H.E. Benjamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister of the State of Israel

[Music] thank you very much for coming mr. Prime Minister I know you have a busy schedule and you're flying to New York afterwards the weather is not good when you have problems with weather do you ever communicate directly with God about the weather or how do you deal with that all the time and we used to say it's a local call but you know the internet change all that no sound thank you are you are you in the authority of God here because did you get me a pillow you have connections I have some connections but is there a pillow somewhere let's go on maybe Wow maybe God will show is very well you know if you're hurt I'm if you're Jewish sometimes you have a weak back my experiences and you know I could use a pillow too but okay well I have a strong backbone I have a lousy back but a storm back all right no doubt okay so I'd like to ask you about some things you're not asked about very often one is the economy in Israel the Israeli economy is doing quite well by almost any standards why is that when you have so many people around you who are threatening your existence why do people want to invest in Israel and why should people invest in Israel because it's a combination of free markets and incredible technology technology without free markets doesn't take you very far and free markets without technology do take you quite a distance but Israel has the combination because we deliberately I deliberately moved it that way and so that would stands a lot of stuff also gives you the technology to maintain your security so Israel may be living in a very tough neighborhood but we protect the country very very well and we enable the markets the innovation the genius of our people to flourish in thousands and thousands of startups if you're not investing in Israel anyone you're not investing in Israel invest in Israel you should so now a lot of Israeli companies are well-known startup companies but very often after they start up in Israel for one or two years because the market is small in Israel they move the United States is that a problem or you're now losing engineers and some of your best companies or not it's always a problem there's always a challenge with the United States but we have this perpetual machine perpetual motion machine that is called the military and we have a very large I mean very very large collection intelligence service I mean the biggest one in the Western world is the NSA you know so what's the second biggest absolute size not relative sir it's Israel okay so the NSA is 42 America is 42 times the size of Israel the NSA is not 42 times the size of Israel's collection agency it's not even ten times bigger Israel's bigger than Britain's bigger than others so we have this sunk cost right of people who we have to put in there to protect ourselves to have superb intelligence and what we do is convert that sunk cost into thousands of VCs I think that the I'm sorry that thousands of startups that enjoy these seasons saw and that creates this perpetual production of innovation companies grow some of them grow their soul for nothing I mean like Google bought can you imagine Google bought ways for a billion dollars that's a pittance Eric Schmidt told me that was a good deal yeah I think it's worth a lot more and so yes I mean the exit is always there but the entry is always there more and more entry because we just keep on producing this these very very able young men and women so you could have been in this industry yourself we think about your background you grew up you were the first Israeli prime minister to be born in Israel but you moved to United States when you're initially 8 years old is that right yeah kept there for a year came for a year and then you didn't like it you went back or I was 8 years old I mean I I was an independent kid but not that in defense so you move back and then my father came here to do some work than Cyclopedia Judaica he was the general editor and after a year he left it went back to edit the the Hebrew version Israeli a breaker anyway so I was here for you I didn't yeah I came here to Manhattan from when you came to New York Manhattan did you speak English at that time not a syllable so how did you learn to speak such fluent English first of all is horrible I remember you know you can imagine you can you go among the natives you can't speak the tongue and you're stuck they put me in a class and there was a little girl I think she was a little Jewish girl called Judas we have to track her down Judi sat next to me and every day she take out this book with pictures and there was a picture of a dog c-spot see spot run run spot run and that's how I learned English because Judy taught me English well and my mother my dear late mother she had been born in Israel in Palestine and it spent five five years of her childhood in Minnesota and so she always taught me how to pronounce things she said you know you usually Israelis would say the Apple they say desire Apple Z Apple she said no no you gotta put your tongue right up to your front teeth it's the that took about three months to so between my mother and Judy so no hate so you're back in Israel you were bar Mitzvahed in Israel yes of course and then you came back to the United States as a teenager yeah and then my father came back again to do research on his lifetime's work on the Spanish Inquisition there was a great Spanish library in Philadelphia of all places so he went there and I went to chop Nam High School which is famous for Reggie Jackson also being a graduate I guess you know but you weren't an athlete then or were you an athlete are you comparing a politician to an athlete come on the athlete always wins always wins so you applied to college and you applied to many Ivy League schools then only one accepted you yeah well then I said I'm going to the army in three years I'll be back and could you accept me in advance for three years and they all said no can't do that never done that then will not do you know all them and so one did only one did they said okay it was Yale University and Yale said it's okay go to the army and you are accepted now three years in advance I go into the army to this special commando unit and they asked me to go to be an officer which you need to sign more time for so I write Yale very differentially and I said could you Yale accept me after four years and they say yes then I send them another letter could you accept me after five years because I added a year had submissions that I had to accomplish and they said yes then you know what I did I went to MIT I can't show up in it I can't show up to New Haven so I'm just a void well I assume Yale did this because of the Yale emblem has Hebrew in it so maybe that's why they accepted yeah but you went to MIT and you majored in architecture did you want to be an architect yeah at the time I did I mean I went through undergraduate school got an undergraduate degree in architecture and you know what MIT is a very funny place I mean it's you don't have to go to classes at least fifty years ago you didn't have to go to classes a little less than fifty years ago and so you know you had this stuff that you have to do physics math and that's sort of common stuff that you have to do for any degree and I did that but I came in very I came in very an old man I was 23 years old after five years in the military and you know there are all these hotshot kids there and I said why I better brush up on my math so I studied math in the summer before the school year began and then I learned that if you take a test and you passed the test then you don't have to take the course well I took a test passed that one decided what the hell I'll do a little more okay did these tests and I basically did four years in two years so after two years I got my undergraduate degree and then I decided I'd go to the Sloan School and got my master's degree an MBA MBA and then you went to BCG yeah all right so you're in a business career you're a great firm BCG what propelled you to get out of that possibly getting into private equity even and going Wow something else like why would you not why would why did you abandon that and go back to Israel what happened man's good is calling private equity yes I was derailed I was derailed that's him when I was derailed into a lesser direction what what changed my life was that about a month after I got into BCG my brother fell in leading the rescue force and untended he's your oldest brother and in Tempe he was the only Israeli soldier that was killed then that was July 4th or 7th 1976 right and so you've decided to go back and honor him in some way yes I did not right away it took me about a year or two and I was working to set up a foundation to carry the political battle against terrorism in his name but at the same time I continued my work in them in the boston consulting room and BCG had a tremendous I mean those two things that a tremendous impact on me Yanni's death steered me ultimately into politics in an unintended way really but that short time that I spent in BCG is the place where I really understood the fundamentals of competition and competitive advantage and once you understand that you know it's like a secret that was shared and I don't know did any of you know Bruce Henderson he was a genius he was the founder of you know Bruce interview you all know Bruce Henderson except you don't know that it comes from Bruce Henderson I mean you know the experience curve you know dogs cows cash cows you know all that that's all Bruce Bruce was a genius he must have been in his 70s when I went there in my first day and the Boston Consulting Group he called me in and I'm a young recruit and he says come and shut the door and he looks at me this you know white-haired Virginian and he says look I figure you'll go back to your country study as much as you can here it'll help your country one day and I was I thought he was absolutely crazy but he wasn't and it's exactly what happened I mean I had the opportunity to see the competitive the question of competition across industries and the cost countries and I understood that you have to let the private sector earn compete succeed and fail that's the only way that economies grow and that's where I got there and you was Mitt Romney there then yeah you know him did you think he might kick mount anything or you weren't sure it was already it was already a star manager and I always say that the the terrible thing about Mitt Romney is he looks exactly the same yeah so you moved back to Israel and you got involved in politics and obviously rose up and became the youngest prime minister in Israel's history I think at 47 or so and now you've been the longest-serving Prime Minister since David ben-gurion was the only one who served longer than you is this job as exciting as you once thought and what's the pleasure of being Prime Minister Oh investigations sorry Ted as has the job changed in ten years that you were Prime Minister for three years then other positions and then you came back as Prime Minister so as it changed in the ten years a great deal Israel is a tough country to govern in a tough neighborhood but I think what you the the position that you have to understand is that you cannot gripe about the political system which I try to change by the way but you just do what you can and the places where you can do the greatest change is crisis when you have a crisis that Shibboleth is true don't waste it and I didn't when we had an economy crisis I used it to put in dozens of reforms to carriers ruin to a free market economy and when we had other crises I used it to move world opinion against Iran and against its attempts to develop nuclear bombs and I think the activity that we've done probably without the activities that we did in in many many areas I think Iran would have had nuclear weapons long ago so they're not gonna get them we're not gonna let them Hey so in terms of the Israeli government some people have a hard time understanding Israelis are pretty smart people many people would say how do you have a government that seems so unusual and doesn't work that way you've got all these different minority parties it's hard to govern why wouldn't Israeli people being very smart come up with a better way of governing well you know sometimes presidential systems aren't that great office right so let's talk about that I would agree I actually wanted to use the Prime Minister to be elected directly I know I wanted actually a presidential system but I said okay you want to agree we'll have direct elections for the Prime Minister and my party I was a young parliamentarian at the time and my party was vehemently opposed to that we could but I agreed with the lady its Huckabee I was a member of knesset of the Opposition Robin wanted direct elections as did I and my party met and they said anybody who votes for that bill for direct elections of the Prime Minister is gonna be thrown out of the party you'll not be on the Knesset list if you do that and the vote was two weeks away I voted for it I was the only one left I was the swing vote can you imagine for something that my party said was you know you're gonna be thrown out anyway it passed and I survived it as you could see but it turns out that didn't quite help because it had unintended consequences the system was changed back you know it's lousy this way it's loud that way just do your best and the important thing is if you want reforms do them right after you're elected that's rule number one and that's what I did and I got really you know I've been elected four times so that's a lot of reforms just do them right after you're elected brush them too and don't do them one by one you know when I came into the finance ministry I was Prime Minister lost came back as finance minister and then Prime Minister and when I was finance minister you know they told me don't take this job you know it was under a Chiron he was the prime minister and he offered me the the finance minister and all my advisors said don't take this job because every fine you know finance ministers corralled into death political death and I said well why is it that I'm I want to you'll never be Prime Minister this I said blow why is it that I want to be Prime Minister well one of the two reasons is that I want to reform the Israeli economy that's why I wanted you know I want to be there in the first place so you know if we achieve that that's good enough and and that's what I ended up doing so but but when I came into the finance ministry this is just a tip for any of you who want to be Israeli finance minister something I don't recommend but when I came in the you know I said well we're gonna do this we're gonna do that you know we're gonna make all these reforms and the staff at the finance ministry and there were very able people they said mr. Minister you can't do that I said why not they said because this reform will get you a three months general strike and that reform we'll get you a three months general strike and so on and so on I said could you say that again every one of these reforms will get you a three months general strike I said good we can maximize the number of reforms for strike and that's exactly what we did and we just did them in batches and as a result Israel grew after that for five percent basically since then it's grown in between four and five percent a year and I think they'll take us a couple years we're gonna catch up to Japan in per capita income did you know that so you should invest in Israel any specific tips you have ah somebody asked me that you know I was right after I came into the finance ministry and we were in a big crisis because of the Intifada we had violence the Nasdaq could burst and and you know that obviously it hurt and our economy was actually shrinking this is 2003 and I certainly thought that was the contributing factor but I didn't think it was the factor because I thought I thought it was the statist bureaucratic and centralized control of our economy that was preventing its growth so I met with a group of investors and this was about two weeks into my my term as finance minister and and that's why I could get about six or seven investors first in Jerusalem and then in London and they said why should we invest here and everything is you know shrinking collapsing and I said well here's what I'm gonna do and I described to him all these reforms cutting the public sector of reducing tax rates reducing the hurdles of the competition and so on just everything reforming welfare the law and they hear this and about ten minutes into my soliloquy you know they said well maybe this guy's meshuggener enough crazy enough to do this and so they said so what would she do if you really do this what should we invest in and I said to them I'm not a stock broker but if you want a tip I'll give you a tip invest in anything invest in a parking space in Tel Aviv it's going to be worth a lot more anything you invest in will be worth a lot more take a look at the numbers take a look at the curves you'll see that those who listened to me did very well and today I tell you the same thing it's only the beginning invest in in anything but invest in technology invest in real estate invest in infrastructure you're going to do very very well Israel is an innovation nation and it's not a slogan it's very powerful and the future belongs to those who innovate we innovate so you've been in the United States for a few days we'll be here a little bit longer you have met with President Trump while you're here how would you compare President Trump with President Obama with President Clinton you served as prime minister when all three of them were presents how would you compare the three individuals well actually contrary to no the general press feed BuzzFeed I actually had very good personal relations with all three of them but I had disagreements with them I had agreements and disagreements with them for example with President Obama we signed an MoU Memorandum of Understanding for a tenure aid in military aid package to Israel which I deeply appreciate I think it's great it follows by the way the 10-year package that we signed with earlier with the President George Bush double and people probably don't know that but it's important but I had this Agreement the important thing was I could you know I we were quite clear about that I didn't hide it I'd say with President Trump I have fewer disagree so in fact I haven't found yet any disagreements but so we don't expect her to be with President Trump he obviously has is skeptical about the Iranian agreement you are I think it's fair to say skeptical of that agreement now you're a diplomat okay so if he says we're gonna pull out the unites it's gonna pull out of that agreement would you be pleased or would you be upset if he says we're gonna stay in what would well he asked me that question and I said look you either fully fixed this deal or you fully nix it because right now it's a highway with international approval for Iran to get to massive unlimited enrichment within a few years because what the deal says is that the constraints the limitations on Iran's nuclear program are automatically removed by a change of date I argued before the US Congress that those constraints should be lifted only by change of behavior and Iran since the deal has been signed has been like a tiger Unleashed from its cage the deal emboldened it enriched it and instead of joining the community of nations they're just devouring the nations one after the other you know Iran Iraq Syria Lebanon Gaza Yemen the Straits I mean the whole thing is is going in a very very bad direction and you should not enable this aggressive regime out to conquer the Middle East out to impose its Shiite version of militant Islam on the world to have nuclear weapons you think you have a problem with one country now in Asia I'm telling you that's a family business peculiar one but a family business this is different this is as Kissinger said this is an ideology it's a cause it's not a country and the cause is a bad one we're the small Satan you are the Great Satan you don't want the the preeminent terrorist sponsoring regime in the world to have nuclear weapons in the means to deliver them to Washington DC don't let it happen so if the United States does withdraw which is what you're recommending and Iran continues its terrorist practices what are you going to do or what would the United States do about it what would you be able to do if the United States withdraws I think that the Iranian economy would be in a very very bad shape the mere fact that President Trump began to talk about the possibility of withdrawal just stopped I mean stopped a lot of investments in Iran and that created tremors within Iran you can see that in the periodic eruptions of demonstrations I mean I could see that in a very peculiar way you know I do these videos for I speak to the Iranian people because they're great people they've just been comedy R and they've been hijacked by the show and I got the response that they I got tremendous response with names of Iranians and I said to my Intel people this is just a few weeks ago a couple of months ago I said how is it possible that they're responding on the net with their names their Iranians they're putting their lives on the line Iranians are responding positively to a video by an Israeli prime minister identifying themselves a week later this stuff broke out so there's there's underlying tension the fact that they're trying to the fact that you were limiting the money is creating tensions for the regime's inside and the regime is very concerned with that they're preoccupied with that which means that those who said that if you squeeze Iran economically you're gonna help the radicals and hurt the moderates the very opposite is not and we should continue to do that I think Iran should know that it doesn't have a free pass to a nuclear arsenal and to the conquest of the Middle East the only way you can do that is either fully fixed with you or fully mix it and it should be done by the way I met with President Trump and I noticed you're wearing a kind of red tie that he often wears is that something he gave you as a gift or that pers looks like very much like a trunk tie but I don't know very nice that could be investigated too so I want to know okay so let me ask you about President Trump moved the agreed to move the American Embassy to Jerusalem many presidents have promised that and presidential candidates have promised that for 40 years this is the first president that has taken stuff to do that did you urge him to do this or did he do it more or less on his own and did you talk about the complications of that when you met well I've I spoke to him I spoke to every president and urged every president to move there the US Embassy to Jerusalem the difference is you know they all said they do it he did it he did ask me one time what uh what did I think I mean whether they there would be outbreaks of violence and massive you know a massive collapse and I said look I I can't tell you what those are new percent certainty but that's not what I'm saying and I don't think it's gonna happen but if it does we're willing to shoulder the risk and it didn't happen and do you expect he will come it may - for the pretty moving of the employer wants to weaken but I mean I have to tell you the thrust of our first of all I was very grateful for this because this is should be seen in I start perspective you know we I mentioned the great Persian king Cyrus we used to have good relations with that's 2500 years ago he issued the Cyrus proclamation that said that the exiles and the Jewish exile in Babylon could come back and build our temple in Jerusalem I mentioned the Balfour Declaration a hundred years ago recognizing our historic rights in our ancestral homeland I mentioned Truman who was the first leader within eight minutes to recognize the Jewish state and we all remember Trump because he's the president who recognized Jerusalem as Israel's capital and moved the embassy there this will this will resonate down the ages for us so one of the debates has been whether Israel should be have a one-state solution two-state solution to the Palestinian issue if you have a one-state solution it is said by some people because of demographics that Israel wouldn't be necessarily democracy or would be a Jewish state so do you favor a one state solution or a two-state solution well I think most Israelis would favor a situation where we could separate from the Palestinians no I don't think people want that I don't want the Palestinians is citizens of Israel and I don't want them as subjects of Israel so I want a solution where they have all the powers they need to govern themselves but none of the powers that would threaten us what that means is that whatever the solution is the area west of the Jordan that includes the Palestinian areas would be militarily under Israel the security the overriding security responsibility would be Israel's I'll give you an example that all how many of you have been to Israel that's it that's half maybe a little more okay when the other half will come when you come in and you fly in okay you go to ben-gurion airport you cross the Mediterranean you land in ben-gurion airport that'll take you about 45 seconds the d'haran airport is about 10 seconds away from the West Bank so obviously if you say well Israel's airspace stops there that Ben Gurion Airport you know we're dead so we need a bigger airspace that's gonna go across the Palestinian the same thing is true what is above ground in the air is on the ground too as it turns out because of terror tunnels below the ground to Israel must have the overriding security responsibility for the area west of the Jordan River does that comport with full sovereignty I don't know but it's what we need to live and in this area of you know the Middle East full of failed States states that collapse it's very important that Israel be the the power responsible for security because otherwise everyone collapses the Palestinians collapse I mean every area that we left militarily militant Islam came in we left Lebanon Iran came in with his body we left Gaza Iran came in with Hamas we leave the West Bank militarily or most of it there's people stipulate and their various peace plans you'll have either Hamas coming in that's Iran or you'll have Isis coming in and this is a catastrophe for peace so the answer to your question is most people would agree to an arrangement of the kind that you were talking about if they thought that the Palestinians wanted a state next to Israel but they're convinced more and more that they want a state instead of Israel and that's not a real peace they would go for a real peace not a fake one the public opinion Israel the majority pump is that in favor of doing a deal of any type or generally to keeping the status quo is accept no they do a deal if they thought they'd do a deal if they thought it would get them peace we we actually walked out of Gaza you know unilaterally and instead of getting peace what we got are four at five thousand rockets and terror tunnels dug from Gaza so they say the reason that people are skeptical is because they've seen it happened once in Gaza another time in Lebanon and they say they don't want to do it a three times the third time remember the West Bank is 20 times the size of Gaza and it just sits on top of Tel Aviv sits on top of our airfields our Airport and so on so a real deal for real peace yes fake deal for a state that will continue to seek to drive us to the sea which is not very far away no you see any prospect in the next year or two of a deal getting done I know the Trump administration is working on a plan is there somebody to negotiate with and what do you think is the prospects for any deal of any type getting god I think there's something there's a new hope on the horizon that I had never seen in my lifetime and it's not related to the Palestinians it's related to the Arab world because of the growing danger of Iran more and more I would say virtually all the Arab countries no longer see Israel as their enemy but is their vital ally in countering the threat of militant Islam first Isis in Israel is demolished Isis terrorist attacks dozens of major attacks we foiled with our superb intelligence including the downing of major I mean big airliners Israel to stop that we've shared that with obviously with America but with dozens of countries but the other thing and and with the Arabs but the other thing that the IMC is that we are united in stopping the greatest radical Islamic threat of war which is Iran so there has been out of this curse comes a blessing the blessing is this extraordinary relationship between us and I think that ultimately we might be able to shift the ground I don't think it's readily available right now but I don't discount that it could happen we used to say if we make peace where the Palestinians will break out and normalize their relations with the Arab world I think it actually may work more the other way around we normalize our relations with the Arab world and to help change the perception of Palestine the relationship that Israel has now with the Sunni Arab world is better than you've ever seen it before is that fair unbelievable and we work on it hey so let me talk about anti-semitism it seems to be that anti-semitism is rising in Europe and some extent on in the United States we see some evidence on college campuses of Israel not being that popular um does that concern you about the rise semitism what do you think people can do about it what's the chronic disease it's been on my father wrote about it great great books it's a chronic disease it's been around a long time as a theory probably 2500 years ago it's created and in Egypt as Momsen said a great historian too but so it's not easily yeah and you don't need Jews to have anti-semitism by the way that's been demonstrated - yes it concerns me I think that on the campuses we have work to do one of the things we do is a great program that we have which is called birthright and we bring hundreds of thousands of young Jews Jewish men and women to Israel to see Israel for itself and that helps I think that the best response to anti-semitism is the State of Israel and the reason anti-semitism swept away a third of the Jewish people in the Holocaust is because there was no Jewish state now we have a Jewish state the founders of modern Zionism especially Theodor Herzl they didn't say necessarily that I just said Semitism would disappear when the Jews would have a state of their own they said that the Jews would be able to fight back that's the great difference we're able to resist it push it back now as Prime Minister as you alluded to earlier there are investigations of you now in Israel it seems to be a popular sport a lot going on there what can you say about it and is it detracting for your ability to serve as Prime Minister well I can't say that I like it but no I could say that doesn't detract because you know I work my 16-hour days and I just do it and I'm absolutely committed to defending Israel liberating its economy and these twin pursuits and seeking what could lead to peace between our neighbors and I my hands are full and I'm very very satisfied with what I do and the public apparently thinks that because you can you can see what the public says some people in Israel say that maybe you should claw for a so-called snap election and have an election and you would be reelected something you too well do you have a view on whether you might call a snap election that you can say I said and I I'm talking to on and off to my coalition partners from here what I want is to be able to complete the term of this government which is in about November 19th and if that if all parties and this coalition talked about coalition's agree that's what we do and if not then we'll go to elections down I hope that we'll agree you see now as Prime Minister just said it takes 16-hour days what do you do if anything for relaxation or do you have any sports do you read books do you exercise what do you actually do to reduce the tension I read sports they actually let me walk on the seaside when I'm in the weekends I do that and yeah read books a lot and there any book what would say but book is most influenced you is there some book that most influenced the greatest of them all you know the good book I read it I read my son is a great biblical scholar he was number three in the world when he was fifteen and you know there's a Bible contest it's like it's like a spelling contest only raised to the nth degree and so you know until the age of twelve I was teaching him every Saturday you know we read the portion of the the Torah and from the age of 12 he's been teaching me and he's a great great so we read that but I read many many books history books books on economics political philosophy yes sir biographies a lot of well is there a leader in the world that you have admired during your time or before you became prime minister that you really look up to is somebody that was a great leader oh yeah I'd say Moses Herzl Churchill and would you say that today I mean I think about having dinner with him that would be interested in Moses I could get in a word because he was a stammer Churchill no way and Herzl he was tremendous because Treme was like a modern Moses so what is what would you like to see as your ultimate legacy I'm not saying you're not gonna have many more years as Prime Minister you may or may not but if you know you had a chance to write your own legacy now and say this is what you accomplished with your life what would you want people to say about what you've done defender of Israel liberator of its economy and is the job as enjoyable as it was before and you're still enjoy what you're doing in it yeah because we're doing things I mean very deliberate strategy it's to develop this modern free-market high-tech economy leverage that into very strong military intelligence and a very strong military period and since countries need both intelligence against terrorism and other security questions and they all need civilian technology marry the two and create a diplomatic flourishing so we now have 160 countries with whom we have diplomatic relations when I came to this town to be the number two in the embassy it must have been half of that and the countries that are left out are very few you talk about isolating Israel the countries who are not having you know we're not with us huh they're being isolate Eric Schmidt laughed when we said how about the movement to boycott Israel boycott Israel II said I'd be boycotting myself I'd never do that so I want to tell you one thing that I think it's very important too for me to stress something that you know in the broader context but I want to bring it home and the specific Israeli Congress if you look at the ten largest companies ten years in 2006 jump forward to 2016 you see a neat reversal five energy companies one IT Microsoft in 2006 ten years later five IT companies one energy company left excellent okay all the five okay IT companies Google Amazon Microsoft you know Facebook song they all have major research facilities in Israel as do hundreds more the reason this is important is that Israel is right in the center of this revolution the revolution is the meeting ground between big data connectivity and artificial intelligence this allows us to revolutionize old industries where we were quite prominent like agriculture for example we do now precision agriculture do you know what that is so a drone flies in the skies connected to a database it's got sensors on the ground and there's drip irrigation and we target the irrigation and the fertilization down to the individual plants so you understand the productivity gains in this I mean it's wild changing agriculture but we have new industries we have a car industry you know we don't produce we don't compete on chassis on engines we don't have the scale that Bruce Henderson explained to me but since cars are basically becoming 85% of a car's value very soon will be software 15% all the rest it's basically a computer on wheels there we compete so now we have 500 startups just on that including this company mobile I that was bought for 15 billion now by Intel and until gave them the key to 30 of their worldwide autonomous vehicle businesses that's in Israel and last example to persuade you to invest there okay so you all have bank accounts yeah you wouldn't be here okay you want to protect it you know that you need cyber protection and the same thing is true of anything else everything okay Israel Israel Israel's populations one tenth of one percent of the world we received twenty percent twenty percent of the global investment in private cybersecurity we're punching 200 times above our way Israel is a mega story for the new world of big data artificial intelligence and connectivity if you're not in Israel you're falling behind don't come over oh I'll see you there I'm telling you mister I'll buy you dinner the economy is strong enough mr. prime minister I'm going to thank you very much for your time I want to give you a gift on behalf of the [Applause]

Channel: The Economic Club of Washington, D.C.

Views: 83,547

Rating: 4.4622722 out of 5

Keywords: H.E. Benjamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister of the State of Israel, David M. Rubenstein

Id: _FKUVRxZqcI

Length: 43min 28sec (2608 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 07 2018