March 31, 2025 - Epoch Times
07:51
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| Time | Text |
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| So there's a significant number of people in this coalition that elected President Trump into office recently that questions aid to Israel. | |
| In fact, I actually know even in Israel, some people we mutually know themselves question that aid, right? | |
| What's your take? | |
| There are reasons for the assistance on both sides. | |
| Basically, it's also a subsidy for U.S. military industries. | |
| It's like a coupon they get, and instead of sending the F-35 to the U.S. Air Force, they send it to an Israeli Air Force. | |
| But it's American systems that are sent to Israel. | |
| It's not like cash. | |
| It's not like, go here, take some money, and go use it. | |
| So, I think that it does breed pathologies in the relationship that are unhealthy for both sides. | |
| The main thing that we're concerned about, or what we want to do, and the main vulnerability that was exposed was partially as a result of that military assistance, which is that, you know, we saw the cost-benefit analysis. | |
| It made more sense to buy basic equipment in the United States than to produce it at home. | |
| And so we shut down a lot of the military production plants that we had in Israel because of that aid. | |
| And as a result, you know, we didn't have the capacity to produce the artillery shells, the tank shells that we needed to continue on, and we found ourselves with an extraordinary vulnerability. | |
| Even under the best of circumstances, you know, putting yourself in a position of utter dependence on the productive capabilities and the transfer in time of munitions from abroad was exposed as terrible folly. | |
| As a terrible mistake. | |
| And so Prime Minister Netanyahu announced the Israeli independence campaign, I think it's called, in January of 24, of rapid expansion of our domestic manufacturing capability for military goods. | |
| We're not going to build F-35s in Israel. | |
| Those are the kinds of things that require You know, continued work with the Americans and good because then our militaries are also interoperable. | |
| It's important. | |
| We're allies. | |
| But we're not a dependency. | |
| We're not a welfare recipient. | |
| And I think that the problem with the aid is that it blinds Americans and some Israelis to that fact. | |
| We forget how important we are because we so value our alliance with the United States. | |
| And so that impacts the way that we view America and ourselves in a bad way. | |
| And it also impacts the way that some Americans view Israel. | |
| And so I think when we have leaders like Netanyahu and President Trump, who are very clear-minded in the imperative nature of the U.S.-Israel alliance from a strategic perspective for both countries, I think that the idea is that we work out a manner of continuing our partnership in weapons production, weapons development. | |
| I mean, we've provided the United States with so many different technologies that have saved the lives of thousands of American forces in the region. | |
| In Afghanistan, in Iraq, and in other theaters, and that have secured the homeland. | |
| The Iron Dome that President Trump says he wants to build to defend the United States, what he calls the Golden Dome, that's all Israeli technology. | |
| Israel developed all of these interceptor missiles for everything from mortars to ICBMs. | |
| So that's the partnership, is that Israeli technology, American dollars, we put these synergies together to protect Israel and to protect the United States and to protect other allies in a way that we wouldn't be able to do. | |
| Separately, that's the whole purpose. | |
| That's like the very definition of an alliance, right? | |
| People have complementary gifts. | |
| They bring different things to the table. | |
| And since they share the same basic outlook on humanity, life is sacred, for instance, and we share the same enemies who view death as sacred, then obviously when we sit down together at a table and we talk about how do we secure our future separately and together, We see the complementarity of our gifts, of our capabilities. | |
| We work out how to do it together. | |
| So I think that, you know, that alliance will get stronger going forward because of what Israel has accomplished in this war and because of the threats that America faces, whether from China or from Iran, from other enemies. | |
| That we together are in a position to face. | |
| I have faith in the wisdom of our leadership in both countries and their ability to figure that out. | |
| You did describe quite a different approach in the previous administration to the Trump administration to dealing with issues in the region. | |
| Are you concerned that American democracy is volatile and that there could be Basically, there could be a government that isn't nearly as supportive. | |
| I think that it's very important for countries to, and certainly our country, for Israel to be capable of defending itself by itself under all situations. | |
| And I think that the stronger Israel is, the more secure the United States is. | |
| I think that the more Israel is able to project its power in the region, the more stable the region is. | |
| Because Israel, as a fundamentally peaceful country that doesn't seek war and does everything to avoid it, the more powerful Israel is, the less likely there are to be wars in the region. | |
| So stronger Israel is, not only the more secure the United States is and the more secure and stable the region, the Middle East is, But the less likely we are to have clashes with governments in the United States. | |
| You know, I think it's something that we've seen all over the free world recently, is the appearance of woke elements, progressive elements in our societies that view politics as a zero-sum game. | |
| And they demonize their political opponents instead of Being able to see the similarities and the shared interests that rather than understand that whether as Americans or Israelis or British or French or whatever, you know, you share more with your compatriots than divides you. | |
| And yes, you have disagreements on different aspects of national policy, but you want to work together for the betterment of your societies. | |
| I think you've seen elements rise up We're pairing. |
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