in that. I'm not sure i'm not sure that in economic matters in the june metric growth of tech companies, that you'll always have the little guy, the nimble mammal that will come out and slay the dinosaurs, overcome the dinosaurs, which is .

something what .

you want. Hope you're right.

Well, let me ask you about this market of politics. So you have service six terms prime minister, over fifteen years in power may ask you, again, human nature, do you worry about the corrupting nature of power and use the leader and use a man?

Not all because I I think that the again the the thing that drives me is not uh is nothing but the mission that I took to assure the uh the survival and thriving of the state, the jewish state that is its economic prosperity but it's security and its ability to achieve peace with our neighbors. And i'm committed to IT. I think there's still there many things that have been done there, a few big things that I can still do.

But IT doesn't only depend on my sense submission IT depends on the market is we say depends really on the wheel of the israeli voters and israeli voters. I've decided to vote for me again, again, even though I whaled no power in the press, no power and in many quarters here um and so on, nothing. I mean, I am probably i'm going to be very soon the longest serving prime minister in the vast ap century in the western democracies.

But that's not because I I am mass, great political power in any of the institutions. I member up the add a conversation with the h. So we have Better scotch who recently died, and he said to me up, but I don't know, fifteen years ago, something like that he said, so, baby, uh, how many of, uh, how many of of israel television stations and do you have and I said, none. I said, you have none and do you have I said, none. I have to say, no, no.

But what you mean you don't have any that you control is not only you have none that I control, they're against me so so how do you win elections? And you know, with both hands tied behind your back and I said the hard way, that's why, you know I have the largest party but I don't have many more seats that I would have if I had uh sympathetic voice in the media and as well as until recently, I was dominated completely by one side of the political spectrum that know often uh vilified me not not me because they viewed me as representing basically the conservative the so the idea that i'm an omnipresent authoritarian dictators, ridiculous I am not really a champion of a of democracy and democratization and uh I I believe ultimately the decision is with the voters and the voters even though they would ve had, you know, they have constant, constant of press attacks. Uh, they're a chosen to put me back and so I don't believe in this thing of a massin, the corrupting power of if you don't have elections, if you don't have, if you control the the means of influencing the voters.

I'd understand that what you're saying, but in my case is exact opposite. I have to constantly go elections constantly, uh, you know, with the disadvantage that the major media outlets are very violent, sometimes against me, but it's fine and I keep on winning. So I I don't know what you're talking. I would say the concentration of power lies not here. Well, you have been .

involved in several corruption cases. How much corruption is there in israel? And how do you fight IT in your own party and in israel?

Well, you should ask a different question. What's happened to these cases? These cases of a uh basically are collapsing in before our eyes 那个 the you know there were um there was recently in event in which the judges， the three judges in my case called in the prosecution and said, you know your flagship the bribery so cal bribery is you know it's gone, doesn't exist before a single a single defense witness was called and sort tells you that this is evaporating it's it's quite astounding even that I have to say I was covered even by the mainstream press, uh, in this world because it's such an earthquake.

E so, uh, you know, a lot of these charges are not a lot. These charges will prove to be nothing. I always said this.

I stand before the legal process. I don't claim that h example ment in any way on the country. I think the truth will come out and it's coming out.

We see that not only that, but with other things. So I think it's kind of instructive that you know, no, no politician has been more vilified. No, none has been put to such a, uh, you know what is IT about a quarter of a billion uh, shackles were used.

H to scrutiny, score my bank account, sending people to the Philippines, into mexico, into european, to america, looking everybody using spared the most of dance spyware on the planet against the my associates, black Milly witnesses, telling them, you know, think about your family, think about your wife, know Better, tell us, what do you want all that is coming out of the trial. Uh, so I would say that most people now are not asking, are, are no longer asking, including my opponents started trickling in as the, as the stuff comes out. People are not saying, what did that can now do because you apprenticed nothing.

What was done to him with something? The people ask, what was done to? What was done to our democracy? What was done in the attempt to put down somebody who keeps winning elections despite the handicaps that I described.

Maybe we can maybe we can nail him by framing him and the one thing I can say about the the this court trial is that um things are coming up and that's that's very good. Just objective things are coming out, changing the picture. So I would say um the the attempt to brand me uh as corrupt is falling on its face.

But the think that isn't being uncovered in the trial of such as the use the use of spyware. A politician, a politician surroundings to try to shake them down in investigations, put them in, flee written cells for twenty one days and divide their eighty four year old mother to investigations without cause, bringing in their mistresses in the corner, shaking them down. That's what people are asking, that corruption is what they want corrected.

What is the top obstacle to peaceful co existence of israelis and palestinians? Let's talk about the big question of peace in this part of the world.

Well, I think the reason you have a the persistence of the a palestinian israeli conflict, which goes back about a century, is the persistent palestinian refusal to recognize a jew's state, a nation's state, for the jews, people in any boundary. That's why they opposed the establishment of the state of this one before we had a state.

And that's why theyve opposed after we had a state, they oppose IT when we were we didn't have judy an samaria, the west bank in our hands and gaza. They oppose IT after we have doesn't make a difference. It's basically the persistent refusal to recognize a jewish state in any boundary.

And I think their tragedies that they're been come on dear for a century by leadership that uh, refused to compromise with the idea of azala m naming that the juice deserve a state in this spite of the world. The territory dispute is something else. You have a territorial dispute if you say, okay, you're living on this side, we're living on that side.

Let's decide where the border is instant. That's not what the argument is. The palestinian society, which is itself pragmatic, but all the factions agree there shouldn't be a jew state anyway OK. They just disagree between class that says, oh, well you should have IT you know we should get rid of IT with terror um uh and the others to say we know we should also use political means to dissolve IT uh so that is that is the problem .

so even as part of a tuesday solution, they're still against the idea well.

they don't want a state next as well. They want to state instead of visual ah and they say if we get a state we will use IT as a springboard to destroy the the smaller israel state which is what happened when israel unliterary walked out of gaza and effectively established a homestay there. They didn't say, oh good now we have, you know our own territory, our own state.

Israel is no longer there. Let's build peace. Let's build the, you know the economic projects lets uh, in franchise are people know they turned IT into a basically into a tera in which they find a ten thousand rockets into israel.

When is left lebanon um you know because we had terrorist attack on there, then um we had lebanon uh taken over by hezbollah st organization that six to destroy as well ah and and therefore every time we just walked out, what we got was not peace. We didn't give a you know territory for peace. We ve got territory for terror.

That's what we had and that's what what happen as long as the the raining ideology says we don't want is well in any border. So the the idea of, uh, two states assumes that you would have on the other side a state that wants to live in peace and not one that would be overtaken by iran and its proxies in two seconds and become a base to destroy. usual.

And therefore I think that the most is, well, is today if you ask them, uh, they say that a second of work and that concept. So what do you do? What do you do with a palestinian? Okay, there's still there.

And I don't unlike them, I don't want to throw them out. Uh, they're gonna be living here and we're gonna be living here in an area which is, by the way, to so understand the the area, the entire area of. So the west bank and in israel is the wife of the washington built way more or less, just a little more, not much more.

You can really divided up. You can say, well, you're going to fly in. Who controls the space? Well, IT takes you about two and hf minutes to cross IT with the, with A A regular, you know, seven and four, seven, okay, with the fighter plane.

IT takes you, amit, and have, okay. So you're not are you going to divide the air space when you're not going to divide? This was going to control that your space and the electro magnetic space, uh, and and so on. So security has to be, uh, in the hands of visual. My view of how you solve this problem is that is a simple principle.

The pedestrians should have all the paris to govern themselves and none of the part to threats, which basically means that the responsibility for overall security remains with israel and from a practical point of view, we've seen that every time that israel leaves a territory and and takes its security forces out of an area IT immediately as we were taken by hamo hazara uh or jez uh who basically are uh committed to the distraction of vision and also bring misery to the the palestinians or arab subjects. So I think that that principle is less than perfect foreign because you're taking a certain amount of power's sovereigns wars, especially security away. But I think it's the only practical solution.

So people say, oh, but it's not a perfect state. Okay, call IT what you will call IT, you know? Uh, I don't know, limited. So I call IT autonomy plus call IT whatever you want to call IT. But that's the reality. And right now, if you ask israelis across the political spectrum, cept, the very hard left most is really agreed with that, that really debated.

So two state solution, where is your controls? The security of the entire region?

We don't call IT quite that mean there are different names. But the idea is, yes, this will control security. And the is the entire is a tiny area between the Jordan river in the sea。 Mean, it's like, uh, you know, you can walk IT in one afternoon if you really fit, you can do IT in a in a day, less less than a day. I did.

So the expansion of settings in the west bank has been a top priority for this new government. People may harshly criticize this as contributing to escalating. This is post intention. 我 我的 can you understand that perspective that this expansionary settlement is not good for the two state solution？

I understand I can understand what they're saying and they don't understand why they're wrong. First, the most most issues live in judea, samaria, live in uh, in urban blocks. And that accounts were about ninety percent of the of the population.

okay? And everybody recognizes that those urban blocks are going to be part of as well in any future arrangement. So they're really arguing about, uh, something that has already been decided and agreed upon really by by americans, by even by arabs, many areas.

They don't think that this was going to dismantle these these blocks and look outside the window here, and within about a kilometer mile from here is you have jersey. M, half of jerusalem grew naturally beyond the old one thousand nine sixty seven border. Uh, so you're going to this matter, half of juice.

And that that can happen. A and and most people don't expect that. Then you have the other h ten percent scattered in tiny, you know, small communities.

H and people say, well, you got have to take them out. why? why? Remember that in pro one thousand nine hundred sixty seven years we have over a million half arabs here.

We don't say, uh, israel has to be uh ethically plans from arab in order to have from its arab citizens in order to have peace. Of course not. Juice can live among apps, and apps can live among juice.

And what is what is being advanced by those people say that we can't live in our ancestor homeland in these disputed areas. Nobody says that this is palestinian areas, and nobody says that these as well as we claim them. They claim that that we've only been attached to this land for all thirty five hundred years but, uh, you know uh but it's a dispute.

Agree, uh, but I don't agree that we should throw out the arabs and I have think that they should throw out the jews. And if somebody said you, the only way we're going to have peace with israel is to have an ethnically clenched palestinian entity, you know, that's outrageous. If you said the only way, you know, you shouldn't have juice living in H, I don't know, in suburbs of london or in new york and so on.

I don't think that will play to well. The world is actually a advancing a solution that says that uh that juice cannot live in on arbs and arabs cannot live among juice. I don't think that's the right way to do IT.

Um and I think there is a solution out there, but I don't think we're onna get to IT, which is less than perfect, which involves israeli security uh maintained for the entire territory by israel, which involves not rooting out anybody, not kicking out up rooting ibs or palestinians y're gona live in eclipse in south n israel and we're going to live in probably in enclaves there probably through transportations continuity is opposed to virtual continuity. That is a you know, for example, you can have tunnels and overpasses and so on that connect the various communities. We're doing that right now.

We're doing that right now and IT actually works. I think there is a solution to this. Uh it's not the perfect world that people think of because that model um I think doesn't apply her uh if IT applies elsewhere, it's a question.

Uh, I don't think so. But I think there's one other thing and that's the maintain that i've been involved in. You know people said if you don't solve the palestinian problem, you're not going to get to the air road. You're not going to have peace with the air world. Remember the positions are about two percent of the air road uh, and the other you know the other ninety eight percent, you're not gonna make piece with them and that are go.

And for a long time, people accepted that after the initial peace treaties with the egypt, with the prime minister begging of delhi, could and and presidents said out of egypt and then with Jordan between prime minister robyn and um uh and kenko said for quite a essential, we didn't have any more people is because people said, you gotto go through the palestinians and the palestinians they don't want a solution of the kind that I described or any kind except the one that involved the dissolution of the state visual. So we could way another half century. And I said, no, I mean, I don't think that we should accept the premise that we have to wait for the palestinians because we have to wait forever.

So I decided to do IT differently. I decided to go directly to the arb capitals, uh and to make the history Abraham accords, uh and essentially a reversing the equation, not a peace process that goes inside out, but outside in and we went directly to the these countries and forge these uh these breakthrough peace accords with the united arabs, with bahrain, with marathon sedan. And we're now trying to expand that in a quana lip with sodium ia.

What does IT take to do that with salty arabia, with society?

Crown prince ts mohamed salon? Read a lot of history, and I read that, you know, in the first side discussions after world war one, president walter Wilson said I in open convenience, openly arrived that I have my correction. I believed in open convents secretly arrived that so there's not going to advance assault israeli peace by having a publicly discussed and in any case, it's a decision of the of the sad dies if they want to do IT.

But there is obviously a mutual interest. So here is my view, if we try to wait for the two percent in order to get to the ninety eight percent, we're gona fail and we have failed. If we go to the ninety eight percent, we have a much greater chance of persuading the two percent.

You know why? Because the two percent the palestinian, uh, hope to vanquish the state of as well and not make peace with that is based among other things on the on the assumption that eventually the ninety eight percent the rest of the air world will kick in and destroy the jey state help them dissolve or destroy the juice day when that hope is um uh taken away. Then you begin to have a return to the realistic solutions of coexistence.

By the way, they require compromise in this ri side and perfectly confident of that and willing to do that. But I think of release to compromise will be struck much more readily when the conflict between israel and the arb states, the arb world is effective. We saw, and I think we're on that path.

IT was a conceptual change. Just like, you know, a man involved in a few, I told you, the conceptual battle is always the most difficult one. And, you know, I had to fight this battle to convert the semi socialist state into A A free market capital state.

And I have to say that most people today recognize the power of competition in the benefits of free markets. So we also had to fight this battle. That said, you have to go through the, you know the the the palestinian uh, straight S T R A I T to get to the other places.

There is no way to avoid this. You know, you have to go through this. This is impossible pass. Uh and I think that now people are recognizing that would go around IT uh and probably circle back and that I think actually gives hope not only to have an arab israel piece but circling back in israeli palestinian peace. And obviously this is not something that you find in the in the sound bites and so in the in the popular discussion of the press. But that idea is permeating, and I think it's the right idea because I think it's the only one that will work.

So expanding the circle piece just to linger on that requires what secretly talking man to man, human to human are the leaders of other nations .

theoretically.

okay. Well, let me ask you a another theoretical question on the circle. Peace as a student history um looking at the ideas of warm peace, what do you think can achieve peace in the war ukraine blinking at another part of the world, if you if you consider the fight for peace in this part of the world, how can you apply that did that other part the world between russian ukraine.

I think it's one of the the savage hours of history and one of the great tragedies that is occurred and. Let me see an advance that that if I have any opportunity to use my contacts to help bring about in into this tragedy, i'll do so. I've had I know both leaders, but I don't just jumping and and assume know there's be a desired to third point because the conditions have created the possibility of helping stop this this carnage.

Then i'll do IT and that's why I choose my words carefully because I think that may be the best of um the best thing that I could do uh look, I think what you see um in ukraine is what happens if you have a territory designs on a territory by a country that has nuclear weapons and that to me change. You see the change in the equation. Now I think that people are allow to use nuclear weapons that i'm not sure that I would think that the the russian side would use them with happy abandoned.

I don't think that's the Christian. But you see how the whole configuration changes, uh, when that happens. So you have to be very careful and how you resolve this conflict.

So IT doesn't. Well, does go off the rails, so to speak. That's, by the way, the car area is here. We don't want iran, which is an aggressive force with an unjust, aggressive ideology of dominating, first, the muslim world and then eliminating israel and then becoming, you know, a global force.

Uh having nuclear weapons, it's totally different when they don't have IT, when they do have IT ah and that's why one of my main goals has been to prevent you run from having the means to a means of mass destruction which will be used, atomic bombs, which they open to say will be used against us. And you can understand that how to bring about an end to uku have ideas. I don't think, I don't think it's worthwhile discussing them now because they might they might be required later on. Do you believe .

in the power of conversation since you have contacts with volume er's lungi vanda poin just leaders sitting in a room and discussing how the end of work can be brought about?

I think it's combination of that, but I think it's the question of interest and and whether you have to get both sides to a point where they think that, that conversation would lead to something useful. I don't think there are there right now.

What part of of this is just basic human ego stover ness, all of this between leaders, which is why bring up the power of conversation, sitting in a room, realizing where human beings and there's a history that connects ukraine and russia yeah.

I don't think there a position to a room right now. We see again, when you can posit that, that would be good if that could happen. But entering the room is sometimes more complicated than what happens in the room. There's a lot of, you know, be negotiation under negotiation, then you negotiate endlessly. And the negotiation, they not even .

there IT took a lot of work for you to get the handshake in the past.

It's an integration. How did the peace, the abram accords, how did that begin? You know I mean that we had you know we had decades but seventy years where they are, sixty five years where these people you know would not uh, meet openly with or even secretly when israeli leader, yeah, we had the the mosad making context with them all the time.

And so, but how do we break the ice to the top level of leadership? Well, we broke the ice because I took a very strong stance against iran, and the gulf states understood that iran is a formidable danger to them. We had a common interest. And the second thing is that because of the economic reforms that we had producing israel, israel became a technological powerhouse and that could help their nations, not only in terms of anything of just bearing the life of their uh in the combination of the uh um of the desire to have some kind of up a protection against iran or some kind of CoOperation against iran and civilian economic CoOperation.

Uh, came to ahead when I gave a speech in the american congress, uh, which I didn't do heartedly, I had to decide to chAllenge a sitting american president and on the the so all iranian deal uh, which I thought would pay iran's path with gold to be an effective nuclear power that's what would happen so I went there and in the course of giving that speech before the joint session of congress, our delegation received calls from gulf states who said, we can't believe what your prime minister is doing is chAllenging president in the united states. Well, I had no choice, I mean, because I thought my country's own existence was impressed. And remember, we always understand through change of administrations that amErica under no matter what leadership, is always the irreplacable and the dispensable of visual and will always remain that we can have arguments as we have uh but in the families we say in the mission buck, you know it's the family uh but never though I was forced to take a stand that produced cause from gulf states that ultimately LED to planned and meetings that ultimately flowered into the the abram accords then and I think we are a point where the idea of ending the arab is rarely conflict, not the palestinian rail conflict.

The arb israeli conflict can happen, i'm not sure. Well, that depends on a quite a few things, but IT could happen. And if IT happens, IT might open up the ending of the israeli islam mic conflict.

Remember, the air board is a small part, is an important part, but it's their large islamic populations and could bring about, uh and end to the in the stack enmity between islam and judiciary and could be a great thing. So i'm looking at this larger thing now. You know you you can be hobbled by saying, well, well, you know you ve had this you know this hike up in gather or you know this this is that thing happening in in the past. And I know it's important for us because we want security, but I think the larger question is, can we break out into a much wider peace and ultimately come back and make the the piece between israel and the palestinians rather than waiting to solve that? Uh, and and never getting to the the to paint on the larger campus, I want to paint on the larger campus and come back to the palestinian israeli conflict.

As you worry about in your book, what have you learned about life from your father?

My father was the greatest story. And well, he taught a several things. He said that the the the first um condition for living organism is to identify danger in time because if you don't, you could be divided, you could be destroyed very quickly. And that's the nature of uh, human conflict, in fact, for the jewish people.

Uh, we didn't uh, we lost the capacity to identify danger in time and we were almost divided and destroyed by uh, the native thread so when I see somebody parade the nazi uh goal of destroying the jews said I try to mobilize uh, the country in the world in time because I think one is a global threat, not only thread to as well, that's the first thing. The second thing is I once to asked them before I got elected, I said, the way, do you think is the most important quality for a prime minister visual? And he came back with the question, what do you think? And I said, well, you have to have vision.

And you have to have the, you know, the flexibility of navigating and working towards that vision. You be flexible, but understand where you're heading and he said, well, you need that for anything. You need to tour up you know, if your university president or if your leader of CoOperation or anything, uh, anybody would have to have that I said, all right, so so what do you need for to be the, the, the leader visual he he said and came back to me with the word that stunning he said, education, you need abroad and deep education, or you'll be at the mercy of your clerks.

What the press, whatever you have to, you have to be able to to do that you know as I spend time in government being reelected um you know by by the people of visual I, I recognize more and more how how ready was you. You need to constantly ask yourself whether the direction we want to take the country, how do we achieve that goal, but also understand that new disciplines are being added. You have to learn all the time.

You have to learn all the time. You have to add to, uh, intellectual capital all the time. Kissing iner said that he wrote that once you enter public life, you begin to draw your intellectual capital.

And you know it'll be depleted very quickly if if you stay a long time. Um I distribute that. I think you have to constantly, constantly increase your understanding of things as they change because because my father was right.

You need to broaden and deep in your education as you go along. You can just sit back. And so why I study something in university, in college in boston or M I T.

And that's enough. You know, i've done IT. No, learn, learn, learn, learn, learn. Never stop.

And if I may suggest, as part of the education, I would add in a little literature, maybe this yasi, 呃， in in the plenty ful of time, you have the .

prime minister to read A H no.

who's that?

Not whose that? But what's that? I was, the dad rather came to see me with his grandsons few years ago, and he asked me, the grandson asked me, there was a student and ivy college and he said, is eighteen years old and he wants to study to enter politics and he said, what's what's the most important thing that I have to study to a enter political life? And I said, you have three things you have to study, okay, history, history and history.

That's that's the fundamental discipline for political left. But then you have to study other things, have study economics, study politics and on and study, study the military if you have, if you had advantage, because I spent some years there. So I learned a lot of that, but I had to, uh, acquire the other disciples, and you never care enough.

So read, read, read. And by the way, if I have to choose, I read history, history and history, good works of history, not lousy books. Last question.

you've talked about a survival of a nation. You yourself are a mortal being. Do you contemplate your mortality? Do you contemplate .

your death? Are you afraid of death? And you who's not in if your conscience, if you are uh uh being with conscious I mean one of the unhappy things about the human brain is that can contemplate its own ah its own demise uh and so we have to we all make our compromises with this but I think the question is what lives on ah what lives on beyond us and I think that you have to define how much of of posterity do you want to influence I cannot influence the course of humanity.

We are our spects you know little spects. So that's not the issue. But in my case i've devoted my life to a very defined purpose, and that is to assure the future and security and. I would say permanent, but that is obviously a limited thing of the jewish state and the jewish and I don't think one can exist without the other so i've devoted my life to that. I hope that um in my time on the earth and in my ears in office I have contributed to that.

Well you had one heck of a life starting from A M I T to six terms as prime minister um thank you for this stroll through human history and for this conversation was thank you and I .

hope you come back to this so many times it's remember, it's the innovation nation. It's a robust democracy. Don't believe all the stuff that you are being told it'll remain that uh IT cannot be any other way.

And it's the other thing. It's the best ally of the united states, and its importance is growing by the day, because I can. Capacity in the information world are growing by the day.

We need a coalition of the like minded smart. This is a smart nation, and we share the basic values of freedom and liberty with the united states. So the coalition of the smart means israelis, m the sixth eye in amErica has no Better ally .

right now. Off mike, i'm going to a force you to finally tell me who was gonna in you all mosque arx about but that's it's good time. We time here outside.

Thanks for listening .

to this conversation with Benjamin and in yo. To support the spot guests, please check out our sponsors in the description. And now let me leave you some words from a hot magoni. And I for, and I will only make the whole world blind. Thank you for listening and hope to see you next time.