Israel Ambassador to the Philippines H.E. Ilan Fluss | The Manila Times Roundtable
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NewsTranscript
00:00:00 [Music]
00:00:04 Thank you for coming, sir, to the Manila Times.
00:00:08 And good to see you.
00:00:10 Thank you for having me, Dante.
00:00:12 As you said, it's complicated times, but it is my pleasure to be with you.
00:00:17 I wanted to start with asking you what's the latest going on,
00:00:20 but I think you said that it's important to start with the context of October 7.
00:00:25 You want to pick up from there, and then maybe we can ask questions after that?
00:00:29 Yes. I think it's very important when we talk about what's happening today in Gaza,
00:00:36 first of all, to go back to October 7.
00:00:39 Yes. This is the attack, right?
00:00:41 Which is exactly the terror attack of Hamas against Israel,
00:00:44 which is really a point of time which changed everything, and we have to realize it.
00:00:52 October 7, Israel was surprised by the Hamas attack, but the issue is not the surprise of the attack.
00:01:01 The issue is the brutality of the attack and the cruelty of the attack.
00:01:09 They basically were targeting Israeli and Jewish communities.
00:01:15 Civilians.
00:01:16 Civilians, the communities, not the military.
00:01:19 They were attacking the communities, and they had detailed plans.
00:01:24 They had all the intelligence, understanding who are the communities,
00:01:27 how many people live there, what safety and security guards do they have, how many entry points.
00:01:34 They had a lot of information, and they had very clear instructions to murder, to rape, to show brutality.
00:01:43 And we have some, I can show you some, even some audios, and I'm sorry, also some videos and audios
00:01:52 of instructions of Hamas leaders telling the operatives, "Behead them and play with their heads.
00:02:00 Hang them so that people can see them hanged. Bring the bodies to Gaza."
00:02:05 All kinds of instructions which show that their plan was to brutally murder Israeli civilians.
00:02:16 End result was close to 1,400 casualties, as you know, not only Israelis, but for Filipinos, many other nationals.
00:02:27 Who just happened to be there.
00:02:29 Which either happened to be there with the families or were working there in the area.
00:02:35 And the Hamas penetrated 40 kilometers into Israel, and including big towns of more than 100,000 citizens in those towns.
00:02:46 And it was including the party, with thousands of people who were partying, and they massacred them.
00:02:58 They burned families in their houses. They burned people in their car.
00:03:04 It's really, it's evil. It's bad.
00:03:09 And this is why when we are saying Hamas is ISIS, it's not a slogan.
00:03:15 They, in their charter of the Hamas, they call, number one, for the destruction of the state of Israel.
00:03:25 And they call for the murdering of Jews.
00:03:29 In Israel, this was a trauma, a shock, as a nation.
00:03:39 On the other hand, also determination that this can never, never, never happen again.
00:03:48 Because for the humanitarian sake, we allowed a lot of stuff to come into Gaza.
00:03:55 We were trying to help in the development of Gaza.
00:04:00 We had an escalation every few years when the Hamas was launching rockets and we had to retaliate.
00:04:08 I mean, they launch rockets all the time, now and then, but every few years there was like an increase.
00:04:14 We had to respond.
00:04:15 Not in the thousands that we saw.
00:04:17 Exactly. I mean, the first day there were 4,500 rockets launched on Israeli civilians.
00:04:24 So we said, how did we allow, and that's the Israeli public, he's asking the government,
00:04:30 how did we allow such a monster, a terror organization, calling for the destruction of the state of Israel,
00:04:38 prepare itself for such a war against Israel, and they were able to implement it.
00:04:45 And it's something that the Israeli population would not agree that this will happen again.
00:04:52 It's very much connected to what's happening today when we're talking about the ceasefire.
00:04:56 So I'll get to it in a minute.
00:04:58 Sure.
00:04:59 But, and the Israeli community is very united now, and is very, a lot of sense of voluntarism and patriotism,
00:05:11 and people are opening their homes for the refugees, the Israelis who had to evacuate their communities
00:05:19 because either they were totally destroyed, and some because of the proximity,
00:05:24 now also in the northern part of Israel, we can mention it in a minute.
00:05:27 And we have about 250,000 Israelis that are displaced from their homes,
00:05:34 so the government is taking care of them, but also a lot of Israeli families who are hosting them
00:05:40 in their homes, taking care of clothing, of feeding, of schooling, and everything else.
00:05:48 So a lot of voluntarism, but there's a very strong sense of anger.
00:05:56 How did we allow it to happen, and how come?
00:06:00 Even on the international community, from one side we see a lot of solidarity with Israel,
00:06:05 and you see from President Biden and the UK and Germany and France, and also we appreciate very much
00:06:11 President Marcos, who came out with a very clear statement of support of Israel,
00:06:16 and that's very important, but on the other hand you see also a lot of voices,
00:06:21 and a lot of big demonstrations, anti-Israeli, pro-Hamas, calling for Palestine from the river to the sea.
00:06:34 When you say Palestine from the river to the sea, it means driving the Israelis and Jews out of the land.
00:06:43 No recognition of Israel.
00:06:45 And I think maybe one more point is that the atrocities that we saw on October 7
00:06:52 reminded us of one thing, the Holocaust.
00:06:57 Similar footage, the last time we had seen such a big number of casualties was the Holocaust.
00:07:06 And Israelis are feeling insecure now.
00:07:11 I can tell you my daughter, she used to live for three years very close to the border with Gaza,
00:07:17 and she had to go every few weeks during the night, there were the sirens,
00:07:24 she had to go into the safety room, and she grew up with this for three years.
00:07:28 She was studying in a school nearby, a very good school.
00:07:31 Now, after the attack, and she now lives in Tel Aviv, she feels afraid at night that a terrorist would come in.
00:07:40 And this is a phenomenon which we see for many Israelis because of those events.
00:07:48 So we feel insecure.
00:07:51 You think about it, if we think about the Holocaust and the many centuries of persecution,
00:07:59 combined with wars against Israel since 1948,
00:08:05 where the Arabs did not recognize the Jewish entity, or the two-state solution,
00:08:12 did not recognize the Arabs, told the Palestinians, "Don't worry, we'll get rid of the Jews,
00:08:17 we'll get rid of the Palestinian state and Arab state."
00:08:21 '48, '56, '67, '73, and so many terror attacks.
00:08:27 So Israelis feel that the world is against them,
00:08:34 that the world does not accept the very existence of the state of Israel,
00:08:40 which is something that, you know, the Philippines, you take the Philippines for granted,
00:08:44 you have a country to stay, you are Filipino, nobody is claiming.
00:08:48 You have internal issues. You had also terrorism in the Philippines,
00:08:53 but it's not that anybody is challenging the right of this country to exist.
00:08:58 But Israel's right to exist is being challenged again and again.
00:09:03 And today we talk about October 7th, the Hamas, and since October 7th,
00:09:07 we have the Hezbollah on the northern border of Israel, which has the same agenda.
00:09:14 They didn't open full-scale war, but there are so many incidents along the border with southern Lebanon.
00:09:20 Hezbollah is in full control of southern Lebanon, so Hezbollah is on the border with Israel,
00:09:25 and they're attacking Israel all the time.
00:09:27 We had to evacuate, also close to 70,000 people have been evacuated from the northern border.
00:09:33 And to remind us, the Houthis, which is a terror organization in Yemen,
00:09:38 which the Arab coalition is fighting in Yemen, and the Houthis three weeks ago declared war against Israel.
00:09:45 What is the connection between Houthis and Israel?
00:09:48 And they launched a few missile attacks, including ballistic missiles and drones, against Israel.
00:09:55 It's very far, they have to cross the Red Sea, it's very far, but these weapons can do the distance.
00:10:02 Thank God we have good technologies these days, and we're able to intercept it, and we're fine.
00:10:09 And some of them were intercepted by the Americans, some by the Saudis, some by us.
00:10:13 But what is the connecting thread between those?
00:10:18 Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis, and that's Iran.
00:10:22 And Iran calls, again, to annihilate the state of Israel.
00:10:27 It doesn't recognize our existence, it's developing nuclear weapons.
00:10:32 Basically, Israel is under threat.
00:10:34 So when we're talking about the war now, we have to remember, Israel was attacked on October 7th in such a brutal way,
00:10:44 and now we are responding to protect ourselves.
00:10:49 I'm talking for, if you have questions, if I have still more...
00:10:54 Yes, I should have started by giving you our sympathies and condolences for what happened on October 7th.
00:11:03 I think a lot of Filipinos, if not all Filipinos, sympathize with Israel when it was brutally attacked, as you said.
00:11:13 I should have premised my question about that.
00:11:17 But you mentioned that a lot of people in Israel are asking how this has happened.
00:11:22 It's been a little bit more than a month since October 7th.
00:11:27 Has there been time to process what did happen?
00:11:31 Because initially there were talks about how this might be a reaction of the initiative to have some rapprochement between Israel and Saudi Arabia.
00:11:45 Whether that was the attack was intent to derail those talks, which seems to have happened already.
00:11:53 Or was it because of pent-up frustration among some Hamas particularly, that they lashed out at this particular time?
00:12:07 Maybe it should come from you. Have you had time to process answering that question, why this happened?
00:12:15 To a certain extent, I can say yes.
00:12:19 There will be also inquiries after the war is over, going deep into the details and the planning.
00:12:30 But it's important to say that we have the war plans of Hamas, because some of the operatives who were later on eliminated by IDF when we took back the control of the Israeli communities that were taken over by Hamas.
00:12:46 So we found the war plans.
00:12:49 This war was planned already more than a year ago.
00:12:54 It was in the planning and the training.
00:12:57 So it was orchestrated. It was not just an idea, "Okay, let's go in."
00:13:05 So of course, the question is, why is the timing?
00:13:09 We have to remember it was a Saturday, the Sabbath, the Jewish holiday.
00:13:13 Plus it was the last holiday of the Jewish New Year.
00:13:17 So it's called Simchat Torah. It's the end of the Feast of Tabernacles, and it's the end of the celebrations of the festivals of the Jewish New Year.
00:13:28 So we were caught by surprise.
00:13:32 But the plans were there, and the training was there for over a year, and we have the evidence.
00:13:41 So it's difficult to say that it's coming out of because there were, you know, the issues.
00:13:47 No, the Hamas has a charter which calls to destroy the state of Israel.
00:13:53 Hamas would never recognize the right of Israel to exist, and that's in the charter.
00:13:59 And they called to murder the Jews. Again, it's in the charter.
00:14:04 And another element which I heard about occupation.
00:14:11 Israel does not occupy Gaza. We were out of Gaza. We pulled out of Gaza in 2005.
00:14:19 2007, Hamas took over a government in Gaza, brutally murdering the Fatah leadership, the old Palestinian leadership.
00:14:28 And they took over the government of Gaza, and Hamas is the government.
00:14:35 And that's exactly how was our now the response of the Israeli public is because we allowed a lot of things to come into Gaza.
00:14:45 Knowing and getting assurances from the UN organizations and from the different aid organizations
00:14:52 that this is going only for civil use, for the civilians, to build infrastructure and to help, you know, the civilians in Gaza.
00:15:03 But what happened is Hamas took a lot of this stuff and used it to build itself and to prepare for this war against Israel.
00:15:15 Cement. Cement can be used to build schools and hospitals, but cement was used to build between 350 to 500 tunnels and bunkers underground,
00:15:29 including, as you know, other schools and the hospitals. So it was not used for developing Gaza.
00:15:37 So the frustration, it's easy to say Israel is the one to be blamed. But with all due respect, the one to be blamed for what's happening in Gaza is Hamas.
00:15:51 It's the victims. Exactly. It's Hamas. Another example, water projects.
00:15:57 They had water piping and water pipes to come in to develop their own water systems. And we have footage of Hamas operatives taking out the water pipes
00:16:11 and they can then be reused as rocket launchers. So all this dual use and people say, how can you call water pipe dual use?
00:16:23 We have the evidence. Sure. And there are many more things like that. So and Israel now, it's important to say the goal of this war is not to take over Gaza.
00:16:37 We pulled out of Gaza. We are on the international border because of the principle Ariel Sharon, then our late prime minister, said,
00:16:46 if we're not occupying Gaza, there should be no reason for Gaza to attack us. And that was the logic behind this engagement.
00:16:56 Yeah. He has proven wrong because Hamas took over. And Hamas is again and again and again until what happened in October 7.
00:17:06 So the idea of the war is not to take, not to gain control of Gaza. There are two goals for this war.
00:17:12 And it's very, very simple. Yeah. Number one, to eliminate Israel.
00:17:16 What number one is to bring back 239 hostages. OK. 239 hostages that were kidnapped from Israel in October 7.
00:17:28 Since October 7, they have not seen anybody. Red Cross hasn't seen them. I want to share with you.
00:17:38 There are 33 children that were kidnapped. This one, Aviv, she's two years old.
00:17:45 Oh, yes, I've seen that. She's two years old. The youngest child that was kidnapped out of those 33, he's 10 months old.
00:17:55 Was kidnapped when he was nine months. Now he's already 10 months old. Kidnapped with his sister and his two parents.
00:18:01 Some of the kids are without their parents. 33 children. They kidnapped elderly people.
00:18:09 I always take this one, Ditsa. She looks very much like my mother. She's 84. My mother is 87.
00:18:17 And her daughter was talking about her mother. And she said probably her mother is now taking care of all the other hostages because of her spirit.
00:18:26 And she always takes care of other people. Very much what I would have said about my mother, who is also a social worker.
00:18:34 And you have elderly people, 84 years old, some of them are Holocaust survivors, who are helped kidnapped in Gaza.
00:18:43 Nobody has seen them. The Red Cross didn't visit them. So the Red Cross is putting all the pressure.
00:18:48 And the International Houthi is putting pressure on Israel. What happened to the pressure on Hamas, on Iran, on Qatar, on other players,
00:18:57 to put pressure on Hamas to let these hostages go back home? Civilians, it doesn't matter, soldiers.
00:19:05 They are mostly civilians, but we know that there are also about 239 people that were kidnapped and taken hostage in Gaza.
00:19:14 This is against international law. So this is the first goal of this war.
00:19:20 And the second goal of the war is to make sure that there is no more Hamas operatives and facilities that can serve as basis to attack Israel again.
00:19:32 When we started at the first stage of airborne bombing, we were targeting only Hamas facilities.
00:19:40 We know, and I can show you, we have slides showing exactly where we were bombing.
00:19:46 And Hamas, on purpose, built its facilities with inside civilian hospitals, schools, mosques, residential buildings.
00:20:01 Israel, for years already, is actually doing a very sensitive, complicated act before we attack, before we bomb a building.
00:20:14 We inform those, the residents of the building, to evacuate. So we give them an early warning.
00:20:23 So the terrorists also know that we are going to attack, but we are responsible and we are trying to mitigate civilian casualties.
00:20:33 To remind you, before we started the land operation in Gaza, we called upon the citizens of northern Gaza to evacuate to southern Gaza in order to go to a safer zone.
00:20:47 Again, it's a war. However, it's a war. But in order for them to have a safer place, we told them, "North Gaza is going to be attacked by Israel. Move down south."
00:21:01 What did Hamas do? They blocked the roads. They sent the messages, "Don't leave. Stay with us."
00:21:09 A few days ago, we entered into a school or hospital where a Hamas operative, a terrorist, was holding 1,000 Palestinians, hostages, to protect him from IDF.
00:21:26 We opened, with our own initiative, not because of international pressure, because we believe it's the right thing to do.
00:21:33 And I can share the footage with you. We opened safety corridors for civilians to evacuate from north to south.
00:21:41 The first day we opened this corridor, the corridor was attacked by Hamas because Hamas did not want the civilians to live, because they wanted them as human shields.
00:21:52 This is a war crime. So since then, we were able to secure, and more than 200,000 civilians have left to southern Gaza.
00:22:05 So we are not targeting civilians. We are targeting military targets, which are Hamas operatives.
00:22:13 Another example is ambulances. Ambulances are supposed to be used for the Red Cross, Red Crescent, and to take injured people to hospital or whatever.
00:22:25 Humanitarian operations. And we have all the evidence to show that the Hamas were using ambulances as safe shuttles to take the operatives from place to place.
00:22:40 And we did target an ambulance when it was used by Hamas operatives as a shuttle for their own operatives.
00:22:51 So I'm going into this in details, because it's important to understand the context of today, what's happening today in Gaza.
00:23:02 We have basically encircled northern Gaza, and we are now dismantling the facilities and operatives that are still there in order to make sure that there is no more terror infrastructure to attack Israel in northern Gaza.
00:23:22 We are also facilitating the entry of supplies, humanitarian supplies, into Gaza.
00:23:32 You know, for an example, water. When Israel was attacked by Hamas, by all the rockets that were launched on Israel, the rockets obviously also hit a lot of infrastructure,
00:23:45 including their own infrastructure, which basically they bombed the water supply into Gaza.
00:23:52 Although Israel was supplying only 10% of the water to Gaza, a lot of it is locally supplied, and it's continuing to work, the local supplies.
00:24:01 But we have already fixed the systems, and we are continuing to supply water into Gaza.
00:24:07 We have trucks, lorries of humanitarian assistance, came into Gaza.
00:24:13 It's still coming in, more than 1,000 trucks until now, and still every day the numbers are growing, more than 100 a day.
00:24:20 Just through Rafa?
00:24:22 Through, it goes to an Israeli checkpoint called Bitsana, then it goes to Rafa, into Gaza.
00:24:28 But we have conditions. Number one, it should be on humanitarian assistance, food, medicines, water, etc.
00:24:35 And secondly, it should go to the civilians, not to the Hamas, because we know, and Hamas said that, that they have in the stocks,
00:24:43 they have stocks for three months in the bankers to sustain them, which means they are taking the stocks,
00:24:51 instead of giving them to the civilians, they are using them for their own military operations.
00:24:57 So we are currently assisting in the, or making sure that humanitarian assistance is coming in.
00:25:04 We are also making sure that, I would say the Israeli interest is that the foreigners will be out of Gaza.
00:25:14 Soon I'll come to talk a bit about the Filipinos, I think it's important.
00:25:18 So the Israeli interest is that all the foreigners will leave Gaza.
00:25:22 Hamas was putting difficulties, trying to get their own operatives out of Gaza.
00:25:26 It's a very complicated situation, but it's important for us, for Israel.
00:25:31 Foreigners are not involved, should get out.
00:25:35 My question earlier, I didn't mean to offend you and say or suggest that we should blame the victim in this case.
00:25:43 I think the point I was trying to make was whether or not there will be political blowback based on what happened.
00:25:52 But as you said, there will be a reckoning for that.
00:25:55 I think the more important question now is that as we were talking about by email a couple of weeks ago,
00:26:01 that you were concerned, as you said now, that Israel feels that the world is against them.
00:26:07 And I think back then you were messaging me saying that you were concerned about the anti-Israel protests happening now.
00:26:17 I wonder if you could talk about that because I think the devil's argument there,
00:26:22 pardon the phrase, is that not all of Palestinians are Hamas and Hamas is not all Palestinian.
00:26:31 And yet the perception that most people have is that Israel is launching an indiscriminate attack that also harms Palestinians.
00:26:43 You talked a while ago about Palestinians or civilians being used as human shields.
00:26:49 Maybe you can elaborate exactly on what the misconception is because a lot of people,
00:26:58 including the UN Secretary General himself, are saying or seems to be implying that not enough has been done to protect civilians in the IDF action in Gaza.
00:27:11 So I would say again that this pressure has to go on the government of Gaza, which is Hamas.
00:27:21 You have to remember once again, Israel was attacked. We are not attacking the Palestinians.
00:27:29 We are attacking Hamas facilities and Hamas operatives. They are using human shields.
00:27:36 If you learn, if you go into the international law, and I can share with you some legal documents,
00:27:42 actually we got from experts, we got compliments that what Israel is doing is one of the most complicated tasks that was done in such a war,
00:27:54 which is in a city, in an urban area, in mitigating civilian casualties on the account of risking our soldiers, of losing an element of surprise.
00:28:09 But the Hamas is using human shields. You mentioned before the hospitals.
00:28:16 And they are using the hospitals as essential command posts under the hospital.
00:28:24 And the hospital is one of the passages for them to move from place to place.
00:28:28 And we have from two days ago video footage of their holding, probably, according to the evidence we have on the ground,
00:28:37 they have, number one, weapons stored in the hospital. Number two, the room where they were holding some of the hostages, most probably, under the hospital.
00:28:49 Again, this is footage that was released either yesterday or two days ago. Very fresh.
00:28:56 So we are saying very clearly, our war is against Hamas.
00:29:00 International community has to put pressure on Hamas not to use civilian shields.
00:29:07 And secondly, with the pressure on Hamas, either amend your charter, give up, you know, go elsewhere.
00:29:18 This is Israel cannot, and you have to understand what is the position of Israel.
00:29:23 We will not agree again to have Hamas on the border with Israel.
00:29:30 And we're not going to take over Gaza. Gaza will be for the Palestinians.
00:29:35 We're not claiming. No territorial disputes here.
00:29:39 But you cannot say that a terror attack, there's any justification or to say,
00:29:45 and the Secretary General said that there was a vacuum, started basically giving some kind of a justification.
00:29:53 With all due respect, there is no justification for a terror attack.
00:29:59 The footage is hard to see, but IDF is one of the most moral armies in the world.
00:30:06 And if you remember what happened with the war against ISIS, not talking only about Marawi here,
00:30:12 the Islamic State in Afghanistan, in Iraq, in Syria.
00:30:17 I mean, they did the same things as Hamas was doing and they were attacked.
00:30:23 And also there, there were a lot of civilian casualties because this is their tactics.
00:30:28 But what is the Secretary General and frankly speaking, others in the world, what are they not understanding?
00:30:36 Because I mean, we hear similar statements from your prime minister that, as you said, the target is Hamas,
00:30:42 not the Palestinian civilians. And yet you hear these objections.
00:30:49 And even the United States, which came out very strongly in favor of Israel,
00:30:54 it now seems to be hedging its statement saying that it would be a mistake for Israel to occupy Gaza.
00:31:00 What is not being understood? Because as you said, you know, I want to go back to that statement that you said,
00:31:05 Israelis feel that the world is turning against them.
00:31:08 What are we not getting in the picture here that I think we should appreciate better?
00:31:12 I think, first of all, it's, you know, about the world against Israel, this is not new.
00:31:18 Unfortunately. And let me just...
00:31:21 Not the Philippines, by the way.
00:31:23 Well, not the Philippines. But if we talk about the UN, it's another story.
00:31:27 Soon we can talk about the UN, talk about the history because you have to...
00:31:30 But let me clarify about the US. The US is giving Israel full support in this war.
00:31:37 I don't think there's any change of position.
00:31:41 Yes, they're calling on us to make sure to minimize the suffering and the civilian casualties.
00:31:49 And we are doing our utmost. We open those corridors.
00:31:54 And we are really working in targeting only Hamas operatives.
00:32:00 However, by the way, I just asked you a question.
00:32:04 All the figures that are coming out from Gaza are coming out from the Hamas government.
00:32:08 So we don't know what is the real number of casualties.
00:32:12 Hamas has claimed that Israel has bombed the hospital.
00:32:17 Okay, about three and a half weeks ago.
00:32:20 Yes, and it turned out to be a misfire.
00:32:22 A misfire of an Islamic Jihad rocket.
00:32:25 More than 1,000 rockets, let me put it this way, since the beginning of this war, since October 7,
00:32:33 more than 9,000 rockets were fired, were launched against Israel.
00:32:38 More than 1,000 failed and fell in Gaza.
00:32:43 Which means, the means that Hamas is using is also hitting their own people.
00:32:50 But Hamas is always putting the blame on Israel.
00:32:55 And the world takes the word of Hamas, a terror organization,
00:33:00 with, I talked about the ideology and about the supporters of Iran,
00:33:04 and for some reason prefers to take this as the fact and not the Israeli position.
00:33:11 We did this inquiry. We checked all the footage, all the information we had.
00:33:16 And we came with very clear evidence that this is not done by IDF.
00:33:21 I was interviewed, even after we came with this evidence, by one of the media here in the Philippines.
00:33:27 And they came and said, "Ah, but the New York Times did their own inquiry."
00:33:32 And I checked, and sort of, they did it in front of the camera.
00:33:36 I had no idea about the New York Times looking at it once again.
00:33:39 And I checked it after the interview.
00:33:42 Nothing came out of the New York Times. BBC apologized, and other media have apologized.
00:33:48 But these apologies are late, because you immediately start with blaming Israel.
00:33:54 And after that, to apologize, but it leaves a stain.
00:33:57 Okay?
00:33:58 The damage was done.
00:33:59 The damage was done. And when you have an article,
00:34:01 and I'll give you an example from the last few days, a few of the media here,
00:34:05 they report that there are four Philippine casualties
00:34:09 that were killed during the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.
00:34:14 Is this accurate reporting?
00:34:17 No.
00:34:18 These four Filipinos were murdered by Hamas on October 7.
00:34:24 Why don't you put the facts when you write about the war?
00:34:28 And then you have other articles who are claiming that Israel is doing a genocide in Gaza.
00:34:35 How can you say that? This is what the Hamas is trying to do to Israel.
00:34:39 And I explain it again and again what we are trying,
00:34:42 how we are trying to mitigate the civilian casualties.
00:34:46 But the footage looks bad.
00:34:48 Sure.
00:34:49 And we have to remember another thing.
00:34:51 Hamas took hostage of Gaza in 2007 and kept Gaza as a poor place,
00:34:58 because the money either goes to their own bank accounts,
00:35:02 and we know that the leadership has $7 billion in the bank accounts,
00:35:07 the entire Libyans, and most of them are residing very comfortably in Qatar and in Turkey,
00:35:15 and a lot of money in the bank accounts, and Gaza is left poor,
00:35:19 and the money which is coming into Gaza is invested in terror facilities.
00:35:24 Unlike what's happening there, what are we doing in Israel?
00:35:28 We are investing in our safety and security, because we are unsafe,
00:35:33 because there are still voices that want to annihilate the state of Israel.
00:35:37 So we have to develop technologies, defense technologies, military technologies,
00:35:41 but on the other hand, we continue to invest in the Israeli economy,
00:35:46 in the Israeli society, in the academe.
00:35:49 So Israel is a successful country, I have to say.
00:35:52 Yes, we are members of the OECD.
00:35:55 The number of academic papers per capita in the world,
00:35:59 the highest country per capita is Israel.
00:36:01 The number of startups per capita is Israel.
00:36:06 The number of Nobel Prizes is coming from Israel.
00:36:10 How come?
00:36:12 Because we are investing, not only in war and in looking at the past,
00:36:17 and how just to fight and continue the destruction,
00:36:21 but we are investing in peace and we are investing in the future.
00:36:26 And that's something which is lacking on the Palestinian side.
00:36:30 And maybe I'll add to it, you asked before about the Saudis.
00:36:35 I can tell you that the Saudi officials are saying that they will, of course,
00:36:41 they hosted the meeting of the Arab League and the Islamic Organization of Countries in Saudi,
00:36:49 but parallel to that, they said that it has nothing to do with the continuation
00:36:54 of the discussions between Israel and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
00:37:00 And our peace agreements, or I would say the full peace agreements with Egypt and Jordan
00:37:05 and full diplomatic relations with Bahrain, with the UAE, with Morocco,
00:37:09 during the Abraham Accords two years ago, are still solid.
00:37:14 Okay, so it didn't derail that?
00:37:16 It didn't derail.
00:37:18 Of course, there will be a halt, but it didn't derail.
00:37:22 And I think it's a very strong message.
00:37:24 Hamas is ISIS.
00:37:27 Hamas is a threat not only to Israel, it's a threat to the world.
00:37:32 You had ISIS in the Philippines.
00:37:34 We are partners in this global struggle against terror.
00:37:37 But this Hamas organization took over entire Gaza.
00:37:41 Hezbollah is taking over southern Lebanon.
00:37:45 It's part of the Lebanese reality today.
00:37:48 So it's a very complicated reality.
00:37:51 And it's easy to say that Israel is a strong country and it's a developed country.
00:37:56 It looks better off.
00:37:58 It's taking care of its people and the poor Palestinians.
00:38:01 Yes, I understand the pictures.
00:38:03 The pictures talk, but you have to look and understand the situation
00:38:08 before you come with such statements.
00:38:12 That's what I wanted to ask you because it's different for the people on the ground relative to us looking at it from the outside.
00:38:21 I was just wondering if you can indulge me on something theoretical.
00:38:25 Could there have been another approach?
00:38:28 I totally understand how justified it would be for Israel to strike back and to strike back hard.
00:38:36 I think your prime minister called it the 9/11 of your country.
00:38:41 But I think the other perspective is with so many hostages also at stake, taken back to Gaza,
00:38:52 could there have been another approach?
00:38:56 Maybe it could have been more restrained and maybe would have spared more Palestinian civilians in the process.
00:39:08 Of course, it's all theoretical now.
00:39:10 I'm happy to hear what you're proposing.
00:39:12 What approach?
00:39:14 That's a question I wanted to throw back at you because moving forward, how does Israel see the end game?
00:39:23 As you said, you don't want to occupy Gaza.
00:39:27 This has already happened.
00:39:31 Where do we go from here?
00:39:34 I want to go back to the first point of a different approach.
00:39:40 Let me ask you, what are you proposing?
00:39:44 Israel has been attacked by Hamas again and again and again.
00:39:50 We had so many more focused, smaller operations which ended usually between 30 to 40 or 50 days.
00:39:58 But what did it lead us?
00:40:00 Some kind of a ceasefire, giving time again to Hamas to build its infrastructure and to have the 7/10/2023 war against Israel.
00:40:13 This is unacceptable.
00:40:16 If you take the proportions, I would ask you, what would the Philippine government do if 23,000 Filipinos would be butchered by a terror organization?
00:40:28 Would you immediately propose peace?
00:40:33 What happened to ISIS in the Philippines?
00:40:36 How can we as a responsible government, which is already years trying to bring peace to Israel and to Israeli civilians,
00:40:44 and we develop all these technologies, but at the end of the day, when you have a not less sophisticated terror organization on your border,
00:40:53 which is attacking again and again and again, until this trauma happened on October 7,
00:41:00 this is changing the rules of the game.
00:41:04 Changing the rules of the game.
00:41:06 And I don't know of anybody who said that we should not eliminate the Hamas.
00:41:15 The free world and the leadership of the free world are totally supporting us.
00:41:21 Now, and I'm happy to hear if there are experts who have a different approach, you know, you're welcome.
00:41:28 But I think there's global support that terrorism cannot be tolerated.
00:41:34 Now, we did not plan the war.
00:41:38 So we did not plan the endgame of the war.
00:41:42 We have two goals to this war.
00:41:45 Number one, bring the hostages home.
00:41:49 Until now, I would expect the UN Secretary General to bash Hamas and to tell them,
00:41:58 "How come you're not releasing the hostages? How come you're not letting the Red Cross visit them?
00:42:04 How come you butchered 1,400 people? Massacred? Beheaded?
00:42:11 You have no idea the atrocities, and I'll show you soon the footage."
00:42:14 You will not sleep at night when you see the raw footage, which came from the own selfies.
00:42:20 I'll share with you one shocking thing.
00:42:23 For me, I'm a person who is a believer in God.
00:42:26 You know, I'm a traditional Jew.
00:42:28 And I think a lot of Filipinos believe in God.
00:42:31 When I was watching the raw footage, which we shared yesterday with some of the media in the Philippines,
00:42:37 who invited to watch it with us, footage was not allowed to be seen because it's raw footage.
00:42:46 One shocking thing is, I would say two shocking things.
00:42:50 Number one, Allah o Akbar, God the Great, when they do this butchering and murdering of people,
00:43:00 killing in the name of God, when I know that my God, and I think your God too, is all about peace
00:43:10 and getting people to live together. And this is where we end our prayers.
00:43:14 And I can tell you that for me, when I heard it again and again and again, it was so disturbing.
00:43:20 How can you have... And I don't say that all Islam is that. Certainly not.
00:43:26 But this extremist, Islamist terror organization is desecrating the name of God to butcher Israelis.
00:43:35 But wait, the second thing, which for me was very moving, was hearing a phone call.
00:43:43 A terrorist using the phone of his victim, calling his parents in Gaza with victorious and happiness,
00:43:52 speaking to his father first, saying, "Dad, I murdered with my own hands 10 Israelis."
00:43:59 And I forgot the name of the... He said in what community he was murdering them.
00:44:03 And I said, "Dad, you should be so proud of me. Dad, let me speak to mom. I want to tell her."
00:44:10 And the parents were praising him and encouraging him and congratulating him for murdering 10 Israeli civilians.
00:44:19 So all these questions I ask you, what would you do if you were attacked in such a brutal way?
00:44:29 What would you do?
00:44:32 Help us understand the mindset of your people now.
00:44:38 I mean, is there a distinction among the Israeli people between Hamas and Palestinians?
00:44:47 Because we also see these things in news reports, how some Palestinians legally living in Israel have been harassed.
00:45:01 But in fairness to your government, I think they've taken action and arrested those people.
00:45:07 And at the same time, I wanted to ask you about the security of...
00:45:11 I just need to understand what you mean when you say Palestinians who are living in Israel have been harassed?
00:45:15 No, no. Well, I guess the question is whether or not among the popular opinion.
00:45:21 Do you make a distinction between that Hamas is not entirely the Palestinian people?
00:45:28 Okay.
00:45:30 And connected to that, maybe how there is also, I guess, violence now because of out of frustration among Israelis
00:45:43 about Palestinians taking, actually, I guess, punish or whatever for what has happened in October 11 and since then.
00:45:51 So let me say Israel is a democracy, liberal democracy, but a country of law and order.
00:45:58 Israelis do not take the law into their own private hands.
00:46:02 We had some Israelis that were murdered also in the West Bank as a result of October 7.
00:46:09 And IDF has recruited 350,000 reservists into service in October, immediately after the October 7 attack,
00:46:21 in order to make sure we are protected around the borders, including from the West Bank.
00:46:28 Hamas has cells, Islamic Jihad has cells, both in the West Bank, meaning areas which are controlled by the Palestinian Authority.
00:46:37 And they are planning more terror attacks. Same as Hezbollah on the northern border of Israel.
00:46:43 Same as some Islamist organizations on the border with Syria.
00:46:47 And Israel will do everything it has to do to protect its civilians.
00:46:51 That's IDF encountering terror attacks.
00:46:56 Secondly, let me ask you, did Abu Mazen, he's the chair of the Palestinian Authority,
00:47:04 did he condemn the terror attacks?
00:47:08 Did you ask the Palestinian Ambassador, did they condemn, do they condemn those attacks?
00:47:13 You didn't hear until today a condemnation of the terror attack against Israel from the Palestinian Authority.
00:47:21 So if he doesn't condemn, in my opinion, it means that he supports.
00:47:29 Which for me is shocking. Shocking.
00:47:34 And I would expect to see pressure, international pressure, on the Palestinian Authority,
00:47:41 really to totally disconnect themselves from these organizations who are terrible, mean terror organizations.
00:47:51 And that's for me, this is the answer to your question.
00:47:57 However, you can see that Israel has announced again and again,
00:48:02 we are not attacking the West Bank, we're not taking over the West Bank.
00:48:07 The war is not against the Palestinians. The war is against Hamas.
00:48:13 We want to free Gaza from Hamas for the Palestinians.
00:48:18 Nobody else is doing that. We are the targets.
00:48:22 So we are doing that, unfortunately, but we'd be very happy if the Palestinian Authority,
00:48:28 if any other country, who would not only condemn, let them deal with Hamas, get rid of Hamas.
00:48:34 If they can do it, fantastic. But they're not willing to do it.
00:48:39 I'm concerned about the question about the insecurity that Israeli people feel,
00:48:44 not just in Israel, but around the world.
00:48:47 I've been seeing from the news that there has been an increase in anti-Semitic attacks in the United States.
00:48:54 I was wondering, as ambassador here in the Philippines, has that been the case?
00:48:59 Do the Israeli or Jewish people here feel a similar insecurity?
00:49:04 Have there been threats to your people?
00:49:08 Have you had to step up security around your synagogue here in Manila or elsewhere,
00:49:14 where Israelis gather in the Philippines?
00:49:16 I don't want to talk specifically on the Philippines for obvious reasons,
00:49:22 but I would say the following.
00:49:25 We have seen a global rise, which is alarming, of anti-Semitism.
00:49:33 Jewish people today are afraid to be recognized as Jews,
00:49:39 which is something that we thought after the Holocaust would never happen again.
00:49:46 And suddenly people, and I heard yesterday, in the Jewish tradition, on the door,
00:49:54 on the side of the door we have, it's called the mezuzah, which has a scroll inside.
00:49:59 It's a Jewish tradition, a Jewish order to put it on every door,
00:50:05 on the entrance to the house and inside the house.
00:50:08 And it's one of those symbols of Judaism.
00:50:12 People are removing the mezuzah off the door in order for the house not to be identified as a home of the Jews.
00:50:20 And possibly attacked.
00:50:21 And then possibly attacked.
00:50:23 There was a street in Paris where somebody went overnight and sprayed the David cross
00:50:29 on the walls of homes of Jewish families.
00:50:34 We see 1,200% increase of anti-Semitic attacks against Jews and Jewish institutions.
00:50:43 This is alarming. This is dangerous.
00:50:46 And it brings us to this question, where is the world?
00:50:52 Where is the world? You have world leadership. Yes.
00:50:55 And about 28 governments have envoys, special envoys of the governments to combat anti-Semitism.
00:51:02 But for me, I ask, where is the person on the street who I would expect?
00:51:11 And if they are talking about supporting Hamas and the rights of Hamas,
00:51:15 where is the support for Israel?
00:51:17 Where is the support for the Jewish people who are being targeted for totally unjustified,
00:51:23 unaccepted thing that because they are Jewish and that brings me back.
00:51:28 When I said that, it brings us back to the days of the Holocaust.
00:51:32 This is what the Jewish people and the Israelis are seeing today.
00:51:35 We are not liked. We are hated by too many people.
00:51:41 We have organizations and countries. I mentioned Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad.
00:51:47 But so many people around the world who are supporting those evil.
00:51:52 There was a big demonstration in Paris against anti-Semitism in the weekend.
00:51:57 Thank God we hear also some same voices, but it's alarming and it's dangerous.
00:52:03 In the Philippines, there is no history of anti-Semitism, which is good to say.
00:52:10 But I can tell you that generally, globally around the world, of course,
00:52:14 Israeli diplomats are the first ones to be attacked by Hamas.
00:52:19 And they have the intention and there were already some incidents.
00:52:23 I'm not talking about the Philippines, there were incidents and we have to be always cautious.
00:52:28 And today we have to be more cautious. Unfortunately, this is the reality.
00:52:33 How do you try to grasp that or wrap your mind around that growing anti-Semitism?
00:52:41 I mean, from an Israeli perspective, how do Jewish people make sense of what's going on now?
00:52:51 Why is there so much, I suppose, anger about what's happening in Israel?
00:53:01 How do you reconcile that? How do you try to explain that or make sense of that?
00:53:07 For me, well, first of all, how do you explain?
00:53:12 Because as you said, traditional people would naturally condemn violence and what Hamas did.
00:53:17 And we joined that voice, by the way, Ambassador. But still, as you said, there are these things that are happening.
00:53:23 They're undeniable. There's now increasing sentiment against Jewish people in many places around the world.
00:53:30 But how do you wrap your head around that? I mean, after what's happened in October 11th.
00:53:35 So that's exactly what brings us back to the Holocaust, because after the Holocaust,
00:53:40 could you explain how Nazi Germany was able to take over so many countries in Europe
00:53:49 and basically systematically murder one third of the Jewish people, six million Jews,
00:53:56 and the world closed its eyes, evidence came out, the world said nothing?
00:54:03 There are deep roots of anti-Semitism. Today, anti-Semitism is very much connected to anti-Zionism,
00:54:11 because at the end of the day, Israel was established as the homeland for the Jews.
00:54:17 I mean, our roots there are from thousands and thousands of years ago, and we always had our presence there.
00:54:22 So it was reestablished as a Jewish state, supposed to be the safe haven for Jews.
00:54:28 And what are we seeing today is that this safe haven, this home is being attacked and trying to destroy it.
00:54:36 And then you see that from countries like, as you said, the US, Europe,
00:54:42 where we thought that these countries have learned the lessons. And you see this anti-Semitism.
00:54:48 And it's coming from, it's not from the, I would say, regular person in the streets.
00:54:55 But it's coming. - So it's still fringe? - Not fringe, no, no, no, no, no.
00:54:59 With this percentage, with this amount, you cannot say it's fringe. Sorry to say.
00:55:03 That's, this is why it's so worrying. If you had 10, 20, 30 people, you'd say, OK.
00:55:08 But these are big demonstrations calling for Palestine from the river to the sea,
00:55:12 and calling all kinds of anti-Semitic language. That's alarming.
00:55:17 And you have Muslim communities, you have liberals so-called calling for human rights,
00:55:23 who are the right of the Jews. So, by the way, you ask yourself, they are liberals, right?
00:55:30 They are considered the liberals who are demonstrating against Israel.
00:55:34 Let's talk about liberalism. Liberalism. Tel Aviv is one of the capitals of, which really attracts the LGBT community.
00:55:44 What, is there an LGBT community in Gaza? You know what will happen to somebody who is from the LGBT community in Gaza?
00:55:52 - They will be executed. - Executed, of course.
00:55:55 So, as liberals, you know, you're voting for something which is totally not liberal, not democratic.
00:56:03 So, people tend also to confuse between Palestinians and Hamas.
00:56:10 Hamas is a Palestinian organization, but it's a terror organization, which is, its home base is Palestinians.
00:56:16 What is your analysis on that? Because, you know, the narrative that's been coming out,
00:56:22 instead of blaming Hamas, has now seemingly, at least in some part, become a free Palestinian…
00:56:31 Free Palestine. Palestine from the river to the sea. That's the slogan now.
00:56:36 Yeah. So, how did it come from that? From blaming the terrorists to the general Palestinian…
00:56:41 People like Secretary General of the UN, leaders who are not responsible, and there are many leaders who are supporting the Arabs,
00:56:50 the Palestinians, in their call, because, as I said before, also Palestinian authorities are not condemning Hamas.
00:56:57 So, it's very easy to turn public opinion to be anti-Israeli. Very easy.
00:57:04 You know, you asked before about the UN. The UN has every year, like, about 20 resolutions,
00:57:10 which are taking fully the Palestinian narrative, anti-Israeli resolutions.
00:57:14 I think, including one recently, that the Philippines voted against you.
00:57:18 Yes, I don't want to, you know, we don't want to discuss it, but these annual resolutions are coming from the UN.
00:57:26 We saw UN facilities, not facilities, I would say, but assistance coming by the UN, used by Hamas.
00:57:38 UN is a political organization. There is a majority of votes of countries who belong to the non-aligned movement,
00:57:44 all kinds of political explanations why the UN is biased against Israel.
00:57:50 They have a special program to commemorate the Nakba, the Palestinian disaster.
00:57:58 And what is a Palestinian disaster? That the State of Israel was established.
00:58:02 Whilst they never recognized the State of Israel and the right of Israel to exist.
00:58:06 So, there is, in the UN, a day which is fully dedicated to the Palestinian narrative and anti-Israeli.
00:58:18 What is your explanation to that?
00:58:20 So, for me, what you're asking me is something that I cannot explain.
00:58:28 The anti-Israeli and anti-Jewish sentiment, which is growing around the world, in my opinion, cannot be explained.
00:58:36 And I expect global leadership, community leaders, media, to speak out against it,
00:58:45 and not to let all kinds of disinformation, and not only disinformation, inaccurate information,
00:58:54 and all kinds of words which can be used, which get the perception, not the perception, of making Israel evil.
00:59:03 I expect to show the reality, to show the facts, and to understand what is really happening there.
00:59:12 Now, of course, we have an Israeli-Palestinian conflict, nobody can deny it.
00:59:18 And we had the Oslo process, which was derailed by Hamas, because Hamas hated Oslo,
00:59:24 because Oslo was leading us to peace.
00:59:28 And they initiated the terror attacks in order to, unfortunately, they were successful.
00:59:34 But, again, for me, my message is that I think it's important for the media to reflect reality, to reflect the real information.
00:59:44 For me, as a representative of the Israeli government, it's important, and we can share with you footage,
00:59:52 original footage, which explains the reality on the ground, what we are doing, what the Hamas is doing,
00:59:59 and you can judge for yourself if you just look at it.
01:00:02 And maybe one, I think one very important last few words, if I may.
01:00:07 We are in the Philippines.
01:00:09 There were four Filipino casualties, as I said before, that were murdered by Hamas, not just because of the war.
01:00:16 Not just caught in between the fighting.
01:00:17 Not caught in the war, murdered by Hamas.
01:00:20 Two Filipinos, still missing.
01:00:23 We don't know what is their fate. We don't know.
01:00:29 The Israeli government is taking not only responsibility, but it's beyond that.
01:00:36 We expressed very clearly our sympathy and our condolences with the families.
01:00:41 I personally went to visit the wake of two families.
01:00:45 The last one was Grace Cabrera.
01:00:48 And I came, they told me, OWA told me, that I'm the first ambassador ever to visit a killed or murdered OFW.
01:01:01 And this is part of Jewish and Israeli morale and efforts to show that we are one in this.
01:01:12 And my message to the family was that unfortunately, they're becoming now members of a very big Israeli family,
01:01:20 which is called the family of victims of terror.
01:01:23 This is a big family because we have more than 20,000 victims of terror in Israel along the years.
01:01:31 Those families get support from the Israeli government.
01:01:35 Monthly income, helping the burial expenses, helping the wake expenses.
01:01:40 And this monthly income for the parents, for the spouse, continues for the entire life.
01:01:47 If they need special assistance for medical care or special needs, they can approach the Israeli government.
01:01:54 And my embassy is going to help them do the bureaucratic process to get this, I call it assistance, but it's not assistance.
01:02:04 It's a partnership. And they are now part of us. We are part of them.
01:02:09 And for me, that's a very important message because we, people who are victims in Israel, are becoming part of Israel.
01:02:18 And I think this is why the 30,000 OFWs in Israel, enormous majority of them, do not want to be repatriated back to the Philippines.
01:02:28 We had, I think, just over 200. Just over 200 who came back.
01:02:33 They feel in Israel relatively safe. They feel safe like Israelis, meaning they get exactly the same security precautions as we get.
01:02:45 There's a siren. They hear it together with us. They know to go into the shelter.
01:02:48 They know what they have to do. And they live with us in our homes with their patients.
01:02:55 This is also how the Filipinos died, unfortunately, with the patients, with the people that they were taking care of,
01:03:00 because most of them are caregivers. My father-in-law has a Filipina.
01:03:05 And we call her every few days and ask, "Edna, how are you doing?" "Oh, I'm fine."
01:03:10 And then after two sentences, she says, "My father-in-law, he's doing well. He's okay. He's not so young anymore."
01:03:18 And she's taking such good care of him. She lives with him. She's the one that is with him on a daily basis.
01:03:25 So we trust her. She trusts us. So we're family.
01:03:30 And this is why I think they feel not only at home there, but they don't want to be repatriated, because they're part of us.
01:03:37 And they get all the respect from us, and they get all the rights from the Israeli government as needed.
01:03:44 Some of them were treated in hospital because they were injured in the attack.
01:03:50 I can tell you that the nephew of my brother was in hospital. He was injured. He's a soldier.
01:03:58 He was critically injured. Now he's okay. Lying in the hospital, bed next to him, a Filipino caregiver who was also injured.
01:04:06 They were lying together. Same treatment, same doctors.
01:04:10 Last question, Ambassador. I know how precious your time is. What's the way forward, do you think?
01:04:17 I want to tap your diplomatic expertise here. What's the way forward?
01:04:24 The end game, as you said, is difficult to grasp, because as you said, Israel didn't start this.
01:04:31 What is the best way forward, do you think? I mean, from Israel's perspective.
01:04:38 Let me first just add one more element to me, just to say that we really appreciate very much also
01:04:44 the very strong message of support of President Marcos. I think it's very important to mention it, to recognize it.
01:04:51 And as you said, he's part of this coalition of leaders who express their support.
01:04:58 It's not one, it's not two. It's a coalition of leaders, and that's very important.
01:05:03 I think when you asked me about what is the end game, first of all, we share this coalition who is fighting against terrorism.
01:05:13 It's a global coalition, all responsible leadership. Like you fight against terrorism in the Philippines,
01:05:19 we are now fighting against the organization Hamas. We have to eliminate Hamas operatives,
01:05:25 Hamas facilities that are continuing to threaten the state of Israel.
01:05:30 That's the, I would say, that's what we need to have in order to then plan for the future.
01:05:39 What will be the end, long term solution between Israel and the Palestinians?
01:05:47 It's too early to say because we are in a war and a lot of, I would say, academic institutions in Israel
01:05:55 and think tanks who are coming with proposals, papers, and I'm not in a position to start analyzing them here in the media
01:06:05 on what is the best solution because we don't have yet all the different elements on the ground.
01:06:12 Things are still very fluid.
01:06:13 It's still too fluid. We're still in the middle of a war. We still have 239 people kidnapped
01:06:17 and we're making all the efforts and negotiations to bring them back home. So it's too early to say.
01:06:24 But let me risk and say that, generally speaking, from a big crisis, you can create a big opportunity.
01:06:36 So maybe it is an opportunity to change the rules of the game now, but that depends on so many elements.
01:06:45 It depends not only on Israel. It depends on the Palestinian Authority and Palestinian side.
01:06:50 It depends on the Arab world. It depends on the US, obviously.
01:06:55 And it depends on many other sort of players who are influencing.
01:06:58 It depends, do you still continue to let Iran sort of promote its agenda against Israel
01:07:07 from the nuclear weapon to supporting terror organization to financing the terror organizations?
01:07:12 So there are so many elements here. But I do think that maybe, maybe out of these atrocities,
01:07:21 maybe we can have something good in the future. But at this stage, we have to end this war
01:07:30 with the achievements of these two goals. Bringing back our people, bringing them back home
01:07:38 out of the Hamas hands. And secondly, eliminating Hamas threat on the state of Israel.
01:07:46 From there, we can move to the next stage, which is building again, building trust, bringing peace.
01:07:54 But that's long term and we're not there yet.
01:07:58 Not a very easy situation. But thank you for talking to us and sharing your views.
01:08:06 And if there's any future occasion where you want to give us some updates,
01:08:12 you're welcome here anytime, Ambassador. And we can do something like this again.
01:08:17 Thank you, Dante. Thank you for having me over here. I would say that for me, it's very important.
01:08:22 Because end of the day, media, as you said before, the reports, media influences public opinion.
01:08:30 It's not only influenced by public opinion. And secondly, media is supposed to bring the picture
01:08:36 and the ideas to the public. So working with the media, I find it very, very important.
01:08:44 And this total freedom, of course, like in Israel, full freedom.
01:08:50 We share the same values. Exactly. Democracy and everything else and freedom of speech.
01:08:55 It's very important. But I think as media, it's also you have to be.
01:09:00 Exactly. It's a responsibility coming with it. And I'll be happy to share what I can share.
01:09:05 And I'll be happy to discuss this again. And also looking for a friendship.
01:09:11 Yes, absolutely. A continuation of the friendship between the Manila Times and the Embassy of Israel.
01:09:17 I would say that as Israeli ambassador to the Philippines, generally speaking,
01:09:22 I feel very comfortable in a very friendly country to Israel. We share a lot of values.
01:09:29 I said democracy, liberalism, but it's also it's a Christian country, Catholic, Christian.
01:09:35 We also have history together. And Israel, you know, is the Holy Land.
01:09:39 We have a history before even the establishment of the State of Israel with President Kezlon
01:09:43 allowing 1300 Jews to have refuge and safe haven, escaping from Nazi Europe in 1938.
01:09:52 Very, very significant, important events. And later in 1947, supporting the establishment of the State of Israel.
01:10:00 And that's, again, one of the reasons why Israel is one of the easiest countries for Filipinos to visit.
01:10:04 Because the open door policy. No visa for Filipinos.
01:10:08 So I do think that we have a very good history between us.
01:10:14 And I think also currently the relations are extremely good.
01:10:19 And I do look forward not to talk to you only about war. And as I did in the past.
01:10:25 There's so many things to talk about. We didn't get to talk about.
01:10:27 Innovation, technology, and the Holy Land, and the future of the two countries together.
01:10:31 You've been very busy working on agriculture and defense cooperation and many other things.
01:10:37 Education. Exactly.
01:10:39 But perhaps a second time.
01:10:41 Thank you. Thank you very much, Dante.
01:10:44 Thank you.
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