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Analysis

Labour MK Erel Margalit interviewed by Lorin Bell-Cross

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BICOM Research Analyst Lorin Bell-Cross spoke with Erel Margalit, a Member of Knesset for the Labour Party/Zionist Union. Before entering politics he was a hi-tech entrepreneur. He founded JVP (Jerusalem Venture Partners), rated by Private Equity International as the leading venture capitalist firm in Israel.

Lorin Bell-Cross: Tell us a little bit about your background as a hi-tech entrepreneur and what made you want to give up a successful hi-tech career and move into politics? Particularly the Labour Party – some might see it as an unusual destination for a venture capitalist.

Erel Margalit: I’m not only a venture capitalist. I was born in Kibbutz Na’an – an agricultural kibbutz, the first kibbutz of the Noar HaOved and also grew up in the Galilee and in Jerusalem. I am one of those who started companies and my ventures not with money, but with ideas.

An entire generation in the State of Israel has built the new economy of the ‘start up nation’. We’re seeing so much innovation in Israel, whether in the restaurant business, the media, hi-tech, communications and life sciences – but the only place where innovation has not transpired in a big way [over] the past 15-20 years is politics. So maybe it’s now time for people who have a “can-do” approach and innovation to come into Israeli politics and make a difference.

The reason I came into the Labour Party is because, being a very successful entrepreneur and having luck, I set up in places like Jerusalem and Beer Sheva, that were underprivileged, both of which were very much being left behind. I saw that there were ways to be both successful, but also to transform a social initiative around your success.

One of the most difficult things for me is that Israel is the most innovative county in the OECD but also has the biggest social gaps – the highest rate of adult poverty at 22 per cent and children at over 30 per cent. This is ridiculous. Israel could thrive economically and socially not only in the Tel-Aviv area, but also in the far north, the Galilee, Beer Sheva and other areas.

Coming into the Labour Party is a message: yes, we can be successful, but let’s get into inclusive politics and an inclusive economy, rather than just an economy for the few.

LBC: Everyone has heard about the ‘start up nation’, but some are warning that with the educational gaps in the fast growing ultra-Orthodox and Arab communities, Israel will not be able to sustain that long term. What more can be done to integrate those marginalised communities in Israel’s hi tech economy?

EM: With the right kind of public/private policies the Arab and ultra-Orthodox communities can be a big part of Israel’s economic surge. The Arab communities, particularly the younger Arab population are probably the most educated they have ever been. Tens of thousands of young and dynamic people whose families have spent a lot of money to educate them and are ready to get into a good quality paying job were the business sector and the government to encourage people to hire them.

In the ultra-Orthodox community, women have made the biggest difference in the last five years, and now the men are coming into the workforce as well.

I lead those taskforces for the economic development of the Arab sector and the ultra-Orthodox sector and it needs government support and more work with the business community.

These communities, if they are given the chance to be a part of Israel’s creative economy, can and will make a big difference and will give back in ways that we need.

LBC: What role can/does hi-tech and business play in bringing together Israelis and Palestinians and what more can be done? Can hi-tech cooperation advance coexistence in the long term?

EM: I think there has to be a big distinction made between Gaza, which is ruled by Hamas where it’s very difficult to have cooperative efforts, and the West Bank which is ruled by the PA, in which we have many cooperative efforts around food, industry, technology and these efforts are done by entrepreneurs, industrialists, and business people.

What it needs is government support; from the Israeli government, the PA and the international community so that we can take those themes and make them visible and understandable.

It also needs a political strategy, and the political strategy in Israel today needs to be led by Labour and the Zionist Union. On the one hand, a secure Israel: protecting the security of the State of Israel, fighting the extremists like Hamas, ISIS, Al-Qaeda and Hezbollah with all our might. But on the other hand we also have to stretch out our hand to the PA, to countries like Egypt and Jordan, to the Gulf States and North African states and build a vision of a two-state solution with the Palestinians that is within the framework of an agreement with most of the countries in the Arab League.

If you fight the extremists and reach out to those who are willing to fight them as well, you can build a vision that complements the economic cooperation with a political vision of a two-state solution. That is what’s needed in a big way. We need the international community to be constructive rather than obstructive in many ways.

LBC: According to a Forbes profile of you, you “saw a tremendous opportunity to revive the Labor Party as ‘a brand, a movement, a party that could reclaim the leadership of the country.’” How would you assess the revival?

EM: The Labour Party needs to go back to leading Israel. We are standing between two worldviews: Netanyahu views Israel as a large fort that needs a large and high wall around it. Ben Gurion, Rabin and the leaders of the Labour Party today are trying to present a vision which is very different – Israel as a hub.

A creative hub, with a very strong army as well, but a hub that cooperates with the international community on education, scientific, economic and hi-tech projects and a hub that reaches out to the Arab communities around us and tries not to see the Middle East as one black sea of threats, but tries to see the good forces in the Middle East and fight the bad ones threatening Israel in particular.

That is the message we are bringing – it’s a different message to Netanyahu’s, but I think the message of hope is more powerful than the message of fear.

LBC: The Israeli Labour party has not led a government in Israel since 2001, and suffered another disappointment this year. How do you see your party getting back into power?

EM: We need a message to the northern parts of the country and the Galilee, to the southern parts of the country and the Negev, to the Arab and ultra-Orthodox communities and to inner city neighbourhoods – a message of inclusion and giving people a chance to make a decent living and be part of the thriving economy that Israel can have. That’s on the internal front. Then, using social justice language like equality, education, public health – all the things we want to worry about, in the framework of what Israel could be.

Secondly, we need a different vision from a security standpoint: Israel needs to not only work with its sword but also with its head. It needs to identify allies that we can work with in order to fight the extreme, asymmetric warfare strategies that are being used against us. Those strategies are not used only against Israel; they are being used against Egypt, Jordan, the Gulf States and North African states. So, with a common enemy you sometimes have a common friend to work against them.

This vision needs to be brought in a way that’s very relevant to the Israeli public – in a new way. Rabin brought it in 1992 and it made a big difference after years of Shamir who the people thought was just going to rule forever; he negated negotiations and didn’t want a two-state solution. Rabin changed all that.

We need a new Rabin for the Labour Party, we need unification. We need the Yesh Atid party to be part of us and some of Kahlon’s party too. We need to unify different forces if we are going to change the direction of where the country is heading and if we’re going to substitute Netanyahu and lead the country ourselves.

LBC: In what circumstances do you think the Labour Party would enter a coalition with Likud?

EM: Right now the Netanyahu government has put a set of outlying policy statements which would make it very problematic for Labour and the Zionist Union to join. We’re not a fringe party, we’re a leading party.

If there is a chance to co-lead the Israeli government into a real peace agreement and real peace negotiations, we’ll listen.

If there’s a chance to co-lead the Israeli government for a major change in the economic dynamics of what’s going on in different regions in the country, we’ll listen.

But the best bet for the Labour party is to crystallise our own narrative and our own vision in a way that the Israeli people understand so that we don’t have to be part of a coalition government with Netanyahu, but that we lead the next government.

LBC: We’ve touched briefly on the peace process, but many of the Israeli public do not see Palestinian President Abbas as a viable partner for peace. Is it possible to convince the Israeli public that he is and that it is possible to reach a peace agreement? Has one of the reasons the Left has failed been because of this failure to convince the public that peace is possible – and a narrative of negativity is stronger?

EM: The narrative is not Abu Mazen (Abbas) or any other Palestinian leader. The narrative has to be about Israel going back to being proactive rather than reactive; the narrative is having Israel set its own conditions for a peace accord with both the Palestinians and the Arab League.

I don’t think an Israeli leader is expected to snap their fingers and get all the solutions immediately, but I do think it makes a very big difference when people see what your intentions are – different dialogue that needs to be created.

Let’s tell the world and the Israeli people where we want to go with the Palestinians, what kind of agreement we want and tell the world what kind of regional agreement we want and try and lead towards that direction.

That would make a very big difference not only in the result of the journey, which I hope will be a peace agreement, but also in the journey itself and I think that’s where the narrative from Israel needs to change and that’s our role in the Knesset (and hopefully in government) – to change that narrative.

LBC: In his speech to Labour Friends of Israel, Jeremy Corbyn failed to mention ‘Israel’ once. What is your reaction to this and to Corbyn’s election more widely?

EM: Corbyn didn’t want any TV in the room but somebody sent me a video of my speech (available here); you can see that what I am telling Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Party and that is to listen. There is a major force in Israel called the Labour Party which is leading a compromise and a two-state solution and is trying to bring that narrative to the forefront of Israeli politics and into government. That narrative is talking about a partnership with the Palestinians, with other Arab states willing to fight the extremists like Hamas, Hezbollah, Al-Qaeda, and Islamic State. The additional thing I said to Corbyn is that if we are going to be successful in any way we need to reach out to the moderates and fight the extremists with all our might. If he doesn’t know how to make that distinction then he is wrong.

We demand that he, as much as he hails the process of a two-state solution, condemn Hamas and Hezbollah for the terrorist actions they have taken against Israel and against the peace process itself. We want to be looking at those forces that can build trust in fighting those undermining it. If he cannot tell the difference, then I’m here to tell him what the difference is, as someone who is striving for peace.