Inside Israel Today: Opportunity for the Iranian People

and when this regime finally Falls one day it will Iranians and Israelis will be great friends once again I wish the Iranian people's success in their noble quest you're listening to inside Israel today with your Hoffman on the land of Israel Network hello and welcome to inside Israel today here on the land of Israel Network on the land of israel calm tuesday morning here in rainy jerusalem there were prayers last week for rain and god listened to those prayers and so we're all wet but we're happy over here in jerusalem because we desperately needed that rain in israel the agriculture in israel needed it very bad and as the nephew of wonderful farmers here in the land of israel i'm very happy that they will get that nourishment that they need for their crops and so luckily i don't work outside in the rain i I work in the Knesset we in the Parliament building where the temperature is always just right at least in the air among the people it tends to get overheated and so yesterday was very much no exception there's been a wonderful trend in the Knesset yesterday I've been going on lately I have been covering the Knesset for close to 20 years now and only recently did the members of the media start rebelling we've been covering faction meetings for that entire time the each party in the Knesset has a faction of Knesset members and they meet every Monday afternoon in order to talk about their priorities for the week but also in order to have their leader maybe some others but usually just their leader speak to the press and we've been going and listening to them and writing down what they've said until some of the media said a second this is a different era now they can just send the video we don't really have to actually go if they're just gonna speak to us they need to allow us to ask questions that's what we do and you know what it's been wonderful it allows me to be able to show the world that I really work I have told The Jerusalem Post in my articles every Tuesday morning and usually online by by Monday evening because I get to ask questions every week to our defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman our Education Minister and a fellow Bennett and the leaders of the Opposition Yair Lapid and avi GABA and Tzipi Livni and it's been a lot of fun getting to be the one asking those questions and so ahead of yesterday when I was about to go to the Knesset I was at the office of the Jerusalem Post and the editor-in-chief Yaakov Katz barges into the room where one of the news editors was le wall gallant her and he says throw out every story today it's not about Iran now he didn't really mean it but he was serious that he wanted the Iran issue to be the focus of today's Jerusalem Post and I have the front page of the paper in front of me and apart from a very nice story about the relic from the first temple era and earth near the western wall that the mayor of Jerusalem who may or may not be running for re-election as mayor and I got a nice picture holding on the cover of the paper besides that we have one two three four stories about Iran and a one that kind of got cut off I see and is on another page so we are taking that Iran issue very seriously and so even though I intended to ask other questions to the politicians yesterday instead I did what Netanyahu says are the three most important things in the world I asked about Iran Iran and Iran okay so there was a problem though there was a message that went out to the politicians in Israel which said don't talk about Iran we have to be careful that's a sensitive subject we don't want those protestors to think that they're doing this for us we want those protestors to be encouraged and and anything that Israelis say might get in the way and so first I met I spoke to AVI GABA he apparently didn't get that memo and he said we have to yes and I want those protesters to succeed but after that Yair Lapid and Naphtali Bennet who fought miserably yesterday agreed when I asked them to say something to the people of Iran they said it's better for us to say nothing and I thought this was kind of weird because Naftali Bennet I spoke for a very long time yesterday about how we need to remove the costume of Y Lupita's pretending to be a right winger and really has the views of merits really supports a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital and then he went and said the exact same thing about Iran that l'épée did which is nothing and so I tweeted after that well so Neftali if enough delhi Bennett and Lapita the same thing in Lapita and merits are the same thing then enough tally bennett equals merits not exactly but you can have that kind of logic and one other thing that avi GABA said to me was he said that the protesters sent the message to all the rulers in the region that they have to listen to the needs of their people no I personally I didn't get to talk to him afterward but I don't think that avi gob I was referring to the rulers of the Arab countries in the region I think that he was actually referring to mitten Yau when he said that and Netanyahu is very much a ruler over here when there's been democratically elected four times he seems to certainly not be going anywhere and so after Bennett and l'épée Dan initially Michael Oren as well said to me sorry can't talk about Iran what happens Netanyahu starts talking about Iran Netanyahu had been silent on Iran decided to put out a video in English which he then posted on his Farsi website with Farsi subtitles and so I don't have the Farsi version of it but here is Netanyahu's video in English I heard today Iran's president rouhani's claimed that Israel is behind the protests in Iran it's not only false it's laughable and I like ooh honey I will not insult the Iranian people they deserve better brave Iranians are pouring into the streets they seek freedom they seek justice they seek the basic liberties that have been denied to them for decades Iran's cruel regime wastes tens of billions of dollars spreading hate this money could have built schools in hospitals no wonder mothers and fathers are marching in the streets the regime is terrified of them of their own people that's why they jail students that's why they banned social media but I'm sure that fear will not triumph because the Iranian people are smart they're sophisticated they are proud today they risk everything for freedom sadly many European governments watch in silence as heroic young Iranians are beaten in the streets that's just not right and I for one will not stay silent this regime tries desperately to sow hate between us but they won't succeed and when this regime finally Falls and one day it will Iranians and Israelis will be great friends once again I wish the Iranian people's success in their noble quest for free okay that wasn't it's a now speaking in English to the world with subtitles in Farsi which is the Persian language spoken there B me ROM and so Netanyahu I guess decided that after rouhani started it by saying that Israel's behind the anti-government Street protests in the country Netanyahu felt he had to respond by saying that those charges are not only false but laughable and so I'm glad that after that the politicians didn't mind speaking as much I can go back to Neftali Bennett and TIR Lapine and get them to speak about Iran after that and actually look spokesman for Lapidus said we still think it's stupid to talk even though Netanyahu did but Michael Oren he was new spokeswoman initially said no no no we're not supposed to say anything about Iran said okay fine you could talk to and what Michael Oren told me which is on the cover of today's Jerusalem Post I think it's fascinating he said that former US President Barack Obama chose to not support the 2009 Iranian green protest movement because he hoped to reach a deal with Iran on its nuclear weapons that he signed six years later now we're talking about a very serious failure by Obama to not support these protesters one of my favorite quotes that there's been hearing over the last decade it was Natanz Sharansky the Soviet dissident the ultimate protester for human rights in the history of mankind said that the failure of Obama to support these Iranian protesters back then was the biggest failure to help human rights in modern history Wow and so maybe now we know the reason just like Michael pointed out that Obama didn't support the Iranian people he did a lot of different things putting the Iran deal first he didn't stop according to the political website Hezbollah from smuggling cocaine into the United States he didn't say anything when Michael himself was targeted for assassination on the streets of Washington by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard as was the Saudi ambassador at the time he didn't stop the missile boats of the Iranians from provocatively approaching American destroyers and he and keep to the redline then he set in Syria on chemical weapons being used against the Syrian people according to Michael Obama did all that because he wanted to reach out to the Iranian leadership he wanted to make a deal with them he saw that as the key he saw that as the solution to the problems in the Middle East and now what's going on ladies and gentlemen is we can take that all back all that approach that Netanyahu and the people of Israel said all along was such a terrible dangerous awful mistake that caused untold suffering throughout the Middle East in the world can now little by little be taken back and again you know as we've said on this program many times you don't have to like Donald Trump personally you don't have to like his domestic policies in the United States you certainly don't have to like his treatment of women nor do you have to like Bill Clinton's treatment of women but his policies in Israel we have to appreciate and the wider Middle East as well so Michael said when I asked him about the difference between Obama and Trump on the protesters he said that that's quite a difference isn't it Trump has tweeted five times supporting those protestors and that is a very very very very very different approach than Barack Obama had and so now or seeing that having this very different approach in the White House maybe it can lead to something maybe it can lead to the those protesters knowing that that the world is behind them I mean unfortunately we haven't heard Europe saying anything except for Boris Johnson a little bit but then again Europe in the Western world has been pretty much on vacation over the last few days they're just getting back to work in a few hours maybe they'll say something the people of Iran deserve their support the people of Iran deserve human rights the people of Iran deserve to have money going to them as Carolyn Glick pointed out in the Jerusalem Post today since the deal at the world reached with Iran which gave huge amounts of money to the Iranian regime it hasn't trickled down to the people instead that money was used to fund terror all around the world the budget of Hezbollah in Lebanon and Syria that it receives from Iran was quadrupled caralyn pointed out from 200 million to 800 million dollars per year why did that happen when the people of Iran are desperate for food when the price of vegetables has suddenly skyrocketed as well as chicken I keep kosher but I go to Persian restaurants when I'm in LA and they're wonderful and they make great chicken the price of rice has gone up by a lot Persians make darn good rice and I think providing the Iranian people with cheaper rice is so much more important than providing money to Hizbollah to use to kill innocent Syrian people and to kill Jews if they could and so this is the time then we can start walking back that Obama strategy of supporting regimes like Iran rather than reaching out to the people the first meeting between its an Obama in the White House one of the reasons why it went so bad was that Obama said to Israel that you've got to be reaching out to the regime's not the people while Netanyahu is saying the opposite he now is saying you need to have a grassroots approach reach out to the people not to their corrupt dictatorships he'd have a bottom-up kind of approach to making peace of at least improve the lives of the people economic peace start with the economy and that will lead to peace and so now that the main obstacle to peace in the Middle East Barak Obama has been removed and again it didn't have to be Trump that would replace him but anyone would make it easier to have there be a peace process now you're going to have what Netanyahu said to Obama II didn't listen to back then 10 years ago now implemented you're gonna have a regional economic approach to solving a Middle East conflict it's gonna get into high gear in 2018 happy new year by the way whether the Palestinians like it or not and and they have every reason to like it to be honest we're talking about money that will be flowing in from around the world to build up that Palestine Authority and perhaps Palestinian state economically you're going to have the Saudis taking a very serious role in moving that process forward we have a different world right now where it's not the Arabs against the Jews anymore it's the moderates against the extremists Israel is together with the Saudis the Egyptians of the Jordanians relative moderates among the Muslim countries in the region going against the Iranian regime that wreaks havoc and encourages terror all around the world and with that approach lives can get better for the Palestinians for Israeli Arab citizens for Arabs throughout this region and for the people of Israel as well and maybe that can lead to the terror that has been spreading more around the world finally decreasing and maybe Europe and America can finally become safer as well after they became more dangerous with the mistaken policies that there were before so good luck Iranian protesters I don't know if you're listening here on the Land of Israel Network I don't know do we have a Farsi Land of Israel Network and we add Farsi subtitles to my YouTube audio video thing that they put out I'll have to ask our Aryan Jeremy I think that should be our investment it is what it is so stay with us we'll have more excitement from inside Israel today after the break hi this is Yves Harrow host of rejuvenation on the Land of Israel Network you came here a new show for me every Sunday and every day of the week shows from another one of my very talented fellow show hosts reach me Eve at the Land of Israel calm and keep listening everybody we love your feedback the Land of Israel coming at you every day every week that's the Land of Israel network on the land of Israel [Music] add we're back here on inside Israel today on the Land of Israel calm where I've had a fun week over here covering Israeli politics I enjoyed going to the Likud Central Committee on Sunday evening it was the first ideological meeting of the Likud Central Committee in years and Netanyahu supports a Palestinian state though he got the Likud central committee to vote against one before he was in favor of a Palestinian state which led to our own leaving Lee could in the formation of Kadima but since then I don't remember another ideological meeting of the liquid Central Committee and the rest of the Likud especially its activists in the Central Committee do not support a Palestinian state and it was time for them to come out and say what they're in favor of now for several years now there have been two very nice ladies their names are Nadia and Yahoo DEET they are the founders of an organization that for many years was called women in green until I think they realized that there was a women in green or something in a very environmentalists in America from the 60s and they couldn't use that name but so they call themselves women for Israel's tomorrow but in Hebrew stillness even be a look and women in green and when they started talking about needing to apply sovereignty to Judea and Samaria I laughed at the people after them come on set more realistic goals it's not gonna happen and they told me I said well little by little and they met with politician after politician and persuaded them that that should be the plan that the Left had a plan the last wanted to withdraw from the overwhelming majority of the West Bank create a Palestinian state there with Jerusalem as its capital that's the left's plan the right didn't have a plan the right and a lot of ideas if you want to hear about the seven different ideas read each I Fleischer's New York Times article about that I recommended they said the plan should be sovereignty applying Israeli law to Judea and Samaria okay that means that the Jews living there will be subject to the same laws that the people of Israel that live within the pre 67 border have there's a lot of laws that for technical reasons have not been implemented because that technically the generals and not the government control Judea and Samaria and that is what they're asking to change now I was at that event and for two and a half hours I never heard one word that word was annexation annexation is something different ladies and gentlemen annexation means taking full control over all the land that means canceling the Oslo Accords that means dismantling the Palestinian Authority that means controlling every single Arab in Ramallah and telling him how he should live his life being in charge of his schooling his work his taxes his garbage collection every little thing that Israel has not dealt with since the mid 1990s annexing would mean Israel having to patrol security-wise police wise every single inch of where all the Arabs live in their cities and that's not what they voted out unanimously to approve actively could Central Committee and that what happens the following day Haaretz Likud votes for annexation AFP ruling party of Netanyahu calls for adopts annexing West whoo big scary headline suddenly the if we annexed the West Bank the way we did Jerusalem no we have not and that headline was the main headline for 24 hours on Yahoo News nothing happened ladies and gentlemen this is a party calling for non annexation but for applying some technical laws that apply in Israel to Israelis that are over the pre 67 border the Likud is not the government the Likud Central Committee is not the security cabinet the Knesset has not made any such vote maybe it will soon but they're not and so nothing has actually changed annexation did not happen and annexation is not the same thing as applying sovereignty and so ladies and gentlemen get your news from The Jerusalem Post never mind that there was a wrong headline on my store and Friday that used the rear deck station but now we know the truth another experience this week in covering politics is what happened at 11 o'clock last night I'm sorry I wasn't still at the Knesset at 11 o'clock last night and the are anyway our our print edition was closed I did write for the Internet later on though the Knesset passed the primary's bill okay the primary's bill would basically says that the state will fund politicians and internal elections if you run for Knesset seat in the Likud it's if you're an incumbent you will receive funding if you are not an incumbent you can receive a loan that you wouldn't have to pay back if you got elected but if you lose you will have to which is quite a risk that primaries bill also basically says that it's now going to be illegal to receive political donations in Israel this is a very big deal the way it's worked from the very beginning of the state is you want to run for Knesset get your own money raise it you couldn't raise very much there were limits you couldn't take too much from any individual person which is what prevented individual people from having too much power over politicians but you raised your own money that's what politicians do it's not easy it's not fun but do you know grow up do it until Along Came the new chairman of the coalition David I'm Solomon said I don't want to do that I can understand away he wouldn't want to do that raising money means building up relationships that's what politicians do he does not have a particularly good personality you know he doesn't work well with people people meet him and they don't like him and that's not really good for a politician asking for money is like the hardest thing you can do as a politician you've got to have people really like you if they're gonna give you money and so he went and he got it cancelled he's the chairman of the coalition he's a powerful guy if other politicians want their bills passed they gotta support his bill that's the way it works in politics it passed and there's another tragedy with that end of an era that is different I think for our listeners here on the land of Israel Network and my readers of the Jerusalem Post and say the readers of Eid adhara note because the readers of The Jerusalem Post and the listeners to this radio station are primarily in the United States and the way to work for many politicians is they chose purposely to not raise money among Israelis because that creates conflicts of interest the Rosemont they decided to raise money in America and their fundraising in America was a way in which American Jews got involved in Israeli politics one thing I've always done at the Jerusalem Post is encourage our readers to be a part of what's going on we encouraged Anglos to run for Knesset whenever an Anglo ran for Knesset even if they didn't have a chance we gave him articles in The Jerusalem Post we tried to keep people as informed as possible we try to keep people informed when there are websites of parties and politicians in English and donations it's just one of the many ways for American Jews to be connected to Israel and it's worked beautifully their donors from among American Jews on the left then influenced Israeli politics and there were donors on the Israeli right who influenced Israeli politics by giving donations especially I in the Likud Party through the organization American Friends of Li could and I don't know how much the politicians are gonna still want to talk to these American Jewish donors now that they don't need them anymore and that's really sad I want American Jews and politicians to interact I really hope that it will continue to happen without money being a part of it but money is the way the world works these days unfortunately so let's hope it still goes on but it might not and it's a darn shame so but you can still stay connected to Israel by listening here Damon the out to the Land of Israel network on the Land of Israel calm this has been Gil Hoffman telling you what's going on inside Israel today have a wonderful day from here in rainy Jerusalem bye bye