(upbeat music)
- So you live half the time right here in Israel
and half the time in Florida.
So I don't know that there's ever been a guest
that I'm supposed to sit down with
in Jerusalem in this exact spot more than you.
But I want to actually start somewhere else
for just a minute or so,
because you also grew up in Long Island,
like basically 10 minutes from where I grew up from.
- That's right.
- And I thought for people that don't know your bio,
could you give just sort of a one-minute bio
that'll then get us to to everything else that you've done?
- Sure, son of a rabbi.
Thought about becoming a rabbi.
My father had a 1,000-member congregation.
He was a great rabbi.
When I told him I was thinking of becoming a rabbi,
he cried.
He begged me not to do it.
- (laughs) I was gonna say, tears of joy or-
- No, no, not tears of joy.
He was like, "Why would you want to do that?"
- It's a tough gig. - "Be a doctor or a lawyer,
make some money and don't have 1,000 bosses
telling you what to do,"
even though he loved his job.
Sent me off to Columbia University, became a lawyer.
Lived basically in the area where I grew up
for most of my life,
until I became the U.S. Ambassador to Israel
and moved here in 2017.
- Okay, so you probably
are the most influential U.S. ambassador to Israel
probably in its existence, I mean, I know...
Do you want to pat yourself on the back?
Is that fair to say,
I mean? - Well, put it this way.
"The New York Times" said that, and they're no fans, so.
- (chuckles) Oh, so they might have been sticking you
when they said that.
- Well, they said that,
so we'll refer to them for that, yeah.
- So let's start
just with exactly where we are at the moment,
and the incredible history and geography of where we're at,
before we get into some of the politics of the region
that you've really helped shape,
which has clearly led to an incredibly flourishing Israel.
In my five days here, I can't believe what's going on here.
- Yeah, yeah.
Well, look, we're about a 10-minute walk from my home,
and we are right here, where that gold dome is,
is the holiest place for the Jewish people.
It's now called the Dome of the Rock.
It was built maybe 1500 years ago.
But 3,000 years ago, it's where the Jewish Temple stood.
And that Temple stood in two different forms,
but it stood for 1,000 years.
And it was destroyed the second time in the year 70.
And ever since then, until 1967,
the Jewish people have been praying,
in every country, whether it's, you know,
north Africa, eastern Europe, the United States,
for 2,000 years, Jews have prayed to return to this land,
to return exactly to that spot.
And in 1967, right after the Six-Day War
where Jerusalem was reunified, it came to be.
So, you know, even though this dome and this mosque
look very old, and they are, relatively speaking,
they're pretty recent when you think of Jewish history
that goes back 3500 years.
- Right, so it's hard for people to imagine, but,
because everyone thinks that the Western Wall
is actually the holiest site in Judaism;
but it's the Temple Mount that the mosque,
which is right there, and then the Dome of the Rock,
are built on here.
And the Western Wall is actually just a retaining wall.
- It's a retaining wall.
It's a lot bigger than that; it goes much further.
If you go underground, you can see it goes further.
But it's a retaining wall.
The holiest site in Judaism is the Temple Mount.
It is under that, it's called the Dome of the Rock
because the rock is the rock on which Abraham was called
to sacrifice his son, Isaac,
and he passed the test that was given to him by God,
and God promised that he'd become
the father of many nations.
It all began there, under that rock.
And then, of course,
that's where Solomon built the first Temple.
It's enormously important to Jews.
And the proof of it is that,
you know, for thousands of years when we didn't have it,
we prayed for it.
Look, the other thing is if, you know,
you see the mosque to the right,
the Aqsa Mosque is the silver mosque, right.
- Right, that's this right here.
- So if you go into the mosque and pray,
and you or I couldn't do that,
but if you went into the mosque and prayed,
you would bow down and you would face south,
you would face Mecca.
Your back would be to the Temple, okay.
So the Temple is not,
even the holiness of Jerusalem is very secondary
to the Muslim world, relative to the holiness of Mecca.
You know, Jerusalem was not mentioned in the Koran.
It's mentioned 699 times in the Old Testament.
- And all that being said,
all the religions are being respected.
You can see Muslim worshipers, right?
- Yeah. - Literally right there.
I don't know if they can quite be seen by our camera.
And then plenty of, obviously,
of Jewish worshipers and Christian worshipers.
- It's actually more than them being respected.
Because, you know,
you see here straight ahead is the Western Wall,
up on top is the mosque,
and to the left is the Church of the Holy Sepulchre,
which is one of the holiest sites in Christianity.
Now, if you're a Jew, if you're a Muslim,
if you're a Christian, if you're an atheist,
you can go to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre,
you can go to the Western Wall.
If you want to go up on the Temple Mount, all right,
and you're not a Muslim, you have one access point,
which is this rickety gate here called the Mughrabi Gate,
where you go through security.
There's 10 other access for believers,
you know, whet they refer to as believers here,
which are just Muslims.
And if you happen to be a Jew or a Christian
and you go up through this gate onto the Temple Mount
and you begin to pray,
you're escorted off the mosque, off of the Mount.
- The U.N. will write up a couple recommendations.
- So it's not equal access, it's actually better access.
The state of Israel affords better access to Muslims,
far better access to Muslims
than it does to Christians and Jews.
And it's odd, because, you know,
it's referred to generally as the status quo.
But if you look at the treaty between Jordan and Israel,
the treaty says that both nations,
regardless of sovereignty,
will afford complete and equal and unfettered access
to every Abrahamic faith as to every holy site.
And that's not done here; it's not observed.
- Right, so it's sort of ironic,
and then we'll move on to some other stuff,
that Israel is actually affording more courtesies
than was happening before, you know-
- Yeah. - Israeli control, but.
- And Al-Aqsa has been the theme since 1929,
when there was a massacre in Hebron,
where hundreds of Jews were killed.
The false claim that the Jews are storming the mosque,
taking over the mosque,
it's always been kind of the rallying point
whenever Arab terrorists have sought
to create violence against the Jewish people.
- All right, so let's,
I know we could do the history clearly all day long,
for many days. (Ambassador Friedman chuckles)
So let's get to the broader Middle East, though.
- Sure. - Because you were integral
in what has happened here over these last now,
you know, seven years or so.
So talk to me about when you became ambassador,
I mean, were you, was that the immediate plan,
like, "We're gonna do this stuff"?
Did it sort of fall in your lap,
and did you ever think it was even possible?
- So, I was the first ambassador appointed
in the Trump administration, even before he took office.
And we put out a press release,
and I was quoted, with the permission of the President,
with saying that I look forward to serving my country
from an embassy in its eternal, undivided capital,
Jerusalem, in Israel's undivided capital.
So this was number one on my agenda.
- Right, so that was before the deals, even.
- That's before we even took office.
- Yeah.
- We worked on it really hard.
We, in less than a year,
the President recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.
And then, May 14th
of 2018, exactly five years ago this coming May 14th,
which is also Israel's Day of Independence,
we opened up our embassy.
And, you know, the entire world predicted
that this would create endless wars and untold violence,
and it really didn't, not at all.
- No, there was basically nothing.
- Basically nothing, and you know why?
Because everybody who's looked at this knows
that Jerusalem is the eternal, undivided capital
of the Jewish people.
I mean, you have to know it.
If you, you read the Bible, right?
The Bible sells more books on Amazon than any other book.
Anybody who reads the Bible knows
that Jerusalem belongs to the Jewish people,
including most of the Christian world,
so, and most of the Muslim world.
And most of the Muslims actually consider,
you know, Mecca to be holy, far less Jerusalem.
So not surprisingly, that's the least.
There was at that time-
- So did that embolden you guys?
Once that was done and settled,
and it didn't inflame the world, did then you go,
"Okay, now we can really do some"-
- It gave us a real tailwind in two respects.
Number one, it gave us the ability
to make more positive moves
that had been neglected for years with regard to Israel.
So recognized Israel's sovereignty over the Golan Heights,
which was never gonna leave Israel,
was never gonna be given back
to a butcher like Bashar Assad.
And then we started focusing more on the Palestinians
and how to, you know,
maybe choreograph some sort of a peace plan.
But what we found was, and I think this is the key point,
people said, "You're gonna make,
you're gonna create violence
by supporting Israel and supporting Jerusalem."
Just to the contrary.
I mean, we actually created an environment of,
that was conducive to peace. Why?
Because the Arab nations that we made peace with, right,
they looked at our relationship with Israel,
and said, you know, "We want to get in on that.
You know, we want to be an ally of the United States
the same way that Israel's an ally.
How do we get there?
How do we get closer to each other?"
And you know, in many cases, we said,
"Well, the road to that kind of relationship
has to run through Israel.
You have to normalize with Israel.
You can't, you know, be closer to America
when you're, you know, shouting, 'Death to Israel'.
You're fighting our most important ally,
maybe in the world, but certainly in the Middle East."
And so, our closeness to Israel was actually an asset
in our relationship with the Arab world.
And it drew us closer to them.
And ultimately, you know, we would sit with these countries,
it started off with the UAE,
and we said, "Look," you know, and by the way, you know,
Trump said this on his very first trip.
He went to Saudi Arabia, he sat with 52 Muslim nations,
and he said something he doesn't get credit for.
He said, "Look, this idea that Israel's gonna be destroyed,
put it out of your mind.
Just forget about it.
It's a pipe dream; it's never gonna happen.
And it's gonna keep you at distant, at arms length with us."
That's number one.
Number two, you know, "Radical Islamic terrorism, okay,
it's your problem first, not ours, okay.
You know, you stop it before it crosses the Atlantic Ocean.
And if you do that, you will find in America
a level of friendship you've not experienced before."
So he actually set the tone,
you know, very early in the term.
But we worked on that theme throughout.
And as we got closer to the end of the term,
we found these countries, they saw a window closing.
"How can we, you know, align ourselves with America,
you know, in a way that starts to resemble, you know,
this alliance with Israel?
How can we build this, you know,
this kind of circle of trust, you know,
around a common threat of Iran?"
And you know, it involved, you know,
some you know, fabulous discussions, negotiations,
and ultimately results.
- I don't know how much you can say on this,
but how close were you?
I mean, there were all the rumors
that there were gonna be all these other rapprochements,
and obviously, you guys literally just ran out of time.
And now, unfortunately, our administration
is looking at the Middle East very differently.
- Yeah, we would've normalized with Saudi Arabia.
Saudi Arabia would've normalized with Israel by now,
if we were still in.
It's a massive game changer.
I mean, you're talking about now,
the leader of the Muslim world.
- Right.
- Normalizing this relationship, it just changes,
it really ends, you know, ends,
just puts a period on the Arab-Israeli conflict,
and it unites everyone against radicalism.
You know, when I met
with the foreign minister of the UAE,
about six months after the Abraham Accords,
there had been a war in Gaza.
They're getting all their news from Al Jazeera,
which is very unfavorable to Israel.
I sat and I met with him
and I said to him, "How are we doing?"
He said, "No, we're passing with flying colors."
And he said to me, "You know why?"
And what he said to me was,
"The wars of the 21st century,"
now this was before Russia and Ukraine,
which may be the exception that proves the rule.
But he says,
"The wars of the 21st century are wars of ideology.
They're not wars between nations anymore.
And the main ideological war
is extremism versus the moderates.
And the moderates have to win.
And to us, the Abraham Accords
is all about the moderates winning the war."
- When you were, when the whole administration
was, you know, packing their bags,
and then there's incoming people,
did you have any communication with the incoming people,
saying, "Hey guys," and I asked Jared Kushner this as well,
"Hey, we're on the path here"?
Was there anything that you could have done
that would've continued everything?
And look, hopefully it'll continue, maybe in two years.
- Yeah, well look, for the first six months, it was,
anything Trump was, you know, verboten.
You know, no, we're not gonna...
And then they realized, you know,
the Abraham Accords are so popular
among so many different people, Democrats as well,
they began to embrace them.
But it's not about embracing them
or paying lip service to it.
It's about being a friend to Saudi Arabia.
Now look, Saudi Arabia is an imperfect country.
There's no question about it.
And they have that one incident, which is horrific.
But you know what?
You know, you know,
I'm not gonna quote Jesus because I'm Jewish.
But you know,
"Whoever's without sin, you know, come forward,"
you know, and you're not, no one's coming forward.
Saudi Arabia could be a very good friend
of the United States; they have been in the past.
We could advance that relationship.
And what Biden's done really, has been to
really push 'em away.
And they're furious with America right now,
as are some of the other Gulf nations.
They don't see America standing for moderate Sunni Islam
the way we promised we would, and the way we should.
And so, you know, when you think about the Abraham Accords,
you tend to think of it as, you know,
bilateral relations between Israel
and UAE, or Bahrain, or Morocco.
They're not; it's a triangle, right?
Israel and an Arab country are at the base,
and the U.S. is at the apex,
and U.S. plays the most important role.
Everybody's looking to the U.S.
for what they can achieve in that relationship.
We're the strongest country in the world,
we're the most important country in the world,
and everybody wants to be close with us.
And as we push countries away,
we dilute the Abraham Accords.
- Right, and if it ain't us, it's most likely China.
- It's China.
- And that's a very different world.
- Could be, right, I mean, look,
Saudi's moving closer to China, Russia, and Iran.
And that's not a shot against Israel;
it's a shot against America.
That's a signal to America,
"Guys, you know, this works both ways.
You want to push us away,
you know, we'll push you away as well."
- I want to ask you one other thing,
because when we got here,
I really didn't know what to expect.
I was bringing my team, we were gonna tour historical sites,
we were gonna talk to people like you.
But what I'm realizing now, just in five days in Jerusalem,
is that there is an incredible strength here
despite the divisions, despite the security stuff.
And, you know, you live in the Promised Land,
and what I would say is the other promised land of Florida.
(Ambassador Friedman laughs)
So what is that connection,
the freedom that's happening in Florida,
the freedom and strength that's happening here,
to me, that's what has to be exported to save America.
Which, you know, here in Jerusalem,
this is what every one of our major cities,
and they're not gonna look like geographically,
but the spirit of this place is incredible,
and it's so different than what I'm seeing
in New York and San Francisco and all of those places.
What can Israel export to the United States
that might help in our current crisis?
- You know what,
I think the most important thing is meaning,
a sense of purpose in life,
that there's a reason to be on this earth.
And we only get, you know, 70, 80, 90 years on this earth.
You want to make it count.
There's a real sense of purpose here,
that people are here for a reason.
They're building something.
They're building something that matters, that counts.
They're bringing back to life Biblical prophecies.
They're fulfilling, you know, Judeo-Christian values.
We've grown untethered from that in the United States.
You know, we don't have relationships,
interpersonal relationships like we used to.
People go on dates, you know, by texting, by WhatsApp-ing.
I mean, everybody's looking at their phone all day long.
I mean, there's, you know, they invented the iPhone here,
so it's not like they don't do it here too.
(Dave laughs)
But it's, there is a sense
that there's something bigger than ourselves
that's driving us forward.
And I gotta tell you, when you lose that,
it's a quick trip to the bottom, it really is.
I mean, you need to have that sense of meaning and purpose.
And America had that.
America was, you know, it was the,
for many people, it was the new Jerusalem.
That's what our founders thought about it.
They were Christians who viewed this as the,
you know, as the new Jerusalem, as the new, you know,
as the shining city on a hill,
as a place of purpose that would be a light to the nations.
And
we don't teach that anymore.
We don't, people don't really understand
why America was created,
why it's great.
And,
that is, I think, a very valuable message
that could come out of Jerusalem
and the whole state of Israel.
- Now I have a request for you
that just popped into my head.
- Sure.
- What do you say we do this twice a year?
We do it once in Florida and once in Israel,
and we keep working this thing out.
What do you think?
- It'd be my pleasure.
- Thank you, Ambassador. - Thanks, Dave.
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