Episode 315 | Security challenges two weeks before the Knesset election

Thank you.

It's been a while since I spoke about climate issues, so I'll just say, and I think this is a personal story, but I think there's a lesson here at the national level, maybe international level as well.

I had worked on Israeli-Palestinian, Middle East issues, but primarily Israeli-Palestinian issues since the IDF service, and then later on, and and in think tanks in the US before I joined RAND.

And when I joined RAND and I decided to pursue a PhD, I said to myself and to mentors around, I said, I don't wanna work anymore on the Israeli-Palestinian issue because it's neither emotionally nor intellectually satisfying.

And I was always drawn to natural sciences.

This was sort of what I studied in my undergrad.

And, you know, basic climate security is human security.

So it was a very natural fit for me to pursue a PhD on the nexus, the climate security nexus between climate for national security.

And so I had worked on this issue both for the Ministry of Defense here and the National Security Council.

I had the honor of leading this file when Naftali Bennett was prime minister.

And obviously when President Herzog launched his forum, I was pleased to have been asked to co-chair the group on regional cooperation because I believe that climate change Change can be a threat multiplier, but also an opportunity multiplier.

Why is this long winded answer? Because I think that I, like many others, understanding the importance of the Palestinian issue, but I was also this fatigue and I didn't want to deal with it.

And I think that's what also happened to us as a country.

Right.

October 7th happened.

I mean, there might be there are many reasons why October 7 happened.

And when there's going to be finally, I hope there will one day be a national commission of inquiry.

We will figure out all the reasons.

But Israelis, you know, we have a blind spot and it's an exhausting issue.

It's an emotional issue.

It's a political issue and it's ideological issue.

And.

didn't want to deal with it and the best and the brightest in 8 200 and these zones were not assigned to the palestinian issue and and i i you know this is maybe uh me saying not based on investigations but i have i have no doubt that if you had israel's best and finest working on the palestinian issue like we had on iran and we've seen you know pager operations with sasbala and others maybe, maybe even October 7 would have been prevented.

So that's my connection to climate.

And I do hope to be able to work on climate issues again and uh i guess tangentially you know when working on when i'm working on water security and energy security and public health issues and and and food security it's not directly related to climate change but this basic access human access to resources uh which is important you know for civilians in in israel obviously but also around us in gaza in Lebanon, in Iran, countries in the region, in Yemen, as we're soon going to see again.