Ex-Israeli Prime Minister on Gaza 'Genocide', Netanyahu and The Future of Israel - Naftali Bennett

29:53having said all of this every child and every civilian that dies is a tragedy and that tragedy is the responsibility of hamas who turned all of gaza into a terror base and this is what i was

30:09Francis Foster:going to ask you because um for a lot of people who are living here in britain in america elsewhere in the anglosphere particularly who are most of our audience like if you said to me constantin you know that you believe in fighting a particular cause why don't we put some rockets in your in your spare bedroom i i probably say no to that i'm gonna guess right and i'm wondering to what extent are people doing that in gaza because they actually they care about this and they support hamas to that extent and to what extent these are actually probably somewhat innocent people who have no choice because if they say no they're going to get killed by hamas well first of all that's the reason that even in the event that we find a home or we know a home has turned into a terror base, we still notify and evacuate them, which means we're killing less terrorists that we could have.

31:02But that's a wonderful question. I don't have a perfect answer. You're asking, is the population voluntarily part of this or is it being forced on them? I can give you a couple of data points, though, that indicate, unfortunately, that it's more on the side of knowing and willing participation. The first is the fact that October 7th, what actually happened, there were three waves of terrorists. The first was really the commando terrorists of Hamas called But then the second and third waves that happened within hours were just regular civilians of Gaza who saw an opportunity to go in, loot, murder, and they did it.

31:53And this was fairly widespread. I'm talking about thousands and thousands of these people. Secondly, unlike the Holocaust, for example, where there were non-Jews who saved the lives, righteous Gentiles, we call them, in every country, in Germany, in Poland, even whilst the majority of Germans and Polish people were anti-Semitic and participated in the Shoah and the Holocaust, There was always in every country a fairly small minority that protected the Jews and saved lives and hid them within their homes. In Gaza, there's not one case during October 7th or subsequently of one righteous Gentile, one Palestinian who said, you know what, stop, don't rape the Jews, don't murder them.

32:49The third is polls. The polls that we saw, every poll I've seen, certainly in the early days after October 7th, showed widespread support of the October 7th massacre. And finally, the most important poll of them all is the elections themselves. Though this happened about 15 years ago, in the open elections, as I've suggested, the vast majority of the Palestinians voted for Hamas. Actually, now I recall the number out of 132 seats, 76 are Hamas. So that's an absolute majority.

33:30Francis Foster:So why do they hate you so much, Naftali? Because a lot of people, again, if I'm just watching TV, going to work, I'm thinking, well, if these people hate you this much, what have you done? And that's where the conversation about occupation and displacement and all this other. Why do they hate you so much? That's a fair point. Fair question. There's the broad Arab-Israeli conflict, which, if you want, we'll dive into it briefly. But I'll start with this specific Gaza situation. In Gaza, I believe most of your viewers don't realize this. Israel had been in Gaza since 1967, and in year 2005, by year 2005, there were roughly 8 ,000 Israelis living there.

34:20IDF was roaming around, and there was a decision of the Likud government of Sharon. Netanyahu was his finance minister and also supported this in the Knesset votes of what we call disengagement, which means Israel fully pulled out of all of Gaza in its entirety, forcefully expelled those 8 ,000 Israelis. It was not pleasant days. Pulled out all the soldiers and went to the 1949 line border, meaning we gave them every single centimeter of Gaza. And at that point, there was no blockade or any restriction. because there was a thesis that this is your chance. And we handed over the place to Mahmoud Abbas, the same Mahmoud Abbas that governs the Palestinian Authority today.

35:15And many hoped that Gaza would choose to turn itself into Singapore of the Middle East. It had all the conditions for it, a beautiful beach line and everything it needs, open borders, etc. Unfortunately, within days of this disengagement, they began shooting rockets at us and conducting terror attacks at us. And then from 2005 all the way through 23, once in a while we had to go in, fight back. We had to start controlling what goes into Gaza, which clearly we didn't do a good job of because they built massive terror tunnels in a whole army. And the friction grew. But basically what I'm saying in very simple English, they had a shot.

36:09They had a Palestinian state in every way possible, and they chose to turn it into October 7th and into 20 years and 18 years of hell for the Israelis that lived along the borders. In fact, the kibbutz members that were massacred on October 7th, many of them were big supporters of that disengagement because they hoped that it would create peaceful neighbors. Now you're asking why. I think radical Islam has a, the Islamistic ideology is one that is broader than a national ideology, and it's one of Sharia law, of having a Muslim empire again, like they had roughly, what, 1 ,400 years ago, 1 ,300 years ago.

37:08My understanding, when you read the Hamas charter, it says very explicitly, it's not about the nation of Palestinians versus Israel. It's about Islam versus the West. And Israel is just stuck there from their perspective. So I believe there's a lot of religious factor here. and you know many believed and and i also tried to to proceed down the let's make their economy better and their lives better and gaza was actually on a very positive trajectory i had been letting more uh uh gaza workers into israel netanyahu subsequently allowed even more uh gaza uh workers to enter Israel to get good jobs.

37:57And I guess we all hope that this would decrease the motivation, but religious motivation turns out to be divorced from religious ideology. You know, Bin Laden was a multimillionaire, so the notion that if you improve the livelihood of people, by definition, it'll decrease terror, it's not 100 % correct. in some cases.

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39:46Francis Foster:That's why I've always taken steps to secure my family's future with gold. If you have over$100 ,000 in your current IRA, 401k or other retirement account, visit TriggerGold.com, that's TriggerGold.com, to learn how Augusta Precious Metals can become your lifelong self-directed IRA partner. Naftali, you must be incredibly concerned that the longer this war drags on, we're talking about radicalization, the more radicalized the population of Gaza become. but also as well the more anti-semitism spreads across the world that is a very real concern for jews living in the uk for living in america and and all over the globe quite frankly it is i'll unpack you you mentioned two things the radicalization in gaza i'd actually say october 7th as i said happened actually when when conditions in gaza were getting much much better You know, they had shopping malls there.

40:43They had the theaters. They had the hotels. Gaza was in a fairly good trajectory economically. So I divorced the radicalization from this. But I am cognizant that when, you know, you see buildings blow up, you don't become a big friend to Israel. to deal with that. And if you want to talk about the future of Gaza, ultimately, I don't want to govern Gaza. I don't want to occupy Gaza. We just need our security. But we do need to ensure something we didn't do in the past, which is to stop the brain poisoning of the younger generation, both in Judea and Samaria, the PA and in Gaza. when you are taught from age zero that the Jews are the Satan and need to be killed, lo and behold, when you're 20 years old or 17 years old, you'll go into a kibbutz and sever heads of people.

41:46So that's in terms of Gaza. Your broader question of anti-Semitism. Yeah, I'll tell you something. I spent part of my life in the United States as a child a few years and later on running my high-tech company. And whenever the anti-antisemitism organizations like ADL would always talk about anti-Semitism, I have to admit I thought it was a bit inflated. because I hadn't, myself or my friends, not in Kurds, you don't walk around New Jersey or Houston or Omaha, Nebraska and feel anti-Semitism. So, you know, it was a thing, and here and there on the fringes, it's changed. It's changed, and I cannot believe what I'm seeing day in, day out.

42:43And obviously, we can attribute the spread, the rapid spread to social networks, which is simply a tool that didn't exist, though there were other tools of disseminating false information before the Internet. For example, roughly, I believe, 150 years ago or so, there was a pamphlet called The Protocols of Zion, which suggested that the Jews are sitting in some dark room and conniving how to control the world. And it spread fairly well, even without Facebook. But now with the social media, the latest things that every day it hits you, like mainstream people in America will suggest that Israel stands behind the murder of Charlie Kirk.

43:38Mainstream people will suggest that Jeffrey Epstein was a Mossad agent. In fact, when I saw this happening, you know, the Mossad reported to me. In Israel, the Mossad and Shin Bet report directly to the prime minister, whereas the IDF reports to the entire government. So I said, you know, I know this is not true. I actually called up two former Mossad chiefs just to be sure, and one former prime minister. They all said, this is nonsense. So I posted, I believe it was Tucker Carlson or someone who was beginning to spread that Jeffrey Epstein was a Mossad agent. I said simply not. He wasn't. By the way, Israel doesn't conduct espionage on American soil since 1985, where we messed up with the Pollard affair.

44:25So every day you're faced with it, and it's so crazy that you lose your breath. But we can't stand silent. This is a huge worry. I believe that the state of Israel, to some degree, has responsibility for the Jewish people, even if they are not our own citizens. We need to look out for them. And yeah, this is a huge, new, scary phenomenon. just last night I saw Tucker Carlson at the Charlie Kirk funeral and he was peddling insinuating he talked about basically the folks who killed Jesus 2000 years ago and created some sort of analogy so he plays a very thin line so he said I didn't You know, I didn't talk about the Israelis.

45:24I didn't talk about the Jews. But you did. You actually did. And you meant exactly what I understood you meant is you were sending the dog whistle. This is really bad stuff. And we have to call it out for what it is. And it actually reminds me of my favorite story ever. So it's about 2000 years ago in Jerusalem. And Jesus shows up and he starts talking about the people in power. and he starts doing the worst thing that you can do, which is telling the truth about people, and they hate it, and they just go bonkers. They hate it, and they become obsessed with making him stop. This guy's got to stop talking.

46:04We've got to shut this guy up. And I can just sort of picture the scene in a lamp-lit room with a bunch of guys sitting around eating hummus, thinking about what do we do about this guy telling the truth about us? We must make him stop talking! and there's always one guy with the bright idea and I can just hear him say, I've got an idea, why don't we just kill him? That'll shut him up. That'll fix the problem.

46:32And I believe Israel, domestically, we need to tell a new story. We need a new page for Israel. That's what I hope to do if I return to lead the country is turn a page, bring the hostages home, end the war, go out, seek peace with new partners in the Middle East, and come back to what Israel's story should be, which is a remarkable, decent nation in very hard circumstances trying to do good. That's what Israel's about, and that will help. But at the same time, I don't want to mislead anyone. The drivers of anti-Semitism are deep, sinister drives. It goes beyond the fact that Israel has no public diplomacy and our PR is the lousiest in the world.

47:29I get that. We need to fix it. It's indefensible, the fact that our current government doesn't do anything about it, and quite the contrary. But even if we do that, and even if we don't have ministers who say, stupid things every other day. Let's assume still there is a deep millennia-old phenomenon. It started actually 3 ,300 years ago, the first instance of anti-Semitism when the Jews were leaving Egypt. So the Amalekites were the first instance of anti-Semitism on a national basis. and I can't explain it. You know, I'm a big history buff, read gazillion history books. I can't fully understand the rationale of anti-Semitism because when we succeed, we're blamed for being successful.

48:26When we're poor, we're blamed for being a burden on society. When Jews were separatists and lived in ghettos, we were accused of being different. And then in the 19th century, especially in Germany and Western Europe, when Jews assimilated, they were blamed for trying to corrupt society. So it's basically whatever Jews do, we're blamed. All I can say is I'm happy I have my own Jewish state now where even if lies happen, at least we can defend ourselves. Naftali, so that being the case, there is going to be a lot of people in the U.S., in the U.K., all over the world who are going, particularly the U.S., who are going, why is more and more of my tax dollars being spent to support Israel, to help Israel, to fund Israel?

49:19And the question is, why is Israel so important to America, to the U.K., and to the West in general? that's a very important question the short answer is the middle east is uh the most explosive and tumultuous region on earth and the notion let's say there wasn't in israel no israel doesn't exist september 11th would still happen and osama bin laden will sit in in some cave in afghanistan or the next Osama bin Laden somewhere in Gaza or in Ramallah or in Nablus. And we'll come after the West because it's a deep-rooted ideology that says that ultimately Islam and Sharia law should control the world.

50:10It's the idea of an Islamic state. It's well-rooted. Any territory that Islam has conquered is called holy or waqf in Arabic. So what would America then need to do? And what it actually did after September 11th, more or less competently, one may argue, it would understand that it can't just ignore and say, okay, they're on the other side of the ocean because here they're not. And they come to London and they come to Madrid and they come to the Twin Towers and to the Pentagon. So what you would do is you would set up, try and set up bases in the Middle East, and then those bases would have to be defended and protected.

51:00And then in order to protect them, you'd need sort of a host of bases all across the Middle East, talking about millions of soldiers. And then one would perhaps suggest, you know what, what if instead of all of this, we have one big base, We don't have to send our soldiers. The base is called Israel. The Israelis have their own soldiers, their own military. They will fight the wars. They will gather the intelligence of what the terrorists are conniving and what's their next terror attack. They're out there. What an amazing deal. All we have to do is support them a bit financially. That's the best ROI I could imagine.

51:44Now, this is not theoretical. As prime minister, I can recall at least 30 instances in 13 months where we called up a specific European intelligence agency and said, listen, right now, there are three terrorists on this building, 17th floor in London or in Belgium. him uh go up arrest them now why do we have all this information because we are in friction with them we are in constant uh touch with them so we are america and the west's uh aircraft carrier or base here but we're not asking it to send soldiers we're not asking to fight i fought i risked my life many times fighting radical Islam. I lost my best friend fighting radical Islam.

52:43My son, my oldest son right now, is in the same unit I served, and I hate it. It's horrible. We lose sleep at night. It's scary. It's my son, for heaven's sake. I want him alive. I want him to have a great life. But we got to do this to defend ourselves, and the benefit, the spillover benefit is that you guys don't have to be here. I mean, that is quite an argument because there are a lot of people, particularly when you look at what is happening in America with the deficit, who are quite resentful, shall we just say, about the money that is being funneled into Israel. And they would see this money would be better spent in America.

53:27What would you say to that? look um i'm not going to tell america how to spend its money um there could be an alternative where you don't support us we don't get that support uh and uh you know we'll we'll support ourselves and maybe we can provide the defense as a service uh and charge a country when i call up that prime minister and say, look, on 17th floor, but, you know, I want$50 million for this piece of information. Would that make sense? That's not how friends act. We're doing the hard work of the world. It's a thankless job. We keep on being blamed for everything while we're the ones.

54:15We are the ones who are blocking this huge flood of radical Islam, and it happened before. uh islam conquered all the way to to spain right all of north africa and all the way to andalus and and that is still their dream today there's much more advanced technologies if we didn't stop iran from acquiring nuclear weapons do you actually if and israel didn't exist do you think iran would just keep it and do you think uh what would happen with Saudi Arabia and Turkey and Egypt and the next Bin Laden will have a nuclear bomb. 9-11 happened. It happened. I was in New York when it happened. I was in Manhattan when it happened.

55:04I saw the buildings on fire. It's a real thing. I'm like the Forrest Gump of these crazy events. I'm always there. And just imagine it is extremely easy if you allow the cancerous tumor of radical Islamist terrorism to grow and you don't handle it. It'll blow up on you. And that'll be way more costly than a few billion dollars. 9-11 now in London and Madrid can totally paralyze a country for years. It could destroy a country. So we're fighting. We're stopping them. We stopped Saddam Hussein from acquiring a nuclear weapon in 1981. Israel did the thankless job of destroying his nuclear reactor in Osirak, near Baghdad.

55:58Everyone condemned us, but Saddam Hussein turned out to not have nuclear weapons thanks to Israel. Later on, we did the same thing with Assad. We bombed his nuclear reactor in a place called Deir Azur in 2007. Did we get any thanks for it? No, but we saved the world from a crazy Assad with a bomb. Now we did the same in Iran. We're doing everyone's job. Do you think these nuclear weapons coupled with radical Islam is the worst formula you can have, the worst potion you can have? And it'll come after you, but we're doing the job. Instead of condemning us, how about saying thanks once in a while?

56:42Because it's my son there. It was me there. I was fighting them. I was risking my life and saving your lives quite literally, tangibly, not in theory, tangibly. Maybe, you know, maybe if I become prime minister again, every time we save lives, we'll make a big PR splash every three weeks and say we just save lives and not leave it at the Mossad MI5 level. and maybe that's a better way. Good idea that's coming up here.

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58:30Francis Foster:One thing that you keep repeating is you keep saying it's a thankless task. It's a thankless task. And one of the interesting developments in your region more broadly is actually, from what I'm hearing, quite a lot of the governments of the countries that are your neighbors or in your backyard, so to speak, they might not be thanking you publicly, but they certainly weren't against what you did in Iran, for example, or what Israel did in Iran. And there seems to be a broader consensus developing in the Middle East in many countries that actually radical Islam is bad for everybody, including the Islamic countries that have to deal with its consequences.

59:06Francis Foster:How hopeful are you that whenever this horrific war ends, and I think we all hope it ends soon, that there's the possibility of something that resembles a lasting peace and a permanent rearrangement of the region such that actually the Palestinian cause, whatever shape it takes does not retain its potency as being a way of antagonizing the entire region against everybody particularly of course against israel i'm very optimistic and your point is uh correct uh i've um i met most of in fact i believe all of uh almost all of the um leaders of the moderate Arab countries, they despise radical Islam, both types of radical Islam, the Shiite sort of Iran and the radical Sunni type, which is the Muslim Brotherhood and its more radical forms of ISIS, etc.

1:00:06They are terrified by it, and they very much want to fight it, and they view Israel as a central pillar of fighting it. And we're doing a lot of things together. There is a big problem with the street in those countries, which sometimes there is popular support for the more radical elements. And that's what causes the friction and also why they can't publicly talk about supporting Israel's fight against radical Islam. We need to win. We need to create a very strong crescent of moderacy and of growth from India through Emirates, Saudis, Iraq, Jordan, and to Israel, Egypt, etc. This is a huge potential.

1:01:09I'm a huge believer in this, and I believe that once we form a new government and open a new page for Israel, wrap up the war, we're in for a very good story of growth and peace in the region. you so well you must be concerned naftali when you look at the polling and the opinions of the younger generation particularly those 30 and under and their opinions of israel in the united states because i mean to put it mildly they're not especially favorable shall we just say and you can just say well look it's you know young people being young people kids being kids blah blah blah but those kids are going to be the next political leaders they're going to be the next people in charge, etc., etc., the next leaders of commerce.

1:02:02That must represent a very real concern to you and to the nation of Israel. Incredibly worried about this. This is a profound change in the American younger generation opinion. During the past decade, to a great degree, Israel, for many reasons, lost the democratic side. but we had the support of the Republican side. That in itself is not a good development. And now I am seeing a massive decrease of support in Israel of the younger Republicans and the more right-wing elements of the Republican Party. We have to reverse this. We have to reverse it. And there are ways to reverse it. As I said, the main thing that we can do is bring the hostages home, win, wrap up this war, and tell a new story, a new beautiful story of what I think Israel is really about.

1:03:03And Israel is really about, as I said, a nation that has crazy circumstances and thrown at it. Sometimes I feel like, you know, I'm a man of faith, so I feel like God is experimenting on the Jewish people. So it takes 10 million of us, puts us here, and says, okay, let's start. Okay, you've got all these Arab states want to kill you. Let's see how you do. And then we win in the War of Independence, a six-day war. And it says, you know, and let there not be water. No water here. So Israel has to force itself to become the world's number one producer of desalinated water. 80 % of the water we drink in Israel is generated, is manufactured.

1:03:56We used to have a huge water problem. Now we don't. And in fact, we provide Jordan with water. Isn't that beautiful? Did you know that? No one knows that. We are feeding the region and we can do even more. Then it says, OK, we see you did a fairly good job. Let's throw at you a new challenge, asymmetric terror and warfare. You're going to be the first ones who have to deal with a whole nation that has embedded terrorists into its homes. Let's see how you deal with it. And then you're going to be the country with the biggest number of rockets targeted at you, about 200 ,000 rockets and missiles.

1:04:41Let's see, you have a go. And we keep on being. And at the same time, hey, stay a democracy, stay a thriving country of high tech. Oh, and by the way, you have 2 million Israeli Arabs that are citizens, and it's complicated because they belong to the broader Arab nation, yet they're citizens in your own country, and part of the Arab nation is your enemy. Let's see how you deal with that. How do you deal with not a regular minority, a minority that has a complex issue of identity? And lo and behold, the Israeli Arabs are thriving, joining, you know, high work employment numbers, very good achievements in education.

1:05:30We have Supreme Court justice who's Arab. We have members of Knesset who are Arab. So I'm very proud to be Israeli. I'm very proud to sort of be this experiment of the toughest issues in the world. The next one, by the way, is the issue of polarization, which is hitting all of the democracies. Let's see how you deal with that.

1:05:51Francis Foster:And how do you deal with that? We hear about protests currently happening in Israel pretty regularly against Prime Minister Netanyahu. And by the way, you've alluded in this conversation to the possibility of you becoming prime minister before the war ends. Is that even possible? Everything's possible. So how would that come about? Look, Israel is governed by laws. There's four years between election and election unless the elections are advanced in the Knesset. But according to schedule, the next elections are a year from now. More likely, they'll be about seven to eight months from now. And how would it come about is we'd run and win.

1:06:42Francis Foster:Well, it's certainly going to be a very interesting time. I very much hope that the war ends way before that election. Me too. And speaking of the hostages, we haven't spoken about them. how likely is it that you're going to get them back now? Because look, I'm not an expert, but I imagine the recognition of the Palestinian state by Western governments, you said it has no practical impact. But the one thing that I think it would have in terms of a practical impact is it would signal to Hamas that they're winning. Isn't that a sign that they're winning? That's a valid point. We're negotiating with Hamas.

1:07:20In negotiation, there's basically two elements there's leverage meaning who has the upper hand who can create more pressure on the other side and there and then there's the the deal the terms of the deal and um so so i i would say hamas uh hamas's lever leverage can can go up and and then ebb so it has ups and downs at this point in time uh the the pressure point is that that that it's mighty difficult down in Gaza. I mean, Gaza is hell. I'm not going to pretend it's anything but. While, you know, so many people have been evacuated from their homes, terrible conditions, this applies some degree of pressure.

1:08:06But you're right, on the international stage, if they see that Israel, by the day, is losing the international war, they might feel that time is on their side. And that's why the latest move of the UK and France, etc., of recognizing the Palestinian state is not a good development because it would suggest to them, let's just wait it out. So, no, I cannot say whether a deal can be achieved. I'm not in the negotiation room. I don't have the latest data. um i i think that there are ways to create leverage and then seal a deal which are what i'm not going to get into it because i might become prime minister and i i don't want to share how i would go about it but basically apply pressure create the conditions and then take the deal when when it's possible the right deal not any deal well what i don't understand is and

1:09:08Francis Foster:obviously i understand your reluctance to get into the details is what pressure israel can apply because Hamas is perfectly happy to have its civilians killed by Israel. In fact, it seems to be its strategy. So going harder, bombing them harder, killing more of their leaders, none of that seems to work. And the more people die in Gaza, the more Western nations seem to be going in a pro-Hamas direction, as we've seen in the last few days. Yeah, so we need to be more creative about it and use other tools and dimensions. I will say that at the start of the war, this is public because I made it public.

1:09:46I had suggested to the government first quietly and then publicly that we take part of Gaza and announce that that part is a war zone. and the rest is an open zone, and then apply a full siege on that particular part while screening the population that leaves. So you basically can collect the terrorists and you can divide the terrorists from the full population. So I would take a few other creative dimensions that are not happening right now. I fairly agree with your analysis here that more of the same will only result in more of the same results. That makes sense.

1:10:44Francis Foster:It's great talking to you. We have a lot of questions from our supporters that we're going to ask you on our Substack portion. But, of course, before we do, we always end with the same question. Before Naftali answers the final question at the end of the interview, make sure to click the link in the description. go to triggerpod.co.uk to hear him answer these questions. It is clear that Hamas cannot win this war, that is to eliminate the state of Israel, which of course is their objective, but how can they lose the war? How can they be forced to capitulate? The Umrah in charge of Palestinians education has radicalized generation of Palestinians.

1:11:19How can this be remedied? Can, should Israel take over the responsibility for educating Palestinians or could we have the Saudis do it.

1:11:27Francis Foster:Would it be better or feasible for Israel to publicly push for Arab states to take responsibility for Gaza as opposed to continuously losing its soldiers with little possible gain? What's the one thing that we're not talking about that we really should be? My vision for Israel and what Israel can be within a fairly short time frame. and this is the new page of Israel. Look, my vision for Israel within a few years is to form a national unity government, which is a diverse government. It's a bipartisan government that does not exist in America, neither, I believe, in the UK, beyond World War II, where there was one, where I would bring left and right parties together, religious and secular parties together and unite israel uh bring back uh a competent and decent government of hard-working people and then um rebuild our strength we have to be very strong no doubt about it but not only work through that uh send out our our efforts uh of peace to the region, to the Saudis, to Indonesia, to other locations, bring back home and bring to Israel a massive magnet of brains.

1:13:00We have a very high proportion of Nobel Prize winners here in Israel because we have amazing science and technology. So I would bring them all back from the valley or most of them from the valley or from the United States. Some of them left over the past few years and make Israel sort of a capital of high-tech, showing the world how a beautiful country can work while progressing all our populations. We have the ultra-Orthodox population in Israel called the Haredi population. For some quirk of history, they are exempt from serving in the military and from working. So stop that. Bring them into the Israeli talent pool and then begin.

1:13:54Once we secure Israel and rebuild its economy, then we can approach what what I think Israel's real mission is in this day and age to be a problem solver of some of the world's biggest problems. in you know talking about quantum technology i'm on a board of a company in in the quantum space and ai but not only the technological components of it but also the ethical components meaning um what does the future spell for human beings in in an era of ai what is our meaning you know if they can do all the work for us what do you need people for how do you uh build a younger generation that is robust and strong amid the the the influx of uh of um information so so we have some a mix of ancient and and advanced technologies we have a startup in Israel, a Jewish startup that deals with the addiction to phones.

1:15:00It's called Shabbat. It's called the Sabbath. It was developed roughly 3 ,200 years ago. It's a very weird notion that at Friday at about 5 p.m., you turn it off, you put it aside, and you spend 25 hours with your family, you actually talk to your children, you listen to them. Very unique ideas. And so these are the sort of things I would want to grapple with, but there's a Maslow pyramid. First, we need to win, need to bring home the hostages, secure Israel, replace the government, rebuild Israel, fix the international standing because it's a disaster now, and then retell the real story of what the Jewish state ought to be.

1:15:52Francis Foster:It's great talking to you. We'll take you through to Substack with our audience who have a ton of questions. Thanks for being here. Follow us over where we ask Naftali Bennett your questions. Your party, Yamina, as well as you, had a very similar rhetoric to that of Smotrich. What are your views on Smotrich and Ben Gavir's statements? And are you in agreement with their views?

1:16:38Thank you.