Lex Fridman PodcastBenjamin Netanyahu: Israel, Palestine, Power, Corruption, Hate, and Peace | Lex Fridman Podcast #389
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
120 min read · 24,159 words- 0:00 – 2:35
Introduction
- BNBenjamin Netanyahu
We should never, and I never set aside and say, "Oh, they're just threatening to destroy us. Uh, they won't do it." If somebody threatens to eliminate you, as Iran is doing today, and as Hitler did then, and people discounted it. Well, if somebody threatens to annihilate us, uh, take them seriously, and act to prevent it early on. Don't let them have the means to do so, because that may be too late.
- LFLex Fridman
The following is a conversation with Benjamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister of Israel, currently serving his sixth term in office. He's one of the most influential, powerful, and controversial men in the world, leading a right-wing coalition government at the center of one of the most intense and long-lasting conflicts and crises in human history. As we spoke, and as I speak now, large-scale protests are breaking out all over Israel over this government's proposed judicial reform that seeks to weaken the Supreme Court in a bold accumulation of power. Given the current intense political battles in Israel, our previous intention to speak for three hours was adjusted to one hour for the time being, but we agreed to speak again for much longer in the future. I will also interview people who harshly disagree with the words spoken in this conversation. I will speak with other world leaders, with religious leaders, with historians and activists, and with people who have lived and have suffered through the pain of war, destruction, and loss, that stoke the fires of anger and hate in their heart. For this, I will travel anywhere, no matter how dangerous, if there's any chance it may help add to understanding and love in the world. I believe in the power of conversation, to do just this, to remind us of our common humanity. I know I'm under-qualified and under-skilled for these conversations, so I will often fall short, and I will certainly get attacked, derided, and slandered. But I will always turn the other cheek, and use these attacks to learn, to improve, and no matter what, never give in to cynicism. This life, this world of ours is too beautiful not to keep trying, trying to do some good in whatever way each of us know how. I love you all. This is the Lex Fridman Podcast. To support it, please check out our sponsors in the description, and now, dear friends, here's Benjamin Netanyahu.
- 2:35 – 8:15
Hate
- LFLex Fridman
You're loved by many people here in Israel and in the world, but you're also hated by many.
- BNBenjamin Netanyahu
Mm.
- LFLex Fridman
In fact, I think you may be one of the, the most hated men in the world. So if there's a young man or a young woman listening to this right now who have such hate in their heart, what can you say to them to one day turn that hate into love?
- BNBenjamin Netanyahu
I disagree with the premise of your question. Uh, I think I have, uh, I've enjoyed a very broad support around the world. There are certain, uh, corners in which we have, uh, we have this, uh, animosity that you describe, and it sort of permeates in some of the, uh, uh, the newspapers and news organs and so on, in the, in the United States. But certainly doesn't reflect the, uh, the broad support that I have. I just gave a b- uh, uh, uh, an interview on an Iranian channel. 16 million viewers. I gave another one, I just did a, uh, a little video, uh, a few years ago, 25 million viewers, from Iran. Certainly no hate there, I have to tell you. Not from the regime. Okay? And when I go around the world, uh, and I've been around the world, uh, people want to hear what we have to say, what I have to say as a leader of Israel whom they respect increasingly as a rising power in the world. So I, uh, I disagree with that. And the most important, uh, thing that goes against what you said is the respect that we receive from the Arab world, and the fact that we've made four historic peace agreements with Arab countries. They made it with me. They didn't make it with anyone else. Uh, and I respect them and they respect me. And probably more to come. So I think the premise, uh, is wrong. That's all.
- LFLex Fridman
Well, there's a lot of love, yes. The, a lot of leaders are collaborating, are-
- BNBenjamin Netanyahu
Respect I said, not, not love.
- LFLex Fridman
Okay.
- BNBenjamin Netanyahu
I said respect.
- LFLex Fridman
All right. Well-
- BNBenjamin Netanyahu
You get a small cut.
- LFLex Fridman
... it's, it's a spectrum. Uh, but there is people who, um, don't have good things to say about Israel.
- BNBenjamin Netanyahu
Mm.
- LFLex Fridman
Who do have hate in their heart for Israel.
- BNBenjamin Netanyahu
Mm. Yeah.
- LFLex Fridman
And what can you say to those people?
- BNBenjamin Netanyahu
Well, I think they don't know very much. I think they're guided by a lot of, uh, uh, ignorance. They don't know about Israel. They don't know that Israel is a stellar democracy, that it happens to be one of the most advanced societies on the planet, that what Israel develops helps, uh, humanity in every field. In medicine and agriculture and, uh, and the environment, and, uh, telecoms, and, uh, talk about AI in a minute. But changing the world for the better, uh, and spreading this, uh, among six continents. We've sent rescue teams more than any other country in the world, and we're one-tenth of 1% of the world's population. But when there's an earth- earthquake or a devastation in Haiti or in the Philippines, Israel is there. When there's a, an earthquake, a devastating earthquake in Turkey, Turkey, Israel was there. Uh, when there's something in Nepal, Israel is there. And it's the second country. It's the second country, uh, after in one case India, or after another case, the United States. Israel is there. Tiny Israel is a benefactor to all of, uh, humanity.
- LFLex Fridman
So you're a student of history.
- BNBenjamin Netanyahu
Mm-hmm.
- LFLex Fridman
If I can just linger on that philosophical notion of hate, uh, that part of human nature. If you look at......uh, World War II. What do you learn from human nature from the rise of the Third Reich and the rise of somebody like, uh, Hitler and the hate that permeates that?
- BNBenjamin Netanyahu
Well, what I've learned is that, uh, you have to nip bad things, uh, in the bud. You have to, uh, there's a Latin term that says, uh, obsta principi. Stop bad things when they're small. Uh, and, uh, the, uh, deliberate hatred, the, the, uh, um, incitement of hatred against, uh, one community, uh, its demonization, delegitimization that, uh, goes with it, uh, is a, is a very dangerous thing. And that happened, um, in the case of the Jews. What started with the Jews soon spread to all of humanity. So what we've learned is, that's what we should, we should never, and I never set aside and say, "Oh, they're just threatening to destroy us. Uh, they won't do it." If somebody threatens to eliminate you, as Iran is doing today, and as Hitler did then, and people discounted it. Well, if somebody threatens to annihilate us, uh, take them seriously and act to prevent it early on. Don't let them have the means to do so, because that may be too late.
- LFLex Fridman
So in those threats, underlying that hatred, how much of it is anti-Zionism and how much of it is anti-Semitism?
- BNBenjamin Netanyahu
I don't distinguish between the two. You can't say, "Well, I'm, I'm okay with Jews, but I just don't think there should be a Jewish state." It's like, uh, saying, "I'm not anti-American. I just don't think there should be an America." That's basically what (laughs) wh- what people are saying vis-a-vis anti, uh, anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism. Uh, when you say anti-Zionism, you're saying the Jewish people don't have a right to have a state of their own. Uh, and that, uh, uh, that is a denial of, uh, of a basic, uh, uh, uh, a basic principle that, uh, I think completely, uh, uh, unmasks what is involved here. Today, anti-Semitism is anti-Zionism. Those who oppose the Jewish people, oppose the Jewish state.
- 8:15 – 16:51
Judicial reform and protests
- BNBenjamin Netanyahu
- LFLex Fridman
If we jump from human history to the current-
- BNBenjamin Netanyahu
Mm.
- LFLex Fridman
... particular moment, there's protests in Israel now about, uh, the proposed judicial reform, uh, that gives power to your government to override the Supreme Court. So the critics say that this gives too much power to you, virtually making you a dictator.
- BNBenjamin Netanyahu
Yeah, well, that's ridiculous. The mere fact that you have, uh, so many demonstrations and protests, some, uh, some dictatorship, huh? (laughs) That's a lot, a lot of democracy here, more, more rambunctious and more, uh, uh, robust than, uh, just anywhere on the planet.
- LFLex Fridman
Can you steel man the case that this gives, this may give too much power to the, uh, the coalition government, to the Prime Minister? Not just to you, but to those who follow.
- BNBenjamin Netanyahu
No. Uh, I think that's complete hogwash, because I, I think there's, um, there's, uh, m- very few people who are demonstrating against this. Quite a few, uh, quite many don't have an idea what is being discussed or be, basically being sloganized. You can sloganize, you know something about, um, not mass media right now, but the, uh, social, uh, network. You can basically feed deliberately with big data and big money. You can just feed, uh, slogans and get into people's minds. Um, I- I'm sure you don't think I exaggerate, because you can tell me more about that. And you can create mass mobilization, uh, based on these, uh, absurd slogans. So here, here's where we, I come from and what we're doing. What we're trying to do and what we've changed and what we're trying to do. I'm a 19th century democrat in my, uh, uh, small d yes.
- LFLex Fridman
Mm-hmm.
- BNBenjamin Netanyahu
Uh, in my, uh, views. That is, I view, I asked the question, what is democracy? Okay. So democracy is, uh, is the will of the majority and the protection of the rights of, they call it the rights of the minority, but I say the rights of, of the individual. Okay. So how do you balance the two? Okay. How do you get the, uh, how do you avoid mobocracy? Okay. And how do you avoid dictatorship? The opposite side. Uh, the way you avoid it is something that was built essentially by British philosophers and French philosophers, but, uh, was, uh, encapsulated by the founding fathers of the United States. You create a balance between the three branches of government. Okay. The legislative, the executive, and the judiciary. And this balance is what, uh, uh, assures the balance between majority rights and individual rights. Uh, and you have to balance all of them. Okay. That balance, uh, was maintained in Israel in its first 50 years and was, uh, gradually, uh, over- overtaken and basically broken by the most activist judicial court on the planet. That's what happened here. And, uh, gradually over the last, uh, two, three decades, the, uh, the court arrogated for itself the powers of the Parliament and the executive. So we're trying to bring it back into line. Bringing it back into line into what is common in, uh, all parliamentary democracies and in the United States doesn't mean taking the pendulum from one side and bringing it to the other side. We want checks and balances, not, uh, uh, unrivaled power. Just as we said, we want an independent judiciary, but not an all powerful judiciary. That balance does not mean, bringing it back into line doesn't mean that you can have the, uh, uh, the Parliament, or Knesset, override any decision that the, uh, uh, Supreme Court does. So I pretty much early on said after the judicial reform was introduced, get rid of the idea of a sweeping override clause that would have, uh, with 61 votes, that's a majority of one, you can just, uh, nullify any Supreme Court decision. So let's move it back into the center. So that's gone. And most of the criticism on, uh, the judicial reform was based on a, on a, uh, an unlimited override clause-
- LFLex Fridman
Mm-hmm.
- BNBenjamin Netanyahu
... which, uh, I've said is simply not gonna happen. People are discussing som- something that already for six months does not exist. Second point that, uh...... that we received criticism on was the, uh, the, uh, the structure of how do you choose Supreme Court judges, okay? How do you Sup- how do you choose them? Uh, and, uh, the critics of, uh, the reform are saying that the idea that elected officials should choose Supreme Court judges is the end of democracy. If that's the case, the United States is not a democracy, neither is France, and neither are just, I don't know, just about every, uh, every democracy on, on the planet. So there is a view here that, uh, you can't have the sordid hands of e- elected officials, uh, i- involved in the choosing of judges. And in the Israeli system, the judicial activism went so far that effectively the sitting judges have an effective veto on their, on, uh, uh, on choosing, uh, judges, which means that this is a self-selecting court that just per- perpetrates itself. And we wanna correct that. Again, wanna correct it in a balanced way, and that's basically what, uh, we're trying to do. So I think there's a lot of misinformation about that. We're trying to bring Israeli democracy to where it was in its first 50 years, uh, and it was, uh, a stellar democracy, and still is. Israel is a democracy, will remain a democracy, uh, a vibrant democracy. And believe me, the fact that people are arguing and demonstrating, uh, in the streets and protesting is just, uh, is the best, uh, proof of that. And that's how it'll remain.
- LFLex Fridman
We spoke about, uh, tech companies-
- BNBenjamin Netanyahu
Yeah.
- LFLex Fridman
... offline. There's a lot of tech companies nervous about this judicial reform.
- BNBenjamin Netanyahu
Mm-hmm.
- LFLex Fridman
Can you speak to why, uh, large and small companies have a future in Israel?
- BNBenjamin Netanyahu
Because Israel is a free market economy. I had something to do with that. I introduced, uh, dozens and dozens of free market reforms that made Israel move from $17,000 per capita income to, uh, within a very short time, to, uh, $54,000. That's nominal GDP per capita, uh, according to the IMF. And we've, uh, overtaken in that, uh, Japan, France, Britain, Germany. And how did that happen? Because we unleashed the, the genius that we have, uh, and the initiative, and the entrepreneurship that is latent in our population. And, uh, to do that, we had to create free markets, so we created that. So Israel has one of the most vibrant free market economies in the world, and the second thing we have is a, a permanent investment in, um, conceptual products because we have a permanent investment in, um, uh, in the military, in our security services, creating, uh, basically, uh, knowledge workers who then become, uh, knowledge entrepreneurs. And so we create this, this structure, and that's not gonna go away. There's been a decline in investments in high tech globally. I think that's driven by many factors, but the most important one is the interest rate, which (laughs) , which I think will ... it'll fluctuate up and down. But Israel will remain a very attractive country because it produces so many, so many knowledge workers in a knowledge-based economy, and it's changing so rapidly. The world is changing. You're looking for the places that have, uh, innovation. The future belongs to the, to those who innovate. Israel is the, uh, preeminent innovation nation. It has few competitors, and if we would say, "All right, where do you have this close cross-disciplinary, uh, fermentation of various skills and areas?" I would say, "It's in Israel." And I'll tell you why. We used to be just telecoms because people went out of the, uh, you know, military intelligence, our NSA. But that's been now broad-based, so you find it in medicine, you find it in, uh, uh, biology, you find it in, uh, uh, agritech, you find it everywhere. Everything is becoming technologized, and in Israel, everybody is dealing in everything. And that's a ve- that's a potent, uh, reservoir of talent that the, uh, the world is not gonna pass up, and in fact, it's coming to us. We just had NVIDIA come in here, uh, and, uh, they decided to build, uh, a supercomputer in Israel. Wonder why? We've had Intel come in here and deciding now to invest $25 billion just now-
- LFLex Fridman
Mm-hmm.
- BNBenjamin Netanyahu
... uh, in a new plant in Israel. I wonder why? I don't wonder why. They know why. Because the talent is here and the freedom is here, and it'll remain
- 16:51 – 26:53
AI
- BNBenjamin Netanyahu
so.
- LFLex Fridman
So you had a conversation about AI with Sam Altman of OpenAI-
- BNBenjamin Netanyahu
Mm-hmm.
- LFLex Fridman
... and with Elon Musk.
- BNBenjamin Netanyahu
Yeah.
- LFLex Fridman
What was the content of that conversation? What's your vision for sort of this very highest of tech, uh, which is artificial intelligence?
- BNBenjamin Netanyahu
Well, first of all, I have a high regard for the people I talk to, okay? And, and, uh, I, I understand that they understand things I don't understand, and I don't pretend to understand everything. But I do understand one thing. I understand that, um, AI is developing at a geometric rate, and mostly in, in political life and in life in general, people don't have an intuitive grasp of, uh, geometric growth. You understand things basically in, uh, linear increments. Uh, and the, the idea that you're coming up a, a ski slope, uh, is very foreign to people, so they don't understand it, and they're, uh, naturally also, um, uh, sort of taken aback by it because what do you do? Okay? So I, I think the, the ... there are several conclusions from my conversations with the, with them and from my, uh, other observations that I've been talking about for many years. I'm talking about the need to do this. Well, the first thing is this, there is no possibility of not entering AI with full force. Secondly, there is a need for regulation. Third, it's now clear there'll be global, uh, regulation. Fourth, uh, it's not clear where it ends up. I, I certainly cannot say that. Now, you might say, does it, uh, come to control us? Okay, that's a question. Does it come to control us? I don't know the answer to that.Uh, I think that, uh, as, uh, as one, uh, observation that I had from these conversations is if it does come to control us, that's probably the only chance of having, um, a universal regulation because I don't see-
- LFLex Fridman
(laughs)
- BNBenjamin Netanyahu
(laughs) ... anyone, anyone, uh, uh, deciding to, uh, you know, to, um, uh, uh, avoid the race, uh, and, and cooperate unless you have that threat. Doesn't mean you can't regulate AI within countries even without that understanding. But it does mean that there's a limit to regulation because every country will want to make sure that it's not, uh, doesn't give up competitive advantage if there is no universal regulation. Um, I think that right now, just as a, you know, 10 years ago, I read, um, I read a novel. I don't read novels, but I was forced to read one by a scientific advisor. I read history, I read about economics, I read about technology. I just don't read novels, okay? Uh, and this time, uh, followed Churchill, you know. He said, "Fact is better than fiction." Well, this fiction would become fact. And, uh, it was a book. It was a novel about, um, uh, a Chinese-American s- future cyber war.
- LFLex Fridman
Mm-hmm.
- BNBenjamin Netanyahu
And I read the book in one sitting, uh, called in a team of experts, and I said, "All right. Let's, uh, let's turn Israel into, um, one of the l- world's five cyber powers, and let's do it very quickly." And we did actually. We d- we did exactly that. Uh, I think AI is bigger than that and related to that because it'll affect... Well, cyber affects everything, but AI will affect it even more fundamentally. And the joining of the two could be very powerful. So I think we... In, in Israel, we have to, we have to do it anyway for security reasons when we're doing it. But I think, uh, what about, what about our databases that are, uh, already per- very robust on, uh, on the medical records of 98% of our population? Why don't we stick a genetic database on that? Why don't we do other things that could bring magical, what seem, are, are seemingly magical cures and drugs and, uh, m- medical instruments for that? That's one possibility. We have it in, as I said, in every single field. The conclusion is this. We have to move on AI. We are moving on AI just as we moved on cyber. And I think Israel will be one of the leading, uh, one of the leading AI, uh, powers in the world. The questions I don't have an answer to is, where does it go? How much does it eat, chew up on, on jobs? There's an assumption that I'm not sure is true, that all previous... The two big, uh, previous revolutions in the human condition, namely the agricultural revolution and the industrial revolution, definitely produced more jobs than they, um, uh, than they consumed, okay? That is not obvious to me at all. I mean, I could see new jobs creating. And yes, I have that, you know, that, that comforting statement. But it's not quite true because I think on balance they'll probably consume more jobs, many more jobs than they'll, uh, create.
- LFLex Fridman
At least in the short term. And we don't know about the long term.
- BNBenjamin Netanyahu
No, I don't know about the long term. But I, I used to have the comfort being a free market guy. I always said, "You know, we're gonna produce more jobs than, you know, by, uh, I don't know, limiting certain government jobs. We're actually putting out in the market, we'll create more jobs," which obviously happened. You know, we had one telecom company, uh, um, a government company when I said, "We're going to, you know, we're going to create competition." They said, "You're gonna run us out. We're not gonna have more workers." Yeah, they had 13,000 workers. They went down to, uh, seven, but we created another 40,000, uh, in the other c- company. So that was a comforting thought. I always knew that was true, okay? Not only that, I also knew that wealth would spread by, uh, opening up the markets completely opposite to the, uh, uh, socialist and semi-socialist creed that they had here. Uh, they said, "You're, you're gonna make the rich richer and the poor, poorer." No, and made everyone richer. And actually, uh, the people who entered the job market because of the reforms we did actually became a lot richer (laughs) the, on the, uh, the lower s- the l- the lower, uh, um, ladders of, uh, uh, the socioeconomic, uh, uh, measure. But here's the point. I don't know, I don't know that we will not have what, uh, Elon Musk calls the end of scarcity. So you'll have the end of scarcity, you'll have enormous productivity. You know, very few people are producing enormous added value. You're gonna have to tax that to pass it to the others, okay? You're gonna have to do that. That's a political question. I'm not sure how we answer that. What if you tax and somebody else doesn't tax? You're gonna get everybody to go there.
- LFLex Fridman
Hmm.
- BNBenjamin Netanyahu
That's an issue, an international issue that we constantly have to deal with. And the second question you have is, suppose you solve that problem and you deliver, uh, money, okay, to those who are, um, not involved in the AI economy. What do they do? The first question you ask somebody whom you just met after the polite, uh, you know, the polite exchanges is, "What do you do?"
- LFLex Fridman
Mm-hmm.
- BNBenjamin Netanyahu
Right? Well, people define themselves by their profession. Uh, and it's gonna be difficult if you don't have a profession. And, you know, people will spend more time self-searching, they'll... More time in, uh, uh, in, in the arts, more time in leisure. I understand that. If I have to bet, it will annihilate many more jobs than it will create, and it will force a structural change in our economics, in our economic, uh, uh, models, and in our politics.Uh, and I'm not sure where it's gonna go.
- LFLex Fridman
And that's something we have to respond to at the nation level and just as a human civilization, both the threat of AI to just us as a human species, and then the effect on the jobs, and like you said, cybersecurity.
- BNBenjamin Netanyahu
And what do you think? You think, you think it's gonna go... We're gonna lose control?
- LFLex Fridman
No. I... First of all, I do believe, maybe naively, that it will create more jobs than it takes.
- BNBenjamin Netanyahu
Write that down. We'll check it.
- LFLex Fridman
It's on record.
- BNBenjamin Netanyahu
And you know, we don't have... We don't say, "We'll check it after our lifetime." No, we'll see it in a few years.
- LFLex Fridman
We'll see it in a few years.
- BNBenjamin Netanyahu
Huh.
- LFLex Fridman
I'm really concerned about cybersecurity and the nature of how that changes-
- BNBenjamin Netanyahu
Mm-hmm.
- LFLex Fridman
... with the power of AI. Uh, and in terms of existential threats, I think there would be so much threats that aren't existential along the way, that that is the thing I'm mostly concerned about-
- BNBenjamin Netanyahu
Mm-hmm.
- LFLex Fridman
... um, versus AI taking complete control and becoming sort of superseding the human species. Uh, although that is something you should consider seriously, uh, because of the exponential growth of its capability.
- 26:53 – 33:34
Competition
- LFLex Fridman
So taking a small tangent, as we talked about offline, uh, you have a, a background in Taekwondo.
- BNBenjamin Netanyahu
Oh yeah, yeah.
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah. We mentioned Elon Musk.
- BNBenjamin Netanyahu
(laughs)
- LFLex Fridman
I've, uh, trained with both.
- BNBenjamin Netanyahu
(laughs)
- LFLex Fridman
Just as a quick question, who do you have... Uh, who are you betting on in a fight?
- BNBenjamin Netanyahu
(laughs) Well, uh, I refuse to answer that. Um, I will say this that-
- LFLex Fridman
Such a politician you are.
- BNBenjamin Netanyahu
Yeah, of course. Uh, here I'm a politician. I'm openly telling you, then I'm dodging the question, okay? But I'll say this. Um, you know, I, I actually... I spent five years in our Special Forces, uh, in the military, and we barely spent a minute, uh, on martial arts. Uh, I actually learned Taekwondo later when I came to, um, um... It wasn't even at MIT. At MIT, I think I did karate. But when I came to the UN, I had a martial arts expert, and he taught me Taekwondo, which was kind of interesting. Now, the question you really have to ask is, why didn't we learn martial arts in this special, uh, elite unit?
- LFLex Fridman
Mm-hmm.
- BNBenjamin Netanyahu
And the answer is, there's no point. If you saw Indiana Jones, you know, there's no point. You just, you know, pull the trigger. That's simple. Now, I don't expect anyone to pull the trigger on this combat, and I'm sure you'll... You'll make sure that doesn't happen.
- LFLex Fridman
(laughs) Yeah, I mean, martial arts is this kind of... It's bigger than just combat. It's this kind of journey of humility and-
- BNBenjamin Netanyahu
Oh, sure.
- LFLex Fridman
It has, uh... It's an art form. It truly is an art.
- BNBenjamin Netanyahu
Mm-hmm.
- LFLex Fridman
But it's fascinating that these two figures in tech are facing each other, and, um, I won't ask a question of who you would face and how you would do, but, um...
- BNBenjamin Netanyahu
Well, I'm facing opponents all the time.
- LFLex Fridman
All the time?
- BNBenjamin Netanyahu
Yeah, that's part of life.
- LFLex Fridman
(laughs) But not on the stage.
- BNBenjamin Netanyahu
You know, part of life, part of life is-
- LFLex Fridman
Not yet.
- BNBenjamin Netanyahu
I'm not sure about that, but part of life-
- LFLex Fridman
Are you announcing, uh, any fights?
- BNBenjamin Netanyahu
No.
- LFLex Fridman
Okay.
- BNBenjamin Netanyahu
No, no. Part of life is competition, you know. Uh, you know, the only time competition ends is death. But, you know, political life, economic life, uh, cultural life is engaged continuously in creativity and competition. And, uh, the, the problem I have with that is, as I mentioned earlier just before we began the podcast, is that, uh, at a certain point, you want to put barriers to monopoly. And if you're a really able competitor, you're gonna create a monopoly. That's what Peter Thiel says is a natural course of things. It's what I learned in, uh, basically in the Boston Consulting Group. If you're a very able competitor, you'll create scale advantages that gives you the ability to lock out your competition. And as a prime minister, I want to assure that there is competition in the market, so you have to limit, uh, limit this competitive power to a certain point. And that becomes increasingly hard, uh, in a, in a world where everything is intermixed. Where do you define market segments? Where do you define, uh, monopoly? Uh, how do you do that? That is very... That, that actually conceptually I find very challenging. Because of all the dozens of political, uh, of economic reforms that I've made, the most difficult part is the conceptual part. Once you have ironed it out and you say, "Here's what I wanna do. Here's the right thing to do," then you have a practical problem of overcoming union, uh, resistance, political, uh, resistance, uh, press calumny, uh, uh, you know, uh, opponents from this or that corner. That's a practical matter, but if you have it conceptually defined, you can move ahead to, uh, reform economies or reform education or reform transportation. Fine. Uh, and the question of, uh...... the growing power of large companies, big tech companies, to monopolize the markets because they're better at it. They provide a service, they provide it at a lower cost, uh, at rapidly declining cost. Where do you stop? Where do you, uh, where do you stop mono- monopoly power is a crucial question because it also becomes now a political question. If you amass enormous amount of economic power, which is information power, you know, that also monopolizes the political process, which creates... The- these are real questions that are not obvious. I don't have an obvious answer. Uh, because as I said, as a 19th century democrat, these are questions of the 21st century which people should, uh, should begin to think. Do you have a solution to that?
- LFLex Fridman
The solution of monopolies growing arbitrarily-
- BNBenjamin Netanyahu
Yeah.
- 33:34 – 40:45
Power and corruption
- LFLex Fridman
of politics. So you have, uh, served six terms as prime minister, over 15 years in power. Let me ask you again, human nature. Um, do you worry about the corrupting nature of power on you as a leader? On you as a man?
- BNBenjamin Netanyahu
Not at all. Um, because I- I think that the... A- again, the, uh, the thing that drives me is not, uh, is nothing but the mission that I took to, uh, assure the, uh, the survival and thriving of the state, the Jewish state. That is its economic prosperity, uh, but its security and its ability to achieve peace with our neighbors and I'm- I'm committed to it. I think there's still... There are many things that have been done. There are a few big things that I can still do, but it doesn't only depend on my sense of mission, it depends on the market, as we say. It depends really on the will of the Israeli voters and the Israeli voters have decided to vote for me again and again even though I wield no power in the press, no power (laughs) in- in- in- in many quarters here, uh, a- and so on. Nothing. I mean, I am probably... I'm going to be very soon the longest serving, uh, prime minister in the last half century in the Western democracies. But that's not because I, uh, uh, I amass great political power in any of the institutions. I remember, uh, I had a conversation with, uh, uh, uh, Silvio Berlusconi, who recently died, and he said to me a- about, uh, I don't know, 15 years ago, something like that. He said, "So, Bibi, uh, how many, uh, uh, how many, uh, of Israel's, uh, um, uh, television stations do you have?" Uh, and I said, "None." He said, "You have none? I have two."
- LFLex Fridman
Do you have?
- BNBenjamin Netanyahu
"Do you have?"
- LFLex Fridman
(laughs)
- BNBenjamin Netanyahu
I said, "None. I have two."
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah.
- BNBenjamin Netanyahu
Uh, he said, "No, no, but... What, you mean you don't have any that you control?" I said, "Not only do I have a- none that I control, they're all against me." So he says, "So how do you win elections? And, you know, with both hands tied behind your back?" And I said, "The hard way." Uh, that's why, you know, I have the largest party, but I don't have many more seats that I would have if I had, uh, a sympathetic, uh, voice in the media and I- Israel is... Until recently was dominated completely by, uh, one side of the political spectrum that, uh, you know, uh, often, uh, vilified me. Not- not me because... They viewed me as, uh, representing basically the conservative voices in Israel that are majority and, uh... So the idea that I'm a- an omnipotent authoritarian, uh, uh, uh, dictator is ridiculous. I am, uh, uh... I would say I'm, uh, not merely a- a champion of, uh, of, uh, democracy and democratization, I'm, uh... I- I believe ultimately the decision is with the voters and the voters, even though they've had, you know, they have constant, constant, uh, press attacks, uh, they have, uh, chosen to put me back in. So I don't believe in this thing of amassing, the corrupting power of, uh... If you don't have elections-... if you don't have, if you control, uh, the, uh, the means of influencing the voters. I'd understand, uh, what you're saying, but in my case it's the exact opposite (laughs) . I have to constantly go in elections constantly, uh, uh, you know, with a disadvantage that the, uh, major media outlets are, uh, very violently sometimes against me. But it's fine, and I keep on winning. So I- I don't know what you're talking... I- I would say the concentration of power lies elsewhere, not here.
- LFLex Fridman
Well, you have been involved in several corruption cases. How much corruption is there in Israel and how do you fight it in your own party and in Israel?
- BNBenjamin Netanyahu
Well, you should ask a different question. What's happened to these cases? These cases have, uh, uh, basically are collapsing and before our eyes. The, uh, the, uh, um, you know, there were, uh, there was recently a, uh, an event in which the judges, the three judges in- in my case, called in the prosecution and said, "You know, your flagship, the bribery charge, so-called bribery charge, you know, is gone. Doesn't exist." Before a single, a single defense, uh, uh, witness was called, uh, and, um, uh, it sort of tells you that (laughs) this thing is evaporating. It's- it's quite astound- astounding, even that I have to say, was covered even by the mainstream press, uh, in Israel, because it's such an earthquake. So, uh, you know, a lot of these charges are not a lot. These charges will prove to be nothing. I always say, "Listen, I stand before the legal process." I don't claim that I'm, uh, uh, exempt from it in any way. On the contrary, I think the truth will come out and it's coming out, and we see that not only that, but with other things. So I think it's kind of instructive that, you know, no, no politician has been more vilified. No, none has been put to such a, a, you know, what is it? A- about a quarter of a billion, uh, uh, shekels were used, uh, uh, to scrutinize me and scour my bank accounts, sending people to the Philippines, into Mexico, into Europe, into America, and looking at everybody using spyware, the most advanced spyware on the planet against, uh, my associates, blackmailing witnesses, uh, uh, uh, telling them, you know, "Think about your family. Think about your wife." You know, "You better tell us what you want." All that is coming out in the trial. Uh, so I would say, uh, that most people now are not asking... are- are no longer asking, including my opponents, sort of trickling in as the, as the stuff comes out. People are not saying, "What did, uh, Netanyahu do?" Because he apparently did nothing. What was done to him is something that people ask. What was done to him? What was done to our democracy? What was done in the attempt to put down somebody who keeps winning elections despite the handicaps that I described? Maybe we can, maybe we can nail him by framing him. And the one thing I can say about the- the- this court trial is that, um, things are coming out, and that's- that's very good. Just objective things are coming out, changing the picture. So I would say, um, the- the attempt to brand me, uh, as corrupt is falling on its face. But the thing that is un- being uncovered in the trial, uh, such as the use- the use of spyware on a politician, a politician's surroundings, to try to shake them down in investigations, put them in flea-ridden cells for 21 days, invite their 84-year-old mother to investigations without cause, bringing in their mistresses in the corridor, shaking them down. That's what people are asking. That corruption is what they want corrected.
- 40:45 – 55:18
Peace
- LFLex Fridman
What is the top obstacle to peaceful coexistence of Israelis and Palestinians? Let's talk about the big question of peace in this part of the world.
- BNBenjamin Netanyahu
Mm-hmm. Well, I- I- I think the reason you have, uh, the persistence of the, uh, uh, Palestinian-Israeli conflict, which goes back about a century, is the persistent Palestinian refusal to recognize a Jewish state, a nation state for the Jewish people in any boundary. And that's why they opposed the establishment of the state of Israel before we had a state, and that's why they've opposed it after we had a state. Uh, they opposed it when we were... we didn't have Judea and Samaria, the West Bank in our hands in Gaza. They oppose it after we have it. Doesn't make a difference. It's basically their persistent refusal to recognize a Jewish state in any boundaries. And I- I think that their tragedy is that they've been commandeered for a century by leadership that, uh, refused to compromise with the idea of, um, of Zionism, namely that the Jews deserve, uh, a state in this part of the world. The territorial dispute is something else. You have a territorial dispute if you say, "Okay, you're living on this side, we're living on that side. Let's decide where the border is," and so on. That's not what the argument is. The Palestinian society, which is itself, um, um, pragmated, uh, but all the factions agree there shouldn't be a Jewish state anywhere. Okay? They just disagree between Hamas that says, "Oh, well, you should have it. You know, we should get rid of it, uh, with terror." Uh, uh, and the others who say, "No, we should also use political means to dissolve it." Uh, so that is, that is the problem.
- LFLex Fridman
So even as part of a two-state solution, they're still against the idea?
- BNBenjamin Netanyahu
Well, they don't want a state next to Israel, they want a state instead of Israel. Uh, and they say, "If we get a state, we'll use it as a springboard to destroy the- the smaller Israeli state." Which is what happened when Israel unilaterally walked out of Gaza and effectively established a Hamas state there. They didn't say, "Oh, good. Now we have...Uh, you know, our own territory, our own state. Israel is no longer there, let's build peace, let's build, uh, uh, you know, uh, uh, economic, uh, uh, projects, let's, uh, uh, enfranchise our people. No, they turned it in- into a... Basically, into a terror bastion for which they fired, uh, 10,000 rockets into Israel. Uh, when Israel left, uh, uh, Lebanon, uh, uh, you know, uh, because we had terrorist attacks from there, then, uh, we had Lebanon, uh, taken over by Hezbollah, a terrorist organization that seeks to destroy Israel. Uh, and- and therefore, every time we've just walked out, what we got was not peace. We didn't give, uh, you know, territory for peace. We got territory for terror. (laughs) That's all we had, and that's what would happen as long as the r- the reigning ideology says, "We don't want Israel in any border." So, the- the idea of, uh, two states assumes that you'd have, on the other side, a state that wants to live in peace and not one that will be overtaken by Iran and its proxies in two seconds and become a base to destroy Israel. And therefore, I think that, uh, most Israelis today, if you ask them, uh, they're... Yeah, they're- they're... They'd say that it's not gonna work in that concept. So, what do you do? What do you do with the Palestinians? Okay. They're still there, and I don't... Unlike them, I don't want to throw them out. Uh, I don't... They're gonna be living here and we're gonna be living here in an area which is... By the way, just so you understand, uh, the area, the entire area of, uh, so-called West Bank and, uh, and Israel is the width of the Washington Beltway, more or less. Just a little more, not much more. You can't really divide it up. You can't say, "Well, you're gonna fly in..." Who controls the airspace? Well, (laughs) it takes you about two and a half minutes to cross it with a- with a- a regular, uh, uh, you know, 747, okay? With a fighter plane, it takes you a minute and a half, okay? So you're not... How- how are you going to divide the airspace? Well, you're not going to divide it. Israel's gonna control that airspace and the electromagnetic space, uh, and, uh, and- and so on. So security has to be, uh, in the hands of Israel. My view of how you solve this problem is that... I- is a simple principle. The Palestinians should have all the powers to govern themselves and none of the powers to threaten Israel, which basically means that the responsibility for overall security remains with Israel. And from a practical point of view, we've seen that every time that Israel leaves a territory and- and takes its, uh, uh, security forces out of an area, it immediately is overtaken by Hamas or Hezbollah, uh, or jihadists, uh, who basically are, uh, committed to the destruction of Israel and also bring misery to the- the Palestinians or Arab subjects. So I think that, uh, that principle is less than perfect sovereignty because you're taking a certain amount of, uh, power, sovereign powers, especially security away. But I think it's the only practical solution. So people say, "Ah, but it's not a perfect state." I say, "Okay, call it what you will." Call it, you know, uh, I don't know, uh, limited sovereignty, call it autonomy plus, call it whatever you wanna call it, but that's the reality. And right now, if you ask Israelis across the political spectrum, except the very hard left, most Israelis agree with that. They don't really debate it.
- LFLex Fridman
So a two-state solution where Israel controls the security of the entire region?
- BNBenjamin Netanyahu
We don't call it quite that. I mean, there are different names, but the idea is, yes, Israel controls security in the... It's the entire area. It's this tiny area between the Jordan River and the sea. I mean, it's- it's like, uh, you know, you can walk it in not one afternoon. If you're really fit, you can do it in a- in a day. Less- less than a day.
- LFLex Fridman
(laughs)
- BNBenjamin Netanyahu
I did.
- LFLex Fridman
(laughs) So the, uh, expansion of settlements in the West Bank has been a top priority for this new government. Uh, so people... Many harshly criticized this as contributing to escalating the Israel-Palestine tensions.
- BNBenjamin Netanyahu
Uh, uh, yeah, well, I think-
- LFLex Fridman
What do... Can- can you understand that perspective that this expansion of settlements is not good for this two-state solution the way you described it?
- BNBenjamin Netanyahu
Yeah, I can understand... I can understand what they're saying, and they don't understand why they're wrong. First, uh, most- most Israelis, uh, who live in, uh, Judea-Samaria live in, uh, in urban blocks, and that accounts for about 90% of the, uh, of the population, okay? And everybody recognizes that those urban blocks are gonna be part of Israel in- in any future arrangement. So they're really arguing about, uh, something that has already been decided and agreed upon really by- by Americans, by... Even by Arabs, many Arabs. Uh, they don't think that Israel is going to dismantle these- these blocks. You know, you look outside the window here, and within, uh, about a kilometer or a mile from here is you have Jerusalem. Half of Jerusalem grew naturally beyond the old, uh, 1967 border, uh, so you're- you're not gonna dismantle half of Jerusalem. That's not gonna happen, uh, and, uh, and most people don't expect that. Then you have the other, uh, uh, 10% scattered in tiny, uh, you know, uh, small communities, uh, and people say, "Well, you're gonna have to take them out." Why? Why? Remember that in pre-, uh, 1967 Israel, we have, uh, uh, over a million and a half Arabs here. We don't say, "Oh, Israel has to be, uh, ethnically cleansed from Arabs in order to have... From its Arab citizens in order to have peace." Of course not. Jews can live among Arabs and Arabs can live among, uh, Jews. And what is... What is being advanced by those people who say that we can't live in our ancestral homeland in these disputed areas? Nobody says that this is Palestinian areas and nobody says that these are Israeli areas. We claim them. They claim them. We've only been attached to this land for, oh, 3,500 years, but, uh, you know... Uh, but it's a dispute, I agree. Uh, but I don't agree that we should throw out the Arabs, and I don't think that they should throw out the Jews.And if somebody said to you, "The only way we're gonna have peace with Israel is to have an ethnically cleansed Palestinian entity."
- LFLex Fridman
Mm-hmm.
- BNBenjamin Netanyahu
You know, that-- that's outrageous. If you said, "The only way..." (laughs) You know, "You shouldn't have Jews living in, uh, I don't know, in suburbs of London or New York," and so on, I don't think that will play too well. The world is actually advancing a solution that says that, uh, that Jews cannot live among Arabs and Arabs cannot live among Jews. I-I don't think that's the right way to do it. Um, and I-I think there's a solution out there, but I don't think we're gonna get to it, which is less than perfect sovereignty, which involves Israeli security, uh, maintained for the entire territory by Israel, which involves not rooting out anybody, not kicking out, uprooting Arabs or Palestinians. They're gonna live in enclaves in sovereign Israel, and we're going to live in, probably in enclaves there, probably through transportational continuity as opposed to territorial continuity. That is, uh, you know, for example, you can have tunnels and overpasses and so on that connect the various communities. And we're doing that right now. We're doing that right now, and it-it, it actually works. Uh, I think there is a solution to this. Uh, it's not the perfect world that people think of because that model, uh, I think doesn't apply here. Uh, if it applies elsewhere, it's a question. Uh, I don't think so. But I think there's one other thing, and that's the main thing that I've been involved in. You know, people said, "If you don't solve the Palestinian problem, you're not gonna get to the Arab world. You're not gonna have peace with the Arab world." Remember, the Palestinians are about 2% of the Arab world. Uh, and the other, uh, you know, the other 98%, you're not gonna make peace with them, and that's our goal. And for a long time, people accepted that. After the initial peace treaties with Egypt, with the Prime Minister Begin of the Likud and, uh, and President Sadat of Egypt, and then, uh, with Jordan, uh, between Prime Minister Rabin and, uh, uh, and King Hussein. For a quarter of a century, we didn't have any more peace treaties because people said, "You gotta go through the Palestinians, and the Palestinians, they don't want a solution of the kind that I described or any kind except the one that involves the dissolution of the state of Israel. So we could wait another half century." And I said, "No, I mean, I don't think that we should accept the premise that we have to wait for the Palestinians because we'll have to wait forever." So I decided to do it differently. I decided to go directly to the Arab capitals, uh, and to make the Historic Abraham Accords, uh, and essentially, uh, reversing the equation, not a peace process that goes inside out, but outside in. And we went directly to the, uh, the, uh, these countries and forged these, uh, these, uh, breakthrough peace accords with the United Arab Emirates, with Bahrain, with Morocco, and with Sudan. And we're now trying to expand that in a quantum leap with Saudi Arabia.
- LFLex Fridman
What does it take to do that with Saudi Arabia, with the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman?
- BNBenjamin Netanyahu
You know, I'm a student of history, and I, uh, read a lot of history, and I read that, uh, you know, in the Versailles discussions after World War I, uh, President Woodrow Wilson said, "I believe in open covenants openly arrived at." I have my correction. "I believed in open covenants secretly arrived at." So there's... We're not gonna advance a Saudi-Israeli peace by having it publicly discussed. And in any case, it's a decision of the, uh, of the Saudis, um, if, if they want to do it, but there's obviously a mutual interest. So here's my view. If we try to wait for the 2% in order to get to the 98%, we're gonna fail, and we have failed. If we go to the 98%, we have a much greater chance of persuading the 2%. You know why? Because the 2%, the Palestinian, uh, hope to vanquish the state of Israel and not make peace with it is based among other things on the pro- on the assumption that eventually, the 98%, the rest of the Arab world, will kick in and destroy the Jewish state, help them to, uh, dissolve or destroy the Jewish state. When that hope is, um, uh, taken away, then you begin to have, uh, a turn to the realistic solutions of coexistence. By the way, they'll require compromise on the Israeli side too, and I'm, you know, I'm, I'm perfectly cognizant of that and willing to do that. But I think a realistic compromise will be struck much more readily when the conflict between Israel and the Arab states, the Arab world is effectively solved. And I think we're on that path. It was a conceptual change, just like, you know, I've been involved in a few... I told you the conceptual battle is always the most difficult one. And you know, I had to fight this battle to convert a semi-socialist state into a, a free market capitalist state. And I have to say that most people today recognize the power of competition and the benefits of free markets. So we also had to fight this battle that said, you have to go through the, the, you know, the, the, the Palestinian, uh, uh, strait, S-T-R-A-I-T, to get to the other places. There's no way to avoid this, you know. You have to go through this, this, uh, uh, impassable pass. Uh, and I think that now people are recognizing that we'll go around it, uh, and probably circle back. And that, I think, actually gives hope not only to have an Arab-Israeli peace, but circling back, an Israeli-Palestinian peace. And obviously, this is not something that you find in the, um, you know, in the sound bites and so on, uh, but, but... And the, and the popular discussion of the press. But that idea is permeating, and I think it's the right idea because I think it's the only one that will work.
- LFLex Fridman
So expanding the circle piece, just to linger on that requires what? Secretly talking man to man, human to human?... uh, to leaders of other nations. And-
- BNBenjamin Netanyahu
Theoretically, you're right.
- LFLex Fridman
Theoretically. Okay. Well, let me ask you a- another theoretical question. Um, on the circle of peace, as a student of history, um, looking at the ideas of
- 55:18 – 59:15
War in Ukraine
- LFLex Fridman
war and peace, what do you think can achieve peace in the war in Ukraine? Looking at another part of the world, if you s- if you consider the fight for peace in this part of the world, how can you apply that to that other part of the world between Russia and Ukraine now?
- BNBenjamin Netanyahu
I think it's one of the, um, the savage horrors of history and one of the great tragedies that is occurring. Um, and I... L- l- let me say in advance that, uh, that if I have any opportunity to, uh, use my, um, contacts to help bring about an end to this tragedy, I'll do so. Uh, I've had, uh, I know both leaders, but I don't just jump in and, uh, and assume. You know, if there's, there will be a desire at a certain point because the conditions have created the possibility of, uh, helping stop this, uh, this carnage, then I'll do it. And that's why I choose my words carefully, because I think that may be the best, uh, uh, the best thing that I could do. Uh, look, I, I think what you see, um, in Ukraine is what happens if you have, um, territorial designs on a territory by a country that has nuclear weapons. And that, uh, to me, cha- you see the change in the equation. Now, I think that people are loathe to use nuclear weapons, and I'm not sure that I would, uh, think that the, the Russian side would use them, uh, with happy abandon. I don't think that's the question. But you see how the whole configuration changes, uh, when that happens. So you have to be very careful, uh, on how you resolve this conflict so it doesn't, uh, well, it doesn't go off the rails, so to speak. Uh, that's, by the way, the, the corollary is here. We don't want Iran, which is, uh, an aggressive force with an unle- just aggressive ideology of dominating first the Muslim world and then eliminating Israel and then becoming a, you know, global force. Uh, having nuclear weapons, it's totally different when they don't have it than when they do have it. Uh, and that's why one of my main goals has been to prevent Iran from having the means to, uh, the means of mass destruction, which will be used, atomic bombs, which they openly say will be used against us, and you can understand that. Uh, how to bring about an end to Ukraine? I have my ideas. I don't think, I don't think it's worthwhile, uh, discussing them now because they might, they might be required later on.
- LFLex Fridman
Do you believe in the power of conversation since you have contacts with Volodymyr Zelensky and Vladimir Putin, just leaders sitting in a room and discussing how the end of war can be brought about?
- BNBenjamin Netanyahu
I think it's a combination of that, but I, I think it's the question of, uh, interest and, uh, and whether... You have to get both sides to, to a point where they think that that conversation will lead to something useful. I don't think they're there right now.
- LFLex Fridman
What part is, of this is just basic human ego, stubbornness, all of this between leaders? Which is why I bring up the power of conversation, of sitting in a room, realizing we're human beings and that there's a history that connects Ukraine and Russia.
- BNBenjamin Netanyahu
Yeah, I don't think they're in a position to enter a room right now, realistically. I mean, you, you can posit that it would be good if that could happen, but entering the room is sometimes more complicated than what happens in the room. And there's a lot of, you know, pre-negotiation on the negotiation, then you negotiate endlessly on the negotia- and they're not even there.
- LFLex Fridman
It took a lot of work for you to get a handshake in the past.
- 59:15 – 1:03:15
Abraham Accords
- LFLex Fridman
- BNBenjamin Netanyahu
It's an interesting question. How did the peace, the Abraham Accords, how did that begin? You know, I mean, they, we had, uh, you know, we had decades, 70 years where the, or 65 years where these people, you know, would not, uh, meet openly with, or even secretly with an Israeli leader. Yeah, we had the, the Mossad, uh, making contacts with them all the time and so on, but how did we break the ice to the top level of leadership? Well, we broke the ice because I took a very strong stance against Iran and the Gulf states understood that Iran is a formidable danger to them, so we had a common interest. And the second thing is that because of the economic reforms that we had produced in Israel, Israel became a technological powerhouse that could help their nations, not only i- in terms of anything, just bettering the life of their peoples. Um, uh, and the combination of the, uh, uh, of the desire to have some kind of, uh, uh, protection against Iran or some kind of cooperation against Iran and, uh, civilian economic cooperation, uh, came to a head when I gave a speech in the American Congress, uh, which, uh, I didn't do lightheartedly. I had to decide to challenge a sitting American president and, uh, on the, the so-called Iranian deal, uh, which I thought would pave Iran's path with gold to be an effective nuclear power. That's what would happen. Uh, so I went there and in the course of giving that speech before the joint session of Congress, our delegation received calls from Gulf states.... who said, "We can't believe what your prime minister is doing. He's challenging, you know, uh, the president of the United States." Well, I had no choice. I- I mean, because I thought my country's own existence was imperiled. And remember, we always understand through changing administrations that America under... No matter what leadership is always the irreplaceable and indispensable ally of Israel, and will always remain that. We can have arguments, as we have. Uh, but in the families, we say, ǀIn the Mishpocha," you know, it's the- the family. Uh, but nevertheless, I was forced to take a stand. That produced calls from Gulf states that ultimately led to, um, clandestine meetings that ultimately flowered into the, uh, the Abraham Accords. Then... And I think we're at a point where the idea of ending the Arab-Israeli conflict, not the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, the Arab-Israeli conflict, can happen. I'm not sure it will. It depends on quite a few things, but it could happen. And if it happens, it might open up the ending of the Israeli-Islamic conflict. Remember, the Arab world is a small part, it's an important part, but it's... There are large Islamic populations and could bring about, uh, an end to the, uh, an historic enmity between Islam and Judaism, and it could be a great thing. So, I'm looking at this larger thing. You know, you can- you can be hobbled by saying, "Oh, well, you know, you had this, uh, you know, um, this hiccup in Gaza," or, you know, this, uh, this or that thing happening in- in Palestine. I know- I know it's important for us because we want security, but I think the larger question is, can we break out into a much wider peace and ultimately come back and make the, uh, the peace between Israel and the Palestinians rather than waiting to solve that, uh, and- and never getting to the- the, uh, to paint on the larger canvas. I- I wanna paint on the larger canvas and come back to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
- 1:03:15 – 1:08:02
History
- BNBenjamin Netanyahu
- LFLex Fridman
As you write about in your book, what have you learned about life from your father?
- BNBenjamin Netanyahu
My father was a great historian. Um, and well, he taught me, um, uh, several things. He said that the- the first, um, condition for a living organism is to identify danger in time because if you don't, you could be devoured, you could be destroyed very quickly. And that's the nature of human conflict. In fact, for the Jewish people, uh, we didn't... We lost the capacity to identify danger in time and we were almost devoured and destroyed by, uh, the Nazi threat. So, when I see somebody parroting the Nazi, uh, goal of destroying the Jewish state, I try to mobilize, uh, the country and the world in time because I think Iran is a global threat, not only a threat to Israel. That's the first thing. The second thing is I once asked him, um, before I got elected, I said, "Well, what do you think is the most important, uh, quality for a prime minister of Israel?" And he came back with a question, "What do you think?" And I said, "Well, you have to have vision and you have to have the, you know, the- the flexibility of navigating and working towards that vision, uh, you know, be flexible but understand where you're heading." And he said, "Well, you need that for anything. You need it for, uh, you know, if you're a university president or if you're a leader of a corporation or anything. Anybody would have to have that." I said, "All right. So, so what do you need for... To be the- the, uh, the leader of Israel?" He- he said, he came back to me with a word that stunned me. He said, "Education. You need a broad and deep education or you'll be at the mercy of your clerks." (laughs)
- LFLex Fridman
(laughs)
- BNBenjamin Netanyahu
Or the press or whatever. No, you have to... You have to be able to- to do that. Now, you know, as I spend time in government re- being reelected, uh, you know, by, uh, by the- the- the people of Israel, um, I- I recognize more and more how- how right he was. You- you need to constantly ask yourself where's the direction we wanna take the country? How do we achieve that goal? But also understand that new disciplines are being added, you have to learn all the time. You have to learn all the time. You have to add to your, uh, intellectual capital all the time. Kissinger said that... He wrote that "Once you enter public life, you begin to draw on your intellectual capital, uh, and you know, it'll be depleted very quickly if- if you stay a long time." Uh, I disagree with that. I think you have to constantly, constantly increase your understanding of things as they change because- because my father was right, you need to broaden and deepen your education as you go along. You can't just sit back and say, "Well, I studied some things in university or in college or in Boston or at MIT and that's enough. You know, I've done it." No. Learn, learn, learn, learn, learn. Never stop.
- LFLex Fridman
And if I may suggest. As part of the education, I would add in a little literature, maybe Dostoevsky, uh, in the- in- in the plentiful of time you have as a prime minister to read.
- BNBenjamin Netanyahu
Well, I read him, but I'll tell you what I think is bigger than Dostoevsky.
- LFLex Fridman
Oh, no.
- BNBenjamin Netanyahu
Yeah.
- LFLex Fridman
Who's that?
- BNBenjamin Netanyahu
Not who's that, but what's that. I was... Dan Rather, uh, came to see me, uh, with his grandson a few years ago, and he asked me... Um, uh, the- the grandson asked me, he was a student in- in Ivy League college, and he said... He's 18 years old and he- he wants to study to enter politics.
- LFLex Fridman
Mm-hmm.
- BNBenjamin Netanyahu
And he said, "What's- what's the most important thing that I have to study to, uh, e- enter political life?" And I said, "You have three things you have to study, okay? History, history, and history." (laughs) That's- that's the fundamental discipline for political life. But then you have to study other things. Um, study economics, study politics and- and so on. And study- study the military. If you have... if you... I had an advantage because I spent some years there, so I learned a lot of that. But I had to, uh, acquire the other disciplines and you never acquire enough. So read, read, read. And by the way, if I have to choose, I read history, history, and history. Good works of history, not lousy books.
- 1:08:02 – 1:11:10
Survival
- LFLex Fridman
Last question. You've talked about a survival of a nation.
- BNBenjamin Netanyahu
Mm-hmm.
- LFLex Fridman
You yourself are a mortal being. Do you contemplate your mortality? Do you contemplate your death? Are you afraid of death?
- BNBenjamin Netanyahu
Aren't you?
- LFLex Fridman
Yes.
- BNBenjamin Netanyahu
Who's not? I mean, if you're conscious... if you're a- a- a- a being with conscience... I mean, one of the unhappy things about the human brain is that it can contemplate its own, uh, uh, its own demise. Uh, and so we have to... we all make our compromises with this. But I- I think the question is, what lives on? Uh, what lives on beyond us? And I think that you have to define how much of, uh, of posterity do you want to influence. I cannot influence the course of, uh, humanity. We all are specks, you know? Uh, little specks. So that's not the issue. But in my case, I've devoted my life to a very defined purpose, and that is to assure the future, uh, and security and, uh... I would say permanence, but that is obviously a limited thing, of the Jewish state and the Jewish people. And I don't think one can exist without the other. So I've devoted my life to that and I hope that, um, uh, in my time on this earth and in my years in office, um, I'd have contributed to that.
- LFLex Fridman
Well, you had one heck of a life starting from, uh, MIT to six terms as Prime Minister. Um, thank you for this stroll through human history and for this conversation. It was an honor.
- BNBenjamin Netanyahu
Thank you, and I hope you come back to Israel many times. It's, uh... remember, it's the Innovation Nation. It's a robust democracy. Don't believe all the stuff that you're being told. It'll remain that. Uh, it cannot be any other way, and it's... I- I'll tell you the other thing. It's the best ally of the United States, and its importance is growing by the day because our ca- capacities in the information world are growing by the day. We need a coalition of the like-minded smarts. This is a smart nation, and we share the basic values of freedom and liberty with the United States. So, coalition of the smarts means Israel is, um, the sixth eye, and America has no better ally.
- LFLex Fridman
All right. Now, off-mic, I'm gonna force you to finally tell me who- who's gonna win, Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg. But that's, uh... (laughs) That's a good time to end. We ran out of time here.
- BNBenjamin Netanyahu
(laughs) I'll tell you outside.
- LFLex Fridman
Thanks for listening to this conversation with Benjamin Netanyahu. To support this podcast, please check out our sponsors in the description. And now, let me leave you with some words from Mahatma Gandhi. "An eye for an eye will only make the whole world blind." Thank you for listening, and hope to see you next time.
Episode duration: 1:11:11
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