In this episode, Richard Pater speaks with Herb Keinon about Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s approach to Britain, Hamas and Israel’s regional manoeuvring. Keinon examines the Likud primary results and how Netanyahu is positioning the party ahead of Israel’s general election. He also assesses Western engagement with Hamas, US policy towards Iran, Turkey’s ambitions in Syria, and the implications of the emerging Saudi–Pakistani alliance for Israel.
Herb Keinon is a veteran diplomatic correspondent and senior contributing editor at The Jerusalem Post. He has covered Israeli diplomacy, politics and regional affairs for more than three decades.
Transcript
(This transcript has been generated by AI — please excuse any potential errors.)
00:00:07:00 – 00:00:29:11
Richard Pater
Hello and welcome to the BICOM Podcast. I’m Richard Pater, the director of BICOM, and today is Wednesday the 19th of August. In today’s episode, we’ll discuss some of the latest diplomatic developments in the Israeli arena and the wider region. My guest is the veteran diplomatic and senior contributing editor of The Jerusalem Post, Herb Keinon. Herb, thank you very much indeed for joining me.
00:00:29:12 – 00:00:30:22
Richard Pater
Welcome to the podcast.
00:00:30:24 – 00:00:31:19
Herb Keinon
Thank you.
00:00:31:23 – 00:00:51:00
Richard Pater
So perhaps we can start close to home in terms of a UK context. You wrote an article recently, a column reflecting on a throwaway comment referring to the UK as an Islamic republic. For those that haven’t read your article, perhaps you could share your analysis and the context of those comments.
00:00:51:02 – 00:01:15:16
Herb Keinon
Right. Well, I think it was last Thursday and Netanyahu was doing a podcast with somebody from Army Radio who lost his son in Gaza and is engaged in, in a fight to get the sperm that he extracted from him after, after he died and using that sperm in order to, to, to procreate, to have to have a grandson from him.
00:01:15:17 – 00:01:40:23
Herb Keinon
That was the basis for the for the conversation and what happened. This is a long conversation. It was 112 minutes and about 100 minutes into the conversation, which was pretty much dealt with grief, father’s grief. He started out talking about the Netanyahu’s grief over his brother Yoni, and they went into, you know, the grief. How would it feel like 100 minutes into it?
00:01:41:00 – 00:02:02:08
Herb Keinon
They’re talking about who has asked. Netanyahu has asked whether he if he had the opportunity to have extracted the sperm of Yoni and had him have a son, would he have done it? And Netanyahu said he would have. And then he said, you know, we were it was a different situation. But when my two sons were born, Sara and I were talking.
00:02:02:08 – 00:02:22:08
Herb Keinon
His wife Sarah, and I were talking about whether or not we should name him after Yoni. And she said wisely, we should. The Prime Minister said she was wise in saying that we should, because it’s too much of psychological baggage for, you know, to put on a kid to have to live up to that. And then this is where it got into the into the interesting parts about Britain.
00:02:22:09 – 00:02:46:07
Herb Keinon
Then he said, you know, and again, this you could tell by the way that the conversation was going, this wasn’t a planned comment he made. Right. He said, you know, I saw this personally myself once I went to Britain and I don’t remember what I want. My position was there was Prime Minister don’t remember what, and I met Winston Churchill’s grand grandson who was called Winston Churchill.
00:02:46:07 – 00:03:07:17
Herb Keinon
And then he said this, the grandson, Winston Churchill and his father, Randolph Churchill. They came to Israel and they wrote a book of the Six-Day War, which was very favourable to Israel. And then I said that you wouldn’t find that today in, in the Islamic Republic of Britain. And that’s the comment that got all the, all the noise.
00:03:07:17 – 00:03:36:09
Herb Keinon
And then he said, he quoted somebody else. He said, as someone once said, it will be the first Islamic country to get a nuclear to get a nuclear arm. Right. Who is that person who is quoting was JD Vance who said similar comment two years ago. This comment that was taken and in the British press, you know, they you know, they had a field day with it, you know, how dare you talk this way about Britain.
00:03:36:11 – 00:03:57:05
Herb Keinon
The British government came out and said, this is completely unacceptable. And what I found about the whole thing that was interesting was a couple of things. First of all, the context and the context again, Netanyahu, you know, say what you will about the prime minister. He’s not one who makes slips of the tongue, nor is he one who gratuitously insults other countries.
00:03:57:07 – 00:04:23:19
Herb Keinon
And I remember I you know, I covered from the very beginning the, the, the, the deteriorating relations between him and Erdogan and Turkey. And it took years, years, even after the maybe for Netanyahu to publicly come out and say something negative about Erdogan and Turkey. He knows what he’s doing. He doesn’t gratuitously insult countries. He didn’t come out onto this broadcast to this podcast and said, hey, you know what?
00:04:23:20 – 00:04:44:04
Herb Keinon
It’s a nice Thursday afternoon. Why don’t I just slam the Brits, right? That’s not where this comes from. And why is that telling? Because the fact that he did make the comment in a kind of flowing manner of conversation, shows how he thinks or what he thinks right now of the of the relationship between Israel and Britain. Right.
00:04:44:05 – 00:05:06:13
Herb Keinon
This is a reflection of how he sees the tide in Britain. And I think in Western Europe changing his explanation is it has to do with demographics, right. But this is something that I think is deeply ingrained in his thinking. And that’s what came out. And that from me from my perspective, that’s what’s interesting because it wasn’t a planned comment.
00:05:06:14 – 00:05:15:18
Herb Keinon
Right? But it reflects how he sees the relationship. And I think that’s something that’s, you know, that’s very much worth noting.
00:05:15:20 – 00:05:33:15
Richard Pater
Absolutely. I mean, another aspect of the bilateral relationship is that Israel is currently without an ambassador in the UK. I wonder what you make of that, and kind of how much things would have improved if there was a, an appointment, a senior appointment there representing the State of Israel.
00:05:33:17 – 00:05:56:09
Herb Keinon
Look, I think, I think Netanyahu’s comments came, you know, in the background of Burnham’s comments about how, you know, kind of apologizing for the previous prime minister not taking a tough enough stand on Gaza. The talk about what, in September, they’re going to clamp some kind of sanctions again or prevent goods from the from beyond the Green Line coming into Britain.
00:05:56:10 – 00:06:18:18
Herb Keinon
I think that’s very much in the back of his mind. Obviously, the relationship is not at a high point right now. The bilateral relationship is going through stress. It’s going through strength has to do with a lot of different factors. And it’s exactly, precisely at a moment like that when you want an ambassador there, right? When you need a professional diplomat who can deal with these hiccups in the relationship.
00:06:18:23 – 00:06:41:21
Herb Keinon
And unfortunately, we haven’t had one there since the left a few months ago. An ambassador has been appointed Steve Braverman. He’s tied up in all kinds of legal problems. When Israel he wasn’t said there was a D fair who was who was whose experience was taking control. She left. You’ve got a new guy there who’s, you know, who’s been there for a couple of weeks.
00:06:41:21 – 00:07:01:08
Herb Keinon
I’m sure he’s a very adept diplomat. He can keep the lights on at the embassy. He can keep the embassy working. But right now, in this tense period of time, you want to you want to run for sword there, right? You want somebody who can deal, who can finesse the issues and the fact that we don’t have that right now.
00:07:01:08 – 00:07:05:02
Herb Keinon
I think that’s I think that’s not good.
00:07:05:04 – 00:07:28:18
Richard Pater
Absolutely. Maybe I can turn your attention now to some of the issues that have in the region this week. If we can start with the fascinating meeting at the beginning of this week between the senior representatives of the Board of Peace, including Jared Kushner and Sir Tony Blair, meeting with the Hamas leadership, which I thought was quite remarkable for the kind of leaders of the West to meet in the same.
00:07:28:19 – 00:08:00:00
Richard Pater
We’re used to the meeting kind of indirectly through the auspices of the, of the Egyptians, usually, but to have them in the same room, meeting directly with the new leader of commerce was quite remarkable. And it was kind of met with more of a of a shrug. I mean, I was also reminded that it was Tony Blair himself, 20 odd years ago, when he was the head of the quartet that set the bar of the international community’s engaging with Hamas and insisted on the three principles of recognizing Israel of denouncing terror, honouring previous agreements.
00:08:00:04 – 00:08:11:22
Richard Pater
What do you make of kind of the significance of that, of that direct meeting and then the subsequent meeting when those same leaders came to Israel and met with Netanyahu there the day after?
00:08:11:24 – 00:08:28:11
Herb Keinon
I mean, you said it was met with a shrug. It might be met with a shrug abroad. I don’t think it was met with a shrug. In Israel, I think Disraeli’s and again, across the political spectrum. Right. The Israelis were kind of, you know, appalled by that meeting or aghast at it. I mean, you heard you heard, you know, the opposition leaders of the opposition party.
00:08:28:12 – 00:08:55:00
Herb Keinon
Bennett, I don’t know if I cut sound in Africa. Lieberman very much against it. So, across the board, people saying this is, what are they doing? I mean, they’re legitimizing Hamas. You know, Israel goes into the war, and it says its objectives are to, you know, to destroy Hamas both militarily and politically. And here you have the, you know, the high representative of the United States of America, Trump’s son in law, coming and giving them legitimacy.
00:08:55:02 – 00:09:15:02
Herb Keinon
This was seen in Israel very much, again across the board as a slap in the face. I think I can kind of sum it up on channel 15 news, I-24 news in Israel, the anchor dealing with the segment at the end. She asked this question. Maybe journalistically it wasn’t, you know, the greatest thing to do.
00:09:15:03 – 00:09:56:15
Herb Keinon
She said would Kushner have met Hitler? Right. And I think that’s the way many Israelis see this thing. And then the next day he met two hours with the Hamas guy. He comes here and he meets for hours with Netanyahu. I think part of that meeting was, was kind of to try to come down off the tree from that meeting with Hamas, because after the readouts from the meeting with Netanyahu were essentially that, you know, Israel’s positions were maintained that there will be no reconstruction of Gaza in any way, shape or form until there’s demilitarization that is just not going to have to withdraw until there is.
00:09:56:16 – 00:10:23:11
Herb Keinon
You know, they give up their arms. So, it was it was it seemed to be that he goes to Egypt, meets with Hamas, and then he comes to Israel, meets with the denial, and tries to try to put out some kind of corrective. And, you know, I mean, the dynamics are interesting. I think the dynamics also show that, you know, certain build a certain confusion in Washington about how to how to go forward with everything right now.
00:10:23:13 – 00:10:41:20
Herb Keinon
And I think Israel is also, you know, we’re adding to that confusion, or the Prime Minister is adding to that confusion a bit himself, because on the one hand, because we’re two, two months before the elections, his rhetoric is very much that we’re not going ahead with the with the, you know, the roadmap towards rehabilitation or to the roadmap for God’s.
00:10:41:20 – 00:11:06:02
Herb Keinon
We’re not going ahead with that. That’s what he’s saying. Whereas on the ground, you know, there are there were certain steps that Israel took that seemed to show that, well, we were, you know, accepting certain restrictions on our actions there over the last couple of days, today to today, there was Israel took action inside Gaza yesterday, took action inside Gaza, killing terrorist suspects.
00:11:06:02 – 00:11:24:02
Herb Keinon
So, there’s a there’s kind of a disconnect between, on the one hand rhetoric. On the other hand, what’s going on the ground. It’s still as God’s has been now for, for quite some time. It’s unclear what’s going down there. And it’s pretty much a mess.
00:11:24:04 – 00:11:28:10
Richard Pater
I mean, do you think there’s ever a chance that Hamas will agree to disarm?
00:11:28:12 – 00:11:54:01
Herb Keinon
No, no, I mean, personally, I know if Hamas agrees to disarm, then Hamas ceases to be Hamas, right? I mean, that’s they’re that’s the reason for being right. The resistance resists in Israel. They will not. I don’t think they will voluntarily agree to disarm. Might they be forced to disarm? That could be right. They could be forced to disarm.
00:11:54:01 – 00:12:16:24
Herb Keinon
If indeed this condition, that there is no rehabilitation of Gaza unless they disarm, gives them no other choice than to do so. But. But will the world stand by that? Right? I mean, will, you know, will the will the international community make that a firm, firm condition that they’re not going to fudge on? I don’t know.
00:12:17:00 – 00:12:29:10
Herb Keinon
I don’t know, but I, I think that Israel, regardless of who wins elections in in October, I think Israel is going to stand, you know, pretty, pretty firmly behind that line.
00:12:29:12 – 00:12:43:16
Richard Pater
I mean, do you think there’s any scenario where concerted pressure by the Board of Peace or by the US on Hamas’s allies, whether it be Qatar, Turkey, can create that pressure to force them to disarm?
00:12:43:18 – 00:13:04:04
Herb Keinon
I think look, I think if Qatar, Turkey, Pakistan, the Saudis, Egyptians all come down heavy on Hamas and say, either do this or we remove our support, then they might not have a choice. But whether the world is going to come down on those countries to do that, I have my doubts.
00:13:04:06 – 00:13:19:19
Richard Pater
Just further afield now. We saw also this week or just a day or two ago, the 60-day deadline of Trump’s deadline of the MoU. Iran ended. What do you think is happening there? Where how will this play out now?
00:13:19:21 – 00:13:42:09
Herb Keinon
And Richard nobody knows. I mean, you know, if I could read Trump’s mind on this, you know, I’d be a rich man. It’s the thing expired. And, you know, Trump puts out a tweet, and he says that it’s now U.S. territory and that everything is moving through the Straits of Hormuz. But if you look, you know, look at reports, things aren’t moving the Straits of Hormuz.
00:13:42:09 – 00:14:10:24
Herb Keinon
So, there’s like, again, it’s a complete disconnect between what is said and what’s happening on the ground. Where do I think this is going? Again? I want to want to speculate. I don’t think that the Americans are in any mood for, you know, for a long, protracted war in Iran right now or ever. I just don’t think that there the war wasn’t sold to them as kind of an existential thing.
00:14:11:01 – 00:14:30:04
Herb Keinon
You know, it wasn’t it wasn’t it wasn’t marketed in a way. Well, these this is the new, you know, we’re back in the 1930s and we have to deal with this threat now, or the world is going to be in danger. It wasn’t it wasn’t sold that way. The Americans aren’t there. You got the elections coming on in November.
00:14:30:06 – 00:14:53:02
Herb Keinon
I don’t think the Americans are in the mood for war, quite frankly. And so, so what’s your I think I think what we have now is what we’re probably going to be seeing for quite some time, and then you’ll see this economic pressure. I think the US will keep up the economic pressure. And, you know, just kind of, you know, see if they can wait out the Iranians.
00:14:53:04 – 00:15:05:09
Richard Pater
We also saw another recent interesting development in the region whereby the Saudis and Pakistan came together to form this new alliance. What do you make of that? What are the ramifications there for Israel?
00:15:05:11 – 00:15:33:16
Herb Keinon
Look, I think, I think I think the ramifications are pretty significant. First of all, what does this mean as far as Saudi Arabia ever joining the Abraham Accords, right. This is you know, this is the big prize. Now they’ve lined up with two countries who are, you know, anti-Israel right now. That doesn’t bode well for that. I think it’s, you know, I think, you know, it’s a signal as much to America as it is to Israel.
00:15:33:17 – 00:16:01:21
Herb Keinon
And that is your, you know, your defence pacts with us haven’t necessarily the Saudis are saying to the Americans, your defence pacts haven’t necessarily goddess the security that we want. So, we’re going to hedge our bets and look elsewhere. And I think for Israel and for India, it’s it might be an opportunity, right. Because this is, you know, we can look at it from Jerusalem and say, well, this this is a threat towards us.
00:16:01:23 – 00:16:25:17
Herb Keinon
Although, you know, they’re denying that this was intended for us. It’s more intended protection against Iran, but that’s the way we perceive it than it is directed towards the Indians also have to be concerned. Right. What does this mean? You know, you’ve got you’ve got the Pakistani in nuclear arms, you’ve got the Saudi wealth, you’ve got the Turkish military manufacturing capabilities.
00:16:25:23 – 00:16:43:22
Herb Keinon
That’s not great for the Indians as well. So, I think I think this could lead to a certain strengthening of relations between India and Israel. And also notice who isn’t in that pact, and that’s the United Arab Emirates. Right. And that can also strengthen this triangle that we’ve been trying to create between Israel and India and the United Arab Emirates.
00:16:43:22 – 00:17:04:23
Herb Keinon
So, is it great for us? No, it’s not great for us. But Israel has shown a certain ability historically that when things change diplomatically, they’re able to adjust, right. We’re able to we’re able to we’re able to adjust. Right. Remember, up until 2002, when Erdogan first came into power, Israel, tremendous relations, at least through the 1990s with Turkey.
00:17:04:24 – 00:17:25:01
Herb Keinon
All of a sudden, those relations go south and they go south very quickly. So, for certain points, what are we going to do? We’ve that was one of the most important strategic relationships we had in the 1990s. All of a sudden that went out the window. What do we do? They acted quickly on their feet. You created very quickly, rapidly.
00:17:25:01 – 00:17:51:07
Herb Keinon
You created, you know, tremendous relationships with Cyprus and Greece, which, you know, you were able to compensate for losing Turkey by gaining-by-gaining Cyprus and Greece and also to a certain extent by improving relations heavily with Romania in Bulgaria. Right. I mean, thank God Turkey’s got a lot of enemies, right? So, so when, when, when our relationships with them went down the toilet, we were able to pivot and have relations with these other countries.
00:17:51:07 – 00:18:12:22
Herb Keinon
And I think this is another example of that, right? Saudi, Turkey, Pakistan alliance. Not the greatest thing in the world for us. But we have other options as well. And again, I think the options are the obvious options are to form a closer relationship with India, which is in their interest right now as well, and also to bring the United Arab Emirates into that as well.
00:18:12:24 – 00:18:39:02
Richard Pater
We began talking about the rhetoric with regard to comments. It’s interesting that he’s very careful not to not to call out again or Turkey outrightly an enemy more of a rival. I just wanted to kind of dwell on that for a moment and also look at the also the events of the last couple of days. And we saw in an alleged strike in northern Syria and the ramifications of that for, for Turkey.
00:18:39:04 – 00:18:42:15
Richard Pater
How concerned are you about that? And, and how do you see that playing out?
00:18:42:18 – 00:19:05:16
Herb Keinon
Look, I think it’s extremely significant, right. Is your sending a message and it’s sending a clear message to Turkey that we’re not going to allow you to turn to you, Syria, the why, the way the Iranians use Syria, right. And to turn it into a base of operations against us. And I think that I think what we saw with that attack on that airbase, that was that was that signal, that was that message.
00:19:05:17 – 00:19:28:09
Herb Keinon
Look, if you look at what’s been going on in Syria now over the last decade and a half, you had Russia in there. And as you know, our interests with Russia were also not necessarily compatible, but we were able to develop a certain deconfliction mechanism with Russia. Our relationship today with Turkey is worse than it was then between us and Russia.
00:19:28:10 – 00:19:51:09
Herb Keinon
Still, it’s in both our interest, both our interests not to have our pilots fly against their pilots, Turkish pilots in Syria. So, I think this is a message to the to the Turks that we do have our red lines. We’re not going to allow after October 7th. We’re not going to allow Syria to be used as a base against us.
00:19:51:10 – 00:20:16:02
Herb Keinon
We’re worried this might happen. Let’s now sit down and through diplomacy, kind of come to sign some kind of deconfliction mechanism. I don’t see this right now, you know, leading to a direct military confrontation between Israel and Turkey. This is something nobody wants, and the Americans don’t want it. And the Americans have good relations with both of us and will probably play the mediator between us.
00:20:16:02 – 00:20:20:16
Herb Keinon
But it’s a significant development, right? It’s a significant development.
00:20:20:18 – 00:20:31:13
Richard Pater
If we can turn our attention now to domestic Israeli politics. We saw the Likud primary carried out yesterday. What did you make of those results?
00:20:31:15 – 00:20:52:11
Herb Keinon
Look, those are so first of all, I mean, you know, most pundits are saying that, you know, Netanyahu was the victor. Why wasn’t it in the victor? Because those he favoured did well and those, he did not favour did not do well. Right. You know, tally Gottlieb, near Barkat was pushed way down the list and thereby is off the list.
00:20:52:12 – 00:21:12:21
Herb Keinon
My Golan off the list. I mean, those are two firebrands, at least. Golan and Gottlieb are two firebrands who Netanyahu and apparently the Likud rank and file believe that will not be good in the general elections. It’s one thing to hold a primary, but that’s not the goal in and of itself. They go in and of itself is to win the general elections.
00:21:12:21 – 00:21:34:11
Herb Keinon
And the feeling was that these, you know, these extreme voices, these loud, shrill, shrieking voices inside the Likud don’t bring us the soft right-wing voters who we need to keep in our camp. So, he wanted to push them. He wanted to push them down. What else you saw in the primaries was loyalty to Netanyahu is what pays, right?
00:21:34:12 – 00:22:02:04
Herb Keinon
I mean, who was number one and two? Elie Cohen and Ohana, two of the most loyal supporters that Netanyahu has in the party. However, I would I would caution either Cohen or Ohana to think that that they’ve got a mate in the shade right now in the Likud, because if you look at the primaries over the last 20 years, right, of the 15 people who ended up in the top five places over the last four primaries, eight of them are no longer in the party.
00:22:02:05 – 00:22:19:09
Herb Keinon
Right. And because there’s a certain paradox here, by coming first or second, you are showing that you have support, you have a certain infrastructure in the party. That support could be seen as a threat by Netanyahu. And as a result of that, he’ll do what he does to kind of push you aside so you’re no longer a threat.
00:22:19:09 – 00:22:26:17
Herb Keinon
So, I think for Ohana and Kahn right now. Okay. It’s good they got one and two, but that could be a mixed blessing.
00:22:26:19 – 00:22:50:07
Richard Pater
Interesting that also there’s usually a prominent senior security figure. Last time, obviously, it was Yoav Gallant who’s no longer in the in the party that’s missing. Now do you think there’s someone that who will bring in? Obviously, he’s still got those reserved slots. Is that a scenario that you can, see? Who else would you anticipate coming in to fill those senior positions?
00:22:50:09 – 00:23:11:21
Herb Keinon
Look, the one senior security guy who he has in Likud now who was pushed down was Avi Dichter, right. For the former head of the Shin Bet, I think I think it’s likely that he’ll use he’ll use one of his reserve slots for Dichter because, I mean, because you’re right. I mean, he has to he has to have some kind of security, you know, some kind of security maven.
00:23:11:22 – 00:23:35:09
Herb Keinon
It’s in the top slots in his list if you look at the list also. I mean, what else is missing there? You don’t have you don’t have a big security guy. You don’t have any religious Zionist. You don’t have any key poets, right? I mean, we’re very far down the list. And that’s interesting because every other party you look at, including the Democrats, right, have high up on their list.
00:23:35:11 – 00:23:51:17
Herb Keinon
The Likud, which did, doesn’t anymore. All these guys were pushed way down. So, I think he’s going to want to use one of the, one of the reserved slots to bring in somebody with a key, somebody who identifies as a religious Zionist and the women. There’re not a whole lot of women at the top of the at the top of the list.
00:23:51:17 – 00:23:59:02
Herb Keinon
So, I think he’s going to have to use another, you know, 1 or 2 of the remaining slots to, to bring women as well in order to balance out the list.
00:23:59:04 – 00:24:11:05
Richard Pater
That was still two months away before the general election. But I wondered what you’ve made of the campaign so far. And for our listeners in the UK, kind of what should they be looking out for in the weeks ahead?
00:24:11:07 – 00:24:30:21
Herb Keinon
Look, I think I think the one big unknown right now is I mean, we’re waiting until I think it’s September 9th, all the parties have to file and declare right now we don’t even know who’s running yet. You know, certain parties running, but there are parties. You don’t know who if they’re going to be, it’s going to merge or they’re not going to merge.
00:24:30:22 – 00:24:54:23
Herb Keinon
If you ask people today, who are they going to vote for? A lot of people will say, I don’t know yet. I’m waiting to see who’s running. There’re a number of parties in the in the moderate, the moderate right, the soft right, who number of different parties. You’ve got Tropper and you always handle. They have one party Gilad Erdan, Yuli Adelstein, another party.
00:24:55:00 – 00:25:22:19
Herb Keinon
You’ve got this guy winter. Winter. Winston Ofra went there, right? The security guy, he started another party thinking they started another party. Those parties could determine the election. You’re talking about 6 or 7 seats. That could go either way. So, you know, I think it’s important to watch, to see who comes into these parties and whether these parties merge right now, because there’s so many of them, they’re not passing the electoral threshold.
00:25:22:20 – 00:25:41:06
Herb Keinon
Right. But I think that will change. I mentioned Benny Gantz party, right. Benny Gantz is significant because he has a lot of money, because he has 12 current Knesset seats. And your funding is per Knesset seats. So, some of these parties are going to want to get him involved. I think they will merge. They’ve got to put egos aside, but I think they will merge.
00:25:41:06 – 00:26:02:06
Herb Keinon
And when they do merge, I think that’s what it’s important to watch because they could be the difference. Now you’re talking about a party. They could get 6 or 7 seats and that could determine who, you know, which side is going to be able to form a government. And you said, you know, they’re going to force some kind of unity government on both sides.
00:26:02:08 – 00:26:29:19
Herb Keinon
But then they said they’re not going to sit with the denial. So how do you square that circle? I’m not sure. But I think that’s the big the big unknown right now in the elections as far as the campaign, I mean, we just saw something interesting this week that I wrote about you. If you think back to 2019, the second election in 2019, September, the big billboards were pictures of Netanyahu, a smiling Netanyahu with a beaming Donald Trump saying, Netanyahu in another league.
00:26:29:20 – 00:27:00:18
Herb Keinon
Right. That was the message, the vote for me, because I brought us diplomatic stature. I have improved Israel’s diplomatic position to a degree that we’ve never seen before. That was in 2019, right? Fast forward seven years. What a difference seven years makes. And now the big poster in Tel Aviv this week was a picture of Erdogan, Madani Khamenei and the head of his Bella pictures of their face with the under the caption they want him to lose.
00:27:00:19 – 00:27:26:01
Herb Keinon
Make sure they don’t win. Right. So, the campaign strategy has gone from look who my friends are, look how strong I am because of my friends to hey, these guys want this. And now to lose. So, any patriotic Israeli is going to have to vote for them so that they don’t win. That’s a completely different, different tactic. And I just, you know, I think that shows a lot about where the campaign is going or to the campaign it’s going to go.
00:27:26:02 – 00:27:30:13
Richard Pater
Fascinating. Herb, thank you so much for your time today. It was great to listen to you.
00:27:30:15 – 00:27:32:04
Herb Keinon
Yeah. Pleasure. Thank you.