In this episode of the Western Standard, I'm joined by Israeli Ambassador to Canada, Ido Moed, who is in town for the Calgary Stampede. We talk about what his mission is in Canada, Israeli-Canadian relations, and some of the Israeli issues more broadly, and how that's affecting its relationship with the West and the Christian world.
00:00:00.000I'm joined today by Israeli ambassador to Canada, Ido Mouad.
00:00:29.140He is in town for the Calgary Stampede and has generously offered to sit down with the Western Standard today to talk about what his mission is during the Stampede and in Canada, Israeli-Canadian relations, and some of the Israeli issues more broadly and how that's affecting its relationship with the West and the Christian world.
00:00:49.900Ambassador Moed, thank you very much for joining us today.
00:00:53.120Well, first off, you've been in town since Thursday, enjoying the Stampede.
00:00:59.140You're on a largely economic mission, dealing with AI, technology exchanges.
00:01:04.440Tell us a bit about what you're doing in Calgary right now.
00:01:08.080So I'm meeting with a whole bunch of people here, locals, and also people who come from other parts of Canada.
00:01:15.220I see Stampede as a central point for fast-track networking with so many counterparts around Canada.
00:01:24.920My mission here is to showcase Israeli technology and innovation as an important component, as a crucial component in the transformation of Canada into what it is becoming now, given the geopolitical circumstances, Canada moving to reinvent itself in some ways.
00:01:44.060And I feel that the Israeli innovation ecosystem has so much to contribute to that.
00:01:47.960So in order to create a more competitive edge for Canada, I think it's crucial to have an Israeli component in there.
00:01:55.580So I call it, let's say, oil, Israeli oil in the wheels, make it easier to shift gears, make it easier to attain your goals, make it easier to develop high-tech solutions and so on.0.88
00:02:06.540And I think that that kind of very dynamic atmosphere that we have and dynamism, that ecosystem, may as well with Calgary and Stampede, especially Stampede, but Calgary broadly, Calgary Economic Development, Chamber of Commerce, the government, everybody is very easily accepting and understanding what we are talking about.
00:02:24.600So we found many counterparts. We've brought in six companies, six tech companies in AI, cyber security, infrastructure, agriculture, what have you, all to talk about how that connects with local industry and commerce and development.
00:02:39.140We do it together with university. We do it together with government and the private sector, which are the three parts of an ecosystem that drives Israeli innovation very, very well.
00:02:49.120I want to have a fairly broad ranging interview here.
00:02:54.600So I want to maybe begin with Canada-Israeli relations, not just government-to-government, but people-to-people.
00:03:03.280After the October 7th attacks, broadly speaking, most mainstream Canadians were very supportive of Israel, striking back at Hamas.
00:03:13.740But that support in Canada, the United States, and the West more broadly has collapsed very significantly since then.
00:03:21.700Pew Research says that now just 22% of Canadians hold a favorable view of Israel.
00:03:26.640That's down from 33% in April of 2023.
00:03:30.18033% is already not particularly strong.
00:03:33.120Now, according to Pew, at least it's down to 22%.
00:03:36.440But 75% of Canadians still agree Israel has a right to defend itself.0.87
00:03:40.620That should be self-evident. Any state has a right to defend itself.
00:03:44.540But 62% of Canadians believe that Israel's actions during the Sixth, Seventh Front War, whatever we're calling this, this kind of all-encompassing conflict since, 62% say that Israel's military actions have been excessive, 52% even believe Israel has committed genocide in Gaza.
00:04:03.520um so negative views of israel or opposition to israel it's no longer confined as it was when i
00:04:12.480was in university to just kife i don't know how you say that the kifa kafia kafia kafia wearing
00:04:18.720campus radicals you know that's that's where it was when i was in university and you could just0.74
00:04:23.900dismiss it on these these crazy guys that's just what they do it's not limited to the just that
00:04:28.600now. Israel has lost support among the large, broad mainstream of Canadian society. It's still0.69
00:04:37.000stronger among conservative-leaning Canadians and conservative-leaning Americans. But even there,
00:04:42.020it has been significantly eroded. What do you think is behind it? And do you think that the
00:04:48.840Israeli government bears any responsibility for that shift in perception? I think that what we've
00:04:55.920been seeing and you just mentioned it that we the numbers were low before and then when they came
00:05:00.320into canada uh for my arrived here in august 23 i already saw a rise in anti-semitism and i know
00:05:07.200that there was a lot of hatred that's brewing on campuses and so on a lot of uh uh articles written
00:05:13.120about that as long before anything that has to do with it with gaza uh came into the public domain
00:05:20.560what we are facing with i think is a campaign that has been going on for quite a while
00:05:25.200that tries to um uh isolate israel try to paint the jews who are not part of israel or canadians
00:05:31.920or french or british or dutch uh also with the actions of israel and pin them as the culprit
00:05:37.920for whatever is happening in israel and i can remind you i've been a diplomat for 35 years
00:05:42.880that in my times there have been so many times that israel was accused of war crimes and of
00:05:47.440genocide and i've just imagined that for two and a half years we've used the most powerful
00:05:52.000bonds in gaza and we still there are still two million people there so if we try to commit
00:05:57.040genocide we are so bad and so lousy at that um we are we we know that there is a campaign
00:06:03.760that is very strong and very powerful that has been going on for a very long time on social media
00:06:07.920especially but also on campuses and so on that we have not that we have underestimated very clearly
00:06:13.840and that campaign is there to paint everybody who is remotely connected to anything that has
00:06:19.680to do with the defense of israel and it's we are defending ourselves it's israel defense forces
00:06:25.440anything anybody who has anything to do with that to isolate him and to uh blacklist him and whatever
00:06:30.960it is if we're talking about any responsibility on our side that's neglecting to understand the
00:06:36.560depth and the broader and and how broad this this problem is um it's not our policies because when
00:06:43.440When we came, when October the 7th happened, on that very day, you had here in Canada,
00:06:49.720from Vancouver to Montreal and Toronto, you had people hanging signs already that Israel
00:06:56.020is committing genocide, that this is the beginning of the liberation, and so on and so forth.0.66
00:07:00.280These are people that are supported by terrorist organizations like Hamas, like the Palestinian
00:07:05.640Liberation Front, the Popular Liberation for Palestine, PLFP, and so on.
00:07:09.560they were ready and they were ready to go to unleash whatever hatred they had it took 20 days0.76
00:07:15.660before israel started the operation guys and we were already accused of everything and anything so0.81
00:07:19.760the fact of the matter is that we are facing a campaign we are a small country and we know how
00:07:26.500to defend ourselves but we underestimated what is happening on social media and we definitely
00:07:30.420didn't see coming a campaign that is so well orchestrated that started with encampments and
00:07:36.320on ask students today what they think about genocide i'm not sure that they would know any
00:07:41.760real fact about them ask them what is from the river to the sea what's the river and what's the
00:07:45.920sea they have no idea what it's all about they were just regurgitating all kinds of slogans that
00:07:51.440they heard from others so it's sort of a fashion and that's dying out what is still there what is
00:07:56.480extremely dangerous is the impact of those terrorist organizations and movements like0.81
00:08:00.640the muslim brotherhood that are actually an undercurrent that is also uh attacking western0.95
00:08:07.520societies around the world and we see when they uh start talking about uh islam islamophobia0.88
00:08:15.360as a matter that has to do with uh not allowing jews to express themselves they otherwise it's0.83
00:08:21.280islamophobia when you talk about anti-palestinian racism which is a canadian invention then you see
00:08:27.200that there is something very dangerous it's actually an attack on western values and it's
00:08:31.280an attack on our society i want to come into that in a bit uh but you know you you when i asked about
00:08:39.680you know does the israeli government bear any responsibility for this your answer was that it
00:08:43.680it failed to anticipate um you know the social media campaigns and uh marches etc against israel
00:08:52.000But my question was focused around, was there anything Israel has done itself, other than, you know, fail to, you know, win the information war, perhaps, but is there any of its actions that perhaps did not help the cause?
00:09:09.920um you know the uh you know we've had two wars with iran apparently its nuclear program was
00:09:16.420destroyed both times you know a lot of people like myself were very questioning particularly
00:09:21.300of the second iran war if it's if its nuclear program had been completely destroyed then how
00:09:26.100come it had to be destroyed a second time and no evidence was really supported around this you know
00:09:31.140kind of smelt like like the iraq war you know my generation came through and it really jaded a lot
00:09:36.700of us to believing the intelligence, to just trust governments with these kinds of things.
00:09:42.900You know, so is there, you know, you had to do something with Gaza, but, you know, with
00:10:01.600But to give you an example of how fast Israel is blamed and condemned, you may recall at some point in time a hospital was hit by a missile.
00:10:11.340And at that very moment, Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs at the time issued a condemnation of Israel.
00:10:18.600And apparently, within a few hours or days, it was clear that it was a projectile, a rocket that was fired by the Islamic Jihad.
00:10:30.000and it didn't hit the hospital it hit the parking lot and didn't kill 500 people but something else
00:10:35.840so in the in the propaganda war and in this information warfare much damage is being done
00:10:42.780to israel that's one the other part is what are we actually doing on the ground so we know that
00:10:48.060hamas has been hiding itself among and within the population in hospitals in mosques in schools
00:10:53.020we've seen peers of those tunnels those infamous tunnels when terrorists were hiding that came out
00:10:58.440in uh baby rooms in in kindergartens and so on so what do you do if you want you have 200 uh0.53
00:11:05.640hostages held in gaza you want to retrieve them and you want to stop hamas from firing into israel0.93
00:11:09.880how do you fight them so one thing what we did is to make sure that palestine the population got0.85
00:11:14.680away and this is how so many people's lives were were saved on the other end you have to1.00
00:11:20.760sometimes destroy those homes and you have to attack them and sometimes you hit them and you
00:11:25.480hit civilians because they forced civilians to stay there or they did whatever they did that's
00:11:30.360a it's a huge question then it's very hard to say who is a civilian and who is a terrorist because
00:11:35.960they don't wear uniforms that's what distinguishes terrorists they hide themselves among population
00:11:41.080so the numbers are striking and we say it and i said it also on canadian media again and again
00:11:47.240any death on the palestinian side is a tragedy for israel any death of palestinians we understand
00:11:53.000when a mother loses a child we understand when a father loses the rest of her family
00:11:57.240we know it what it means when a home is destroyed when livelihood is destroyed well you've got
00:12:01.560ministers like i think was ben gavir who said you know the death should be a thousand to one for
00:12:06.200every one they kill of ours we need to kill i know he's one minister among others in a coalition
00:12:10.760government i understand that dynamic but at the very least there's elements of the government0.96
00:12:15.960that certainly do not view civilian casualties as a tragedy when he says for every one who dies
00:12:21.800a thousand other mothers must weep so so let me take you uh to the battlefield and to the guys0.91
00:12:28.520we're in uniform there are the benjure followers they are the peaceniks they are the ultra-orthodox0.69
00:12:35.320they are the religious and the secular and the druids and the non-jews and so on they are
00:12:40.280fighting together their message throughout the war was guys stop your inner fighting because
00:12:45.960these kind of things of course great strife when benjure says you know one four thousand and all
00:12:50.840that a lot of israelis are objecting to that when benviour came out with a video horrible video
00:12:56.440the president the prime minister and the minister of foreign affairs came out with immediate
00:13:00.120condemnations of that yeah so so so it's a democracy and in our democracy it's allowed
00:13:05.080to say what he said but you have to look at what we do and this is a failure on our side we we don't
00:13:11.080take you know we don't embed journalists into our operation we don't show that we have in every
00:13:16.440combat unit legal counsel to ascertain at the real-time decision that the decision is correct
00:13:26.820and that non-evolved are not being protected, are being kept out of harm's way. That's what we have.
00:13:33.580And so we can talk about rates between Israel, compare the war in Gaza to wars elsewhere,
00:13:38.460about how many combatants and non-combatants are victims. But we do acknowledge and we know,
00:13:44.060and Benviu knows and everybody knows1.00
00:14:34.060Israeli soldiers were in, there was no active combat taking place
00:14:39.040from the information we have at the time.
00:14:40.580But there was a Commonwealth graveyard there from soldiers from the First and Second World War, from the British Empire, including Canadians, and there was a Canadian section.
00:14:50.500And these Commonwealth soldiers are people who conquered it from the Turks that allowed British Mandate Palestine to be established, which, you know, precursor to the modern state of Israel.
00:15:00.700But Israeli, I think it was engineering units, and it bulldozed Canadian soldiers' graves.
00:15:08.900And it was a very big mix-up about what exactly had happened.
00:15:14.020The Israeli government was very hush about it for a while.
00:15:16.440Then it said that it was necessary for combat operations.
00:15:20.780But the groundskeeper of the war cemetery said that there was no combat taking place at that time that it happened.
00:15:29.400And, you know, we had been on this story.
00:15:31.140And the embassy, the Israeli government itself were just entirely hush about this kind of thing.
00:15:39.860And in the end, we still don't really know exactly what happened.
00:15:42.860But the idea of bulldozing war cemetery graves of people who fought for at least the precursor of Israel rubs a lot of people the wrong way.
00:15:53.900So there are things like, I don't know if you want to comment on that in particular.
00:15:59.460I know, and I'm very familiar with this, and you have to believe me that just to imagine that an Israeli soldier will not just take a bulldozer and say, ah, what shall I destroy now?0.59
00:19:32.200I'm glad that you asked this because this is a sort of a quote that's entirely misunderstood.
00:19:38.160I think that there was another context for it, and what I was talking about there, I gave an example, is that we give up freedoms in Israel for the security of entire society.
00:19:53.380for example when you go into a mall you open your bag and a stranger looks through your stuff0.84
00:19:58.740and that's before the times of a magnometer and so on and people accept it and they say
00:20:03.720yes we know with our terrorists they sometimes carry bombs in bags or weapons or whatever so
00:20:08.900somebody needs to somebody can verify before i go into that shopping mall that i'm that i'm safe
00:20:13.840not carrying any threat that's it so i give up my freedom i allow a stranger to look through my bag
00:20:18.320That's something that normally you would say, why should I allow that?
00:20:21.940So definitely not talking about silencing people unless it's unlawful what they say.
00:20:27.320That's the only time that, you know, government should act against that.
00:20:30.860Well, they have the law to make a certain speech unlawful.
00:20:33.200Yeah, but that's not to me, for me as an ambassador to go into that.
00:20:37.200That's a local internal affair of, you know, law protection and I'm not there.
00:20:43.680What I'm trying to say is that we have to understand that there are people among us who abuse our freedoms and our democracy in a way that's dangerous for us.
00:21:11.200only the operator behind other muslim behind other uh yeah i can't recall right now exactly but um
00:21:19.440uh there was a question posed there uh among the young attendants what in your mind should
00:21:27.840the umma look like in the future the umma house of islam yes and the society under islam and so
00:21:35.120people would use words and they created a word cloud of whatever they wrote and there was uh
00:21:39.920there were two words there that were apparently bigger than others which means that more than one
00:21:44.800supported that which said Jew free in my mind that's hateful of course but the question that
00:21:53.120I asked myself I would ask myself as as you know as a Canadian or an Israeli if this was in Israel
00:21:59.280what do we do with that what does this mean for us uh should we look back into our education
00:22:05.120system is it a law enforcement issue whatever and i actually call for this kind of discussions
00:22:11.840to to take place because what i see is what i mentioned earlier this undercurrent it brings
00:22:16.880into our thoughts and into our lives all kinds of ideas that normally would say well it's freedom
00:22:22.400of speech but at some point in time become more and more threatening and the first to sense that1.00
00:22:27.360are the Jews. So this week in Toronto people put up posters and names of Jews on the street0.94
00:22:36.240and more and underneath their name and a Zionist or whatever they they were called and I wonder
00:22:43.440this has never happened in Canada before and what does this mean for the Jews and what does
00:22:47.520it mean for the non-Jews when you walk past these pictures what would you do what do you think to
00:22:53.120yourself when you see that isn't it shameful isn't it something that you call out and it's this is
00:23:00.160this is the borderline of freedom of speech of abuse of freedom of speech that in my mind when
00:23:05.840it breeds hate it's dangerous that's why i wrote to the prime minister about this nakba exhibition
00:23:11.920taking place at the federal museum of human rights because it breeds hate so i think that this is0.98
00:23:18.400where we should be focusing on and this is my call i'm not about limiting democracy i think
00:23:24.080that democracy is the strongest tool that we have but we have to use it whatever uh intellect we
00:23:30.400have to understand when it is coming under threat and stand up together and make discuss it and come
00:23:36.960to conclusion and protect ourselves because there are people out there who clearly who say it very
00:23:42.240clearly we are going to abuse the laws the weakness of the west and its society to take over
00:23:48.960okay but i don't i would disagree that there is such a thing as abuse of freedom of speech
00:23:53.680there's free speech or there's not free speech um not free speech is advocating harm against
00:24:01.360people or their property you know if someone was to say let's uh you know shoot or assault0.79
00:24:10.480jewish people or we should uh firebomb this synagogue that's advocating clearly criminal0.98
00:24:16.960behavior but you know these other examples you've cited they're extremely unpleasant1.00
00:24:23.040they're unwelcome and they should be condemned but if we're a free society they must be allowed
00:24:28.720i think part of the problem is we've allowed we've imported these kinds of people with hateful views
00:24:33.580but that's a migration issue once they're here they have to enjoy the same freedoms
00:24:38.040as other Canadians and I am it I would have a real problem limiting my ability to say something
00:24:47.200that even I don't want to say if you limit my ability to say something I almost kind of want
00:24:52.340to say it now you know it was like COVID I actually I went had beers with my friends a lot
00:24:57.380more during COVID when the government said I wasn't allowed to do that because it was more fun
00:25:02.080So, you know, I wouldn't say something hateful just because it's fun.
00:25:05.400But that does sound to me like it is limiting free speech.
00:25:10.140It's limiting very unpleasant and maybe unwanted speech.
00:25:15.520But we either have free speech or we don't.
00:25:17.980And this problem seems to me have been just it's more of a migration problem that we've largely imported that.
00:25:23.660It's not exclusive. You know, you will get some of that from your campus, radical, you know, crazy people.0.89
00:25:30.600you're going to get that from them but we've largely just imported this um i agree i'll just
00:25:36.040say that you know in israeli supreme court we have the same discussion because people would say very
00:25:41.160hateful things in israel as well jews against arabs arabs against jews and uh and we want to
00:25:46.760people to be able to say whatever they have on their minds i'm just saying that i'm not calling
00:25:52.440for anything to be limited i'm just saying that at some point in time we should be having discussions
00:25:58.120about how do we see the future of society what do we tolerate what don't we tolerate and this is
00:26:05.160the nature of democracy so i'm calling for that discussion i'm i gave an example of what we did
00:26:10.600in israel uh not talking about free speech but talking about something else our uh you know our
00:26:16.200our uh intimate world and uh and privacy and how do we in some way harm privacy a little bit to
00:26:23.080increase security so we open the bag in the mall uh that's that's what i'm calling for and i think
00:26:27.960But we don't need to check the bags. I mean, Canada is less safe than it used to be, but we're not at the point yet where we need to check the bags at the mall. We don't have that kind of daily threat.
00:26:37.400I just say that I see the hate rising. And so I think that we have to have a discussion on that. That's my point. I think that there are things happening here that didn't happen in the past. And we have to be aware of that. And if people want to talk about it, it's fine. And if they have your opinion, that's fine. And other people have other opinions.
00:26:53.060And at some point in time, through our democratic mechanisms, maybe we'll change something, maybe we won't.
00:26:58.060That's the whole thing. That's what I'm talking about.
00:27:01.060I think that this kind of awareness is important. It's always important.
00:27:04.060It wasn't on my list to talk about, but you brought it up.
00:27:06.060So I want to talk about the Nakba exhibit at the Canadian Museum of Human Rights in Winnipeg.
00:27:13.060Nakba, for those who don't know, means I think catastrophe.
00:27:16.060The term Arabic Palestinians use during the Israeli War of Independence in 48, 49, a lot of Arabs were, for lack of a better term, expelled or left their homes and not allowed to return.
00:27:37.900And so there is this very controversial exhibit that's been put up at the Canadian Museum of Human Rights.
00:27:44.760And I'm sympathetic to the Israeli arguments against it, but, you know, the man on the board of the Human Rights Commission who resigned over this, he did not resign, nor did he even speak a single word of protest when the same museum sets up exhibits saying that Canada's genocidal, which is even more absurd.
00:28:07.980uh you know what's happening in gaza there's different sides of it you could debate it
00:28:14.020it's even more absurd i think to say that canada is this genocidal terrible country
00:28:19.660there wasn't a word from him on it um and these kinds of exhibits are always inherently political
00:28:26.260they're they you can try to be balanced but they're always gonna take a side um
00:28:31.880so i know i always took the the view that we should stop funding the whole museum together
00:28:36.560If people want to have exhibits on one side or the other side, they can pay for it privately through charities.
00:28:43.400This seems to be, I don't know, Canada is now funding exhibits at museums that call everybody genocidal.
00:28:51.980I'll keep it very short because this is an internal discussion, internal Canadian discussion, what a museum should do or not.
00:28:59.840I wrote to the prime minister because I felt that this exhibition breeds hate.
00:29:03.640It is insightful in the sense that the narrative that's been presented there, which is not congruent with the facts, will, when young people read that, or adults read that, they would say, well, Israel is a colonizer, and yes, we've seen the museum, it's there, it's a fact, and I think that that's wrong, that's all, that's my take on that, that's all, but I wanted to comment on what you just said.
00:29:33.640I don't know if you caught the last thought that you expressed.
00:29:39.300I wanted to say something about, not about narratives.
00:29:49.260I think that, let me just try and think back.
00:29:53.760If you need a moment to think about it, we can cut out the thinking part.
00:29:59.120No, you can't recall what you just said.
00:30:01.080Well, I was saying, you know, that Canada will have exhibits calling everybody genocidal, including ourselves now that, you know, and there's different sides of these things.
00:30:11.780The whole museum itself, I'm not particularly sympathetic towards that this is a government-funded institution.
00:30:19.300I'll add that my proposal to the Jewish community, when they asked me what my opinion was, I said, for a Jewish community, for Canadians,
00:30:27.640I would use this as an opportunity to say, leave that exhibition there and have another exhibition, talk about your story and then create a discussion, actually encourage a discussion between people and say, this community has this opinion, that community has that opinion, but we are Canadians and we are part of Canada, so this is how we conduct ourselves around this topic.
00:30:49.100and i didn't know i don't know where that kind of discussion went further that's not my position
00:30:54.160but i think that again my my personal inclination is that we should be able to converse and be able
00:31:01.140to communicate about everything i mean that is the only way where we can keep all the disagreements
00:31:06.400out of the way you think that the street should be narrow and short and i think there should be
00:31:12.020more trees and and whatever we'll talk about that this is how we we could this is actually
00:31:17.260you know in israel we have jews and non-jews we have a very significant portion of the population
00:31:22.120that's non-jewish that feels very strongly affiliated with the state with the country
00:31:26.660and that on october the 7th which was a jewish holiday also uh drove into the battlefield to to
00:31:33.240to get uh wounded people out not as soldiers just as ambulance drivers because they were the ones
00:31:38.120on duty and so that kind of solidarity is there at the same time we had we have a lot of differences
00:31:44.260between Arabs and Jews and secular and orthodox, you may know.
00:32:52.380these guys are not Hamasnic terrorists.
00:32:58.500There's no legitimate grounds for targeting them for security reasons.
00:33:03.960They don't sympathize with Hamas at all,
00:33:07.960But they still are Arabs, and they still broadly identify as Palestinians.
00:33:13.000And they, the ones I spoke to overwhelmingly identified the problem for them is the settlers.
00:33:20.780Which tend to be, maybe not uniformly, but they tend to be the most radical among Israeli society.
00:33:29.720And they're trying to drive them off their land.
00:33:32.280They face land seizures, arson attacks, general beatings, general terror.0.60
00:33:40.680You know, the Christians I spoke to don't see Israel as an enemy necessarily, or certainly not most Israeli people, but they definitely see these settlers as an enemy.
00:33:50.740Settlers don't, you know, they're not the IDF.
00:33:55.600But there seems to be, at least among the Christians I spoke to,
00:34:00.220they feel that these settlers operate at least with the quiet acquiescence of the IDF in some cases.
00:34:09.780And, you know, I've already mentioned, we got Ben Gavir and Smatrich.0.51
00:34:14.340And I know many Israelis I spoke to over there, they spit when they say their names.0.94
00:34:18.520They know that these guys are creating problems, but these guys are significant and powerful cabinet ministers, and they largely represent the settler movement.0.90
00:34:29.320It seems to give a lot of credence that there is at least tacit state support for some of these settlers that are driving people off their ancient lands.
00:34:39.200So I want, you know, your view on how the settler movement is perhaps impacting support for Israel in the Christian world right now.
00:40:52.380And therefore, for them to implement, to fulfill their ideology,
00:40:58.160they want to be able to live wherever they want to live.
00:41:00.340it has nothing to do with the fact that there is a hotbed of hamas or not because as i mentioned
00:41:06.56070 so it's a whole of you know everywhere uh it's not any any any uh place that's being built is not
00:41:14.240as a punishment it's not a punishment for anything but we can go back in history and talk about who
00:41:19.680lived where when and how where did all these people come from where did all these arabs come
00:41:23.900from uh in the 1920s uh or in the 1870s when mark twain was traveling the country he said it was
00:41:30.780barren and empty we can talk about the fact that the zionist movement uh came to into into being
00:41:37.900and that jews wanted to settle there and that created the whole movement and people also wanted
00:41:42.140to have part in this economic development there are a lot of things that we can talk about but
00:41:46.380i just want to put people at ease here when it comes to christian community because this is an
00:41:50.940important group that uh the best example of for for how israel treats other religions is to look
00:41:57.980into where do we put position them in our collaboration uh in in israel in jerusalem
00:42:05.500in nazareth in other parts of the country how do we maintain how do we have special government
00:42:10.460representatives to be able to allow them to have the most direct impact on any issue that rises
00:42:18.220to their concern and and let us know we are very attuned to that we are very sensitive to that and
00:42:25.100we will continue to do that not just that when we are abroad like an embassy we reach out to
00:42:31.500christian communities because we want to make people understand that israel is not there just
00:42:35.820for the jewish people but we are homeland of we are the holy land and it means we know that that
00:42:41.260We bear responsibility to facilitate the access, the joy, the travel, the experience for people who have another bond than Jews with that part of the world.
00:42:53.540We understand that that bears for us a lot of responsibility and that we have to understand that also the sensitivities that we have to be able to address that.
00:43:05.100You know, Israel's excellent at facilitating, you know, Christians and Muslims coming to the Holy Land and being in Jerusalem and the holy sites in Bethlehem, etc.
00:43:15.660But the issue was more around those who were living in, you know, what is it, really something called Judea and Samaria and others called West Bank.
00:43:24.900And I know there's at least a very large segment of Israeli society that believes that, you know, this is the land granted, the entire thing, including Judea and Samaria, the West Bank.
00:43:38.340And, you know, among people on the right in the United States and in Canada and the West, it's traditionally been more supportive of Israel because it was seen as this outpost fighting against radical Islam.0.70
00:43:50.220And so these settlements could be justified from the West perspective.
00:43:53.900as it's pushing back these hotbeds of terrorism.
00:43:58.380But as you've said, they're not designed as punishment.
00:47:30.120these are camps that were set up by arab countries to keep arabs from integrating into their society
00:47:37.340i don't think that anybody knows that but that is unra and it's also even in the west looking at0.97
00:47:42.680their textbooks you'll see that jews are the source of evil in the world israel has no right0.88
00:47:49.640to exist so unra funding unra actually is a very good way of maintaining the conflict and making0.97
00:47:56.660sure that young palestinians will grow up and hate jews so much that they will one day take weapons0.94
00:48:03.140drive into the kibbutz and do what all these atrocities that took place on october the 7th0.95
00:48:08.740and i wonder why countries still continue to fund that organization without demanding real reform0.76
00:48:15.380even if when we presented evidence that its people were responsible for the most horrible terrorist
00:48:20.260the thing. Well, I'm trying to reform the UN. Good luck. Okay, I want to kind of finish it off
00:48:27.860just dealing with Lebanon. Lebanon doesn't normally make a ton of news, but it's been kind of the real0.81
00:48:32.900sticking point right now. Just Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, he said that
00:48:41.820there are Christian villages in southern Lebanon that have asked to be annexed. That got my
00:48:48.020attention um i i know a fair number of christian lebanese and i don't know a single one who would
00:48:54.820entertain the idea uh a bunch of these towns and villages very quickly issued a statement saying
00:48:59.860absolutely not uh 15 of the towns and villages did um but you know there had there's been a fair
00:49:09.400bit of talk that israel wants to build a kind of buffer zone in southern lebanon uh security zone
00:49:16.380whatever you want to call it, you know, there's Hezbollah in the area. But of course, these0.65
00:49:23.620Christian towns are not Hezbollah hotbeds. It's a purely Shiite Muslim phenomenon, obviously.
00:49:29.900But Israel's actions in Lebanon, particularly southern Lebanon, have been a sticky point that
00:49:37.940have held up the peace deal between the United States and Iran. So I want to get from you,
00:49:43.240You know, what does Israel have ambition, long term ambitions in southern Lebanon? Is it potential annexations as Benjamin Netanyahu was talking about? Is it a security zone that may or may not include settlements at some point in the future? It seems to be of incredible value to the point where it's become a huge point of contention between the Netanyahu and Trump administrations.
00:50:07.600We don't have any annexation plans for Lebanon. We've reiterated that.
00:50:12.040kind of hinted at it no no he has not he sent his ambassador to discuss with the lebanese ambassador
00:50:19.240settlement in lebanon and we were as clear as can be about what we expect from lebanese government
00:50:27.400to do and that is to assume its responsibility and its sovereignty over the whole territory of
00:50:33.560lebanon as we see it we the line that defines the border between israel and lebanon was actually
00:50:40.280rectified by the united nations we call it the blue line so we know exactly where the border is we have
00:50:45.880agreed agreed and committed to it uh in the most uh clear way uh hezbollah took over the southern
00:50:53.960part of lebanon and hezbollah used that as a launching pad to attack to attack israel again
00:50:59.400and again and acquired the weapons and the hundreds of thousands of rockets and so on we have never
00:51:05.320stated at any point in time that we have any territorial claims beyond the blue line so
00:51:11.400uh that is just wrong uh regarding the christian community in lebanon i would
00:51:18.520ask you to look at what today the leader of the christian community said about the agreement with
00:51:24.360israel saying that the lebanese people should actually endorse this and use this as a starting
00:51:33.080point to building some peaceful relations with israel and so if i don't know what this claim
00:51:38.760was and i don't know where this came from this uh this information piece of information about
00:51:43.880those 15 villages but we've had well this was very young we've had very strong relations with the
00:51:49.960with the christian community uh in southern lebanon for many many years and actually
00:51:54.680there are there are lebanese christian refugees in israel that had to flee lebanon after israel
00:52:02.120retreated from lebanon that they lived there in israel because their lives are in they have been
00:52:06.760in danger and they couldn't stay there in their own country so israel provided security for them
00:52:13.560but or or shelter for them but there are no claims no territorial claims of israel in lebanon and
00:52:21.080this must be very very clear there may be a case where lebanese leaders want to approach israel and
00:52:27.640to seek Israel's protection so that Hezbollah doesn't take over the communities because that's
00:52:33.180what they did. I didn't hear you, anybody else speak about Hezbollah's control over Christian0.92
00:52:41.160communities in the southern part of Lebanon, taking over whatever assets they thought that
00:52:46.260are important for them to launch their attacks into Israel. Nobody spoke about that. Nobody
00:52:50.780speaks about the fact that the Lebanese army is not able to fulfill its national mission,
00:52:56.020which is to protect the sovereign territory of lebanon we want that we want to strengthen that0.94
00:53:01.540we want to find a way for lebanon to be free country free from hezbollah and free from anything
00:53:07.700that inhibits the the prosperity of the lebanese people we see the lebanese people as friends as
00:53:13.620neighbors with which we would to develop relations with drus christians muslims whoever they are
00:53:19.940We have good relations with Arab countries, those relations withstood the toughest stress test, which is this war. No Arab country severed relations with Israel. And so I think that we have to look at Israel's regional approach as one that seeks to create peace and coexistence and not strife.0.94
00:53:42.400And we have to address all our energy to repel all those who want to destroy freedom and all those who want to actually impose their constrictive reign over free society.0.83
00:53:55.920Because this is the biggest threat, not just for the Middle East.0.85
00:53:59.100Again, that's the entry point, but that will go further.0.97
00:54:02.520I've given you some rough questions, and I appreciate your time.
00:54:06.320Is there anything else you wanted to add on any of these topics or about your time here in Calgary?
00:54:12.400I want to speak about Calgary as a very friendly environment where we've been able to share Israel's technology and innovation ecosystem with a very strongly developed ecosystem.
00:54:29.640I think Calgary's ecosystem is growing four times faster than the rest of Canada.
00:54:36.100And whether it's during Stampede or outside Stampede, the same vibe is there of can-do, of developing, of making things happen, finding solutions.
00:54:45.020And our companies that are here, six of them, find it very easy to connect with local counterparts, be it investors, founders, or researchers.
00:54:54.400And we are very open to working together in order to make whatever transformation Canada is undergoing now grow faster, more effective, and more profitable for Canada, but also for Israeli businesses.
00:55:13.620I see that collaboration as one that is unique.
00:55:17.360We've had great relations in the Middle East with the United Arab Emirates, with India, with giants that have funds in abundance and want to see growth and prosperity just like us.
00:55:29.520And we want to see the same happen in Canada.
00:55:31.480So we see Calgary as a sort of a case where we can also show as an example for other parts of Canada.
00:55:39.080The vibe you talked about, the vibe when I was in Tel Aviv, I had a very Calgary vibe when I was there.
00:55:45.260It's reminded me of home when I was in there. So it's and Tel Aviv is, you know, the big high tech hub there.
00:55:51.860So very interesting. I appreciate your time. Hope you enjoy the rest of your stampede.
00:55:57.000Thanks for coming in. Thank you very much. All the best. Thank you.