184. Michal Herzog, First Lady of Israel

0:06Well behaved women rarely make history. Bloody difficult women do.

0:19Today's guest is a lawyer, a mediator, a mother, and she also happens to be married to the head of state, the president of Israel, Isaac Herzog, who's in London. This week on official business as the guest of Zekir Starmer, the Prime Minister. This is the first time I've had a First Lady on Difficult Women. Thank you very much for this rare, exclusive and timely interview at what must be a difficult time. You have an unusual quasi-ceremonial role of mother of the nation in Israel and as such are uniquely placed to reflect life and trauma in the only Jewish state in the wake of the October 7th attacks on Israel.

1:02The world has witnessed the agonising aftermath of those attacks and the suffering on both sides of the southern border. We can't forget the death toll in Gaza, nor the desperate plight, too, of the surviving hostages as we approach the two-year anniversary of October 7th next month. You have lived it, and you have helped your country live through it. In this conversation, I hope we'll cover much ground from October the 7th to your role in supporting the victims, the outbreak of global anti-Semitism that followed the attacks, which is one of the reasons you and your husband, I think, are in London today.

1:42Israel's response to the attacks up to including this week's unprecedented attack on Hamas leadership in Qatar. Sorry about that long intro. First of all, Mrs Herzog, can you introduce yourself? Well, first, I'm proud and privileged to be the First Lady, the first First Lady on this show, which is wonderful. And so I feel a great responsibility on behalf of First Ladies. Second of all, indeed, the last two years, almost two years, have been really agonizing since October 7th. October 7th has been an event. No one in Israel living at the time, and I think also in future years and future generations will ever forget.

2:37We have lived through wars, unfortunately, and through conflicts. But October 7th is something that no one expected, and we shall never forget. It was a horrible day. I must say that we were in our private home, the president and I, in Tel Aviv, not in Jerusalem, where the official presidential office is. And the siren went off at 6.29, just like all around the country. and it was a Saturday morning, a holiday, totally unexpected. And we thought to ourselves, maybe it's a mistake. Maybe something happened at night and we were not aware of it. And then we realized this was a day like no other. And we have many, many friends in what we call the Gaza envelopes, the communities around the Gaza border.

3:40Many friends in the kibbutzim are around there. And usually my husband, when something happens, when missiles go off in a special attack that is unusual, he gets two phone calls from two friends. One is the head of the regional council of the kibbutzim area. And the other is the mayor of the city of Sderot, which is also in the Gaza envelope. And so he was looking at his phone, expecting them to call him, and they didn't. And the first name that came out is one of the people that was murdered. And we didn't know at the time the amount, the vast, horrific number of victims. The first name that came out at 8 o 'clock, 8 a.m.

4:38that morning was of Ophir Liebstein. his friend, the head of the regional council, that he was expecting a phone call from, because he was murdered as he stepped out of home to go to where you get your guns to protect the kibbutz. And so this is how our October 7th began. And basically you can say it has still been going on since then. Israel's wars are usually fierce and brief and Israel doesn't start them this is a war that has gone on for almost two years that has been taken in other countries Israel has attacked Lebanon it's attacked Iran it's also attacked this week Qatar this is an unprecedented situation for Israel to be in.

5:32It was an unprecedented attack. It was a brutal attack on civilians, not only on military forces. This situation, you have to remember that Israel is the only democracy in our area. and we are surrounded by countries that some of them have become our friends or we have peace treaties with and I feel that we're defending ourselves first of all I know the war has gone on for much much longer than we thought it would or I personally would have liked it to I think we're tired. As I can speak on behalf of Israeli citizens, I think we're tired, and yet we are very resilient people. We feel that we must, must protect our country and fight for our causes.

6:42And you also have to remember that the attack on October 7th was waged on very peace-loving people. The people that live around the Gaza envelope, most of them are the most active peace activists in Israel. in a kibbutz like Bayeri, for instance, which was viciously attacked. They have a fund. They used to have a fund that every month each family made a decision of how much money to put in the fund. The fund was for the purpose of helping their employees, their Palestinian employees in the kibbutz who lived in Gaza. and they would go over and bring them actually money to make their lives better.

7:41These were people that were hoping for peaceful resolution of the conflict in our area. My very good friend, Vivian Silver, a Canadian-born that came to live in Israel, was one of the nicest women I knew, but she was also one of the people that really tried to integrate and to have common activities in life between Muslims and Jews in Israel and in the area. She founded an NGO called Women Waging Peace. The name suffices to understand her stand in life. We thought she was kidnapped. We thought she was taken hostage because she was not found in her home. But almost two months later, remnants of her body were identified by DNA in her burnt house.

8:46I went to see her house. It was totally burned. The only thing remaining in the house were two metal candlesticks that did not burn. This is how we discovered that Vivian was actually murdered. Now, I know, I think, I know, you never know these things. I think if I had a conversation with Vivian now, almost two years after, she would be the first one to worry about innocent Gazans and children and young mothers. And so do we. We don't shy away from the consequences of war, terrible war, on civilians. But one also has to understand that, unfortunately, Hamas forced many of those civilians to be part of his system.

9:50When Israeli soldiers went into Gaza and went into a very innocent-looking, pink-decorated children's room in a house, But when they lifted the bed and under the mattress, they saw missiles. I don't think we are used to either you or me would ever imagine putting a missile under the mattress in our child's bedroom. and of course in that year in that month of that year October 2023 your husband the president said that there has to be some collective responsibility for the civilians of Gaza for what happened on October the 7th has he been made to walk back those remarks or does he stand do you stand by that no I think his remarks were totally taken out of context you refer to what the international court, I think this is what you refer to, mentioned in their decision about Israel, they quoted my husband as saying that the civilians in Gaza are not innocent.

11:06But he also, the end of that sentence was not all of them. Some of them are innocent. Of course, misquoting has become a trend in social media and around the world and unfortunately even by international courts. It's extraordinary that because that the end of that sentence completely qualifies the meaning of the sentence and changes it. But that line without the end of the sentence was quoted on the BBC News this morning. Oh again okay I was not aware of the quoting again but I can tell you that unfortunately BBC has not exactly lived up to what I would consider journalism, appropriate journalism and true reporting.

11:56Do you find the BBC's coverage of the Middle East since October the 7th to have been impartial or not impartial? You know I'm not a judge of that and I can't say that I follow the BBC. I follow other channels, but I think that journalism is not what it used to be. And I think that they have agendas of their own and they misquote and they misquote and that's very unfortunate. I'd like to go back to the aftermath of October the 7th and as the first lady. I've often been told by Jewish people, my Jewish friends, and when I go to Israel, that if you hurt one Jew, you hurt everyone. So I cannot imagine how the trauma, the collective trauma that Israel has suffered.

12:54Everyone knows somebody, as you've just mentioned, two or three people. How have you interacted with the families of the bereaved? So the last two years since October 7th have been a journey, both of my husband and myself, of trying to reach every single family. We have not yet done so. Because of the chaos and havoc just after October 7th, we're trying to slowly reach every bereaved family. So far, we have been to more than 1 ,300 bereaved families. If you do the math, it means that every single day we see at least one bereaved family, if not more. Sometimes we see them as a group. We have become regular visitors to the communities.

13:54You have to remember that most of the communities on the southern as well as the northern border were evacuated from their homes. Some of them are coming home now. Some of them are still in temporary housing until the kibbutzim or their houses will be rebuilt. They'll only be back in maybe two years' time. So we went around the country. We still are going around the country every single day. We meet families of hostages, bereaved families. We visit hospitals, a lot of wounded soldiers and wounded civilians as well. And I deal a lot with the issue of mental health, the issue of post-trauma, the prevention of the trauma becoming post-trauma.

14:50and so this this has been our our life but we feel we're really on a mission to help our people to um to hug people to support them to even help them solve small problems you know everyday problems that they don't have the energy to do so and i you you have to absorb a huge amount of pain and suffering yourself then are you do you have training or do you are you equipped for this did you ever think you were going to be somebody who had to bereave thousands of your fellow Israelis no no but um there are some days that are very very difficult and when we finish today we look at each other and we just even don't even have the energy to to speak um on the other hand sometimes, you never know.

15:47I'll tell you that when you go to visit a bereaved family, you get what I would say cold data. You get a piece of paper saying this is the name of the victim. These are the parents who will be there. He has three brothers, two sisters, and what they do. That's all you know. And then you come into, you go into a living room of a family. I must say that we've met incredible people, really incredible people that strengthen us when we come in. And as a woman, I must say that it's usually about hugging. Usually you... You're a big hugger. I'm a big hugger. Yeah, I'm a big crier too. I cry all the time.

16:44But okay, it's part of life and it's part of the way I express my feelings. I'm sure nobody would ever find that unusual in the situation you're in and the position you're in. You've been highly critical of the silence about the extreme sexual violence against women and girls and actually also boys because I visited the rape crisis center in Tel Aviv when I was last there, on 710. And the silence comes from the exact same institutions that are supposed to protect women and girls. Why do you think that is? Oh, wow. You know, sometimes people want to say it's anti-Semitism or something. I'm not sure.

17:26I'm not sure, I think. And today I was talking to a historian who said, And I find it so strange that organizations like UN Women, that you refer to organizations that were created in the first place to protect women's rights, stick more to their political agendas than to protecting other women. And this I have no explanation for. I really do not. But it took them so long even to acknowledge there was sexual violence. It took Sarah Sandberg to come and do a documentary and still people deny it. That's true. But I think we do have friends around the world. And in this case, I want to mention from the UN, the Undersecretary Pramila Patton, who deals with her responsibility as the issue of sexual, the use of sexual violence and conflicts around the world.

18:30And I must say that even in the UN context, she came with her team, a very serious team, made up of physicians and experts in the field. They spent a few weeks in Israel in January of 2024, came up with a very clear report of systematic use of sexual violence, of premeditated use of sexual violence on October 7th, unfortunately also since, towards the hostages in captivity. And just recently, a couple of weeks ago, based on the report, the UN finally put Hamas in the blacklist, which is quite incredible, almost two years later. But still, you know what? I'm glad that finally the Secretary General decided to put Hamas and include them in the blacklist.

19:40It's about time. overdue you you mentioned you you hinted that um under another leader this war wouldn't necessarily be dragging on into a third year imminently um would a herzog administration have ended this war and i'm not meaning your husband necessarily i'm meaning you um you know we're talking theory here well in real life this is what we have i'm not sure You know what? It's very easy to criticize. It's very easy to criticize. We have to remember we have a very, very cruel enemy. Basically, I feel, and you know, I'm not a politician. I just say things that I feel. I think that had the hostage situation been solved, if the hostages, let's say theory right now, if Hamas would free all hostages tomorrow morning, this would definitely be a game changer and would lead to an immediate end of war.

20:46but I must say that they have been very very difficult to say the least they have been cruel and not only that they've been cruel to their own people when you look around you see that they disregard the needs of their own people and that's terrible I was talking just um earlier this week to someone who's very knowledgeable in the Islamic world. And he's been to Gaza many times. And when he walks around, he tells me, I bet you that if we would measure in numbers, eight out of ten of Gazan civilians not involved would say that they are against Hamas. But they're scared, and they're weak, and they're being used.

21:44You could see that even in the looting of the humanitarian aid that was sent into Gaza. And one knows right now, and we recently even met Chef Andres from the World Kitchen, who has kitchens around the Gaza Strip and he has 200 bakeries that are working. There is enough food right now but it's the distribution. When someone holds and prevents his own people from getting the supplies, that's torturing your own people. People have been highly critical internationally of the decision to bomb the leadership in Doha, Qatar, that happened this week. And it doesn't immediately say to people, you know, Israel is committed to a negotiated ceasefire and peace deal, if they behave like that.

22:50And they're using that attack on Qatar as one of the many reasons to decry your arrival in London today to say, and there's been a letter written by, signed by dozens of MPs. So your reception in the UK is a bit like the London weather. It's sunshine and it's showers. You're having a red carpet tonight at Downing Street, but there's also been demonstrations. How do you feel about the way Israel has acted this week and also your reception in London today? Well, I'll say the following. I cannot comment on the, I don't have the military information. You know, as a young woman, I served in intelligence.

23:41And you were in the IDF, of course. Yes, of course. And I served in the famous A200 unit, which is world renowned now for the intelligence that it offers the leaders. So I don't have the current intelligence that led to the attack. I don't know the background. So it's difficult for me to say if it was the right or the wrong decision. anything anything that shows how serious Israel is about the efforts to bring about some kind of a change in our area and how serious we are about bringing back our hostages this is what counts I think but people are saying that that attack demonstrates illustrates the status of the hostages is now of collateral damage because if you attack the very negotiators you're supposed to be dealing with then there is no possibility these negotiators of a peaceful solution so let me explain these negotiators have gone back and forth and back and forth for the past almost two years, okay?

25:04Except when President Trump really intervened, nothing happened. So as I say, I don't know what's behind the scenes. I don't have the intelligence that those who made the decision decided upon. And yet, I can say that the Qataris have their own interests, let's put it this way. Definitely the heads of Hamas who have not really shown any innocent decision-making so far. So they've dragged us on and on and on. And these are civilians. We're not talking about a group of commando soldiers caught in the front lines in the middle of the war. The people sitting there in the Gaza tunnels are people, some of them were dragged from their beds on Saturday morning, October 7th.

26:06Some of them were captured in a music festival. These were not fighters that were fighting on a border and were caught by other fighters of the other side and taken as hostages. Even negotiations are held between countries. The problem is we're not facing a country. We're facing a terrorist organization, and the world fails to understand that. We were attacked. If your husband or your father or your son or your brother were dragged in their underwear from their bed on a Saturday morning during a holiday and were kept in tunnels, starved, literally starved. And as I said, there is food in Gaza now.

26:59Their captors are eating. They're eating quite well. But they're starving the hostages on purpose, and we see the horrible images, we see the pictures coming out. And we have to understand we're not talking to another country. We're talking to a terrorist organization that will do anything, anything to undermine Israeli images around the world, to undermine our very existence. Why did they come into Israel? They wanted our very existence to be jeopardized, and we're not willing to take that. Absolutely. And how does it feel then for the world to have come down on Israel and to have turned the narrative to make the victim into the perpetrator, which is what we are seeing most of all in the media coverage of what's going on in Gaza?

27:53It makes me very sad because it's so hypocritical. You look at the UN decisions and resolutions. You look at European countries. You know, if there is one thing I'm sure of, is that we Israelis are not fighting only our war. We're fighting the war of the free world. And if Europe doesn't understand that, and if the UK doesn't understand that, then it's a very sad moment for the world because they have to understand And we're fighting on behalf of the free world against terrorism. That's exactly what we're doing. And when I speak of the terrible use of sexual violence in conflicts, I always say I do not speak only on behalf of Israeli women who do not have a voice anymore because they were murdered on October 7.

28:49I speak on behalf of women, period. women that will be hurt in the next conflict. And when I was saying that a few months ago, little did I know that the next conflict in which sexual violence would be used, would be just around the corner, would be happening in Sweda in Syria, just over the Israeli border against Druze women. And this is an internal Syrian conflict, but they have been using against sexual violence and the world is silent. I don't see BBC headlines about the attack against Druze women. They're not Jewish. They're not Israeli. There are Druze women attacked by others in Syria and the rape and the...

29:41Of course, and we could go on. I mean, the Yazidi, the famine in Sudan. But all we hear about is the genocide that Israel is perpetrating and the famine Israel is perpetrating. Can you speak to this and the rise in global anti-Semitism and how you cope with it? Well, this is exactly as you mentioned in your introduction is one of the reasons the president and I are here to strengthen the Jewish community in the UK. We've seen a tremendous rise in anti-Semitism in the U.S., all over the world, in European countries, and here, unfortunately, in the U.K., very much so. And I think, you know, a lot of the people demonstrating and shouting and chanting.

30:33All the artists who've signed letters, 1 ,800 actors and actresses and artists, all these MPs who've signed a letter protesting against your arrival. Do they know the truth? Do they know the facts? Do they ever bother to maybe, you know, it's very easy to come over to Israel. I'm talking about MPs, for instance. Arrange a group, come over to Israel and see for yourself. But nobody wants their ideology disturbed by evidence. Oh, yeah. Don't let evidence mix us up. Do you find a lot of the protests, the letters, the demonstrations, the tentifadas, to be a form of bigotry disguised as some sort of virtue signaling from the progressives?

31:19I think it's a lot of ignorance, mostly. I think when people, young people, stand on the streets and chant from the river to the sea, And if you bother to ask them which river and which sea, they have no idea what they're talking about. It's a trend. You know, there are trends around the world. Of course, it's more than a trend. The zeitgeist is very anti-Semitic. Of course, we've seen a rise in Islamophobic attacks as well. But predominantly, I think the mood has shifted in the world atmosphere. Yeah, but I think what you see, if I'll take the case of campuses in the United States, you can see a little bit of a shift beginning back.

32:02Well, obviously, Donald Trump is sanctioning the universities that are allowing anti-Semitism. I'm not sure it's just that. From what I hear from friends and from friends' sons and daughters who are studying and attending, I think there's a little bit of an understanding. And I think, just as I said, because trends tend to subside and then you have a new trend. So it seems like it's less popular right now. There may be a vibe shift. Now, I've got a few more questions for you. I know you're very busy and you've got a schedule and I know you want to see the Jewish community and you've got your dinner with Kirstama tonight.

32:41It strikes me that I'm having a conversation with a first lady about the conflict in the Middle East, which somebody once described to me as a problem without a solution. Do you think if all the first ladies, rather than the leaders of these Gulf states of Israel, sat around, they could figure it out a lot quicker? I'm sure. Yes, I have no doubt that women are more practical. And we could probably find a solution together. What would it look like, though, Mrs. Herzog? Well, I'll tell you, I've met quite a few of the leadership in some of the countries around the Middle East. You have quite a few women leaders in government.

33:40Yeah, we tend to see. We need proof. We need evidence. if for instance in the UAE the United Arab Emirates 30 percent of the government is made up of women we tend to think it's only men in Islamic countries but no and I've made some personal friends. So what would a peace look like? I think peace would be first of all about caring for the next generation for our children. I think this is what women really care about, is seeing the next generation having a chance for a good life, for a peaceful life. It's a process, you know, these things. You think it's still possible, the de-radicalization of the Palestinians?

34:32I'm an optimist. I'm an optimist. And you still think a two-state solution is alive? It's not something that I would talk about right now. Things are too raw.

34:49The wound is still raw. It's something that we'll have to heal a little bit before you can go back to talking about a two-state solution. Right now, we have to talk about calming things down, reaching some kind of an agreement that will allow the two sides to feel that they're secure. This is the main thing. People need to feel that they can go on with their life and they're not threatened. This is the main thing. first lady michael herzog thank you very much for being this week's difficult woman thank you rachel and i do hope that we will maybe in our next conversation be able to talk about much brighter subjects and a brighter future for all people in the middle east well let's pray for peace.

35:47Thank you and the return of our hostages as quickly as possible. Thank you very much. Thank you.