YouSaid · the spoken record

Mark Regev

lines on the record: 38
first: 2020-07-03
most recent: 2020-07-03
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“But I did promise you two reasons for optimism. I've only given you one. And with your permission, I'd like to talk about the economics of Israel. Because as you know, over the last few years, Israel is increasingly successful economically. I think according to the World Bank last year, Israel, for the first time passed the United Kingdom in GDP per capita, it's clear we're a smaller country with a smaller economy, yes, but GDP per capita, we're up there with the United Kingdom. Israel has become an epicenter for innovation. for technology, for science, for creativity. So if the politics is right and the economics is right, do I not have a sound foundation for my belief that I can be optimistic about the future of Israel?”
2020-07-03 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Mark Regev One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's two things. It's not just Iran. It's also Iran. Iran is an important part of that, I agree. All the countries of the region feel threatened. But I think you can put it in more conceptual terms. It's a fear of what we would call this militant radical Islamism. It doesn't matter if it's ISIS or it's al-Qaeda or it's Hezbollah or it's the regime in Iran. We are allied against this and it's true it's brought us together. But once we're talking because of common threats, we're discovering that there's many other common interests too.”
2020-07-03 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Mark Regev One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, you've got to remember the importance of what I'm saying. These are countries that were hostile to Israel. They were for themselves as enemies of Israel. Some of them actually sent forces to fight Israel. And today we are having much more positive relations with them. And it's a real revolution. And I think it has to help us with the Palestinians too, because as Israel is increasingly accepted as a legitimate part of the region, as an ally, as a friend, the Palestinians are a proud part of the larger Arab family. And this has to help us affect the Palestinian track as well in a positive way. This has happened over the last 10 years. It's been further intensified over the last few years, and I expect it to continue in the years to come. This is a revolution in the Middle East.”
2020-07-03 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Mark Regev One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's not a naive optimism. I think it's based in reality. I see two megatrends in Israel, which give me every reason to be hopeful for the future. The first important trend is the reconciliation we're seeing between us and the Arab world. I mean, today Israel is talking more Arab governments than ever before in the history of the Jewish state, speaking to Arab countries in North Africa, in the Gulf. I think it's more than half the members of the Arab League today have different levels of relations with Israel. And it's for Israelis it's very exciting because we have friends and allies in the region. And it's an ongoing process and it is constantly getting stronger”
2020-07-03 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Mark Regev One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So she's a politician and she will, when she becomes the Israeli ambassador, she will cease being a politician and she will become a civil servant. She'll become part of Israel's diplomatic corps. And I can tell you in the past, we've had political appointees who've been very, very successful ambassadors. Mr. Netanyahu himself started his public life at the Israeli embassy in Washington, and after that at the United Nations as a political appointee. So because someone isn't a trained diplomat doesn't mean necessarily they're not going to succeed in their job. On the contrary.”
2020-07-03 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Mark Regev One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So every ambassador is different. She's much younger than me. She's 20 years younger than me. I have to apologize for saying this. We've never had a female Israeli ambassador in London before. We've had a female ambassador of the United Nations. We've had a female ambassador in Moscow in Paris, in Japan, in China, but we've never had, when you walk into our embassy and you have the pictures of all the previous ambassadors, there are all these men. And so she's broken at least a glass barrier, a glass ceiling at our embassy, and that's a good thing.”
2020-07-03 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Mark Regev One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“As a journalist in London, you meet many interesting people and you have many conversations with them and most of them you will keep to yourself because it's a discrete conversation. And so with your permission, I will do the same in this case.”
2020-07-03 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Mark Regev One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I'd ask the following question, and I'm not talking about her because I don't know if about her personally and what she believes, but as a principle, if it would have been black anti-Black racism, or if it would have been homophobia, or if it would have been sexism, misogyny, would she have seen it then or would she have missed it also? And I think this is the question, is there something about anti-Semitism that in some circles people don't see it even though it's clearly there? I had an example, I think it was last year, Oxfam in one of their bookshops was selling anti-Semitic literature. And of course, when it came out, they, of course, oh, this is terrible. We shouldn't have happened. But is it an aberration or is there a blind spot among certain circles that they're not seeing something that is so obvious when it's pointed out? But they didn't see it in the first place.”
2020-07-03 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Mark Regev One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So if you have a policy difference with Israel, with the Israeli government, obviously that's legitimate criticism. That's nothing to do with anti-Semitism. We have 120 members of our Israeli Knesset, and they have vibrant debates about policies. And it's nothing to do with anti-Semitism. It's a policy discussion. But what you get where it does become anti-Semitism is when you get this demonization of Israel, when Israel becomes the epicenter of evil on the planet, where Israel is in itself a creation of darkness, a conspiracy. And I can give you examples, yes, this terrible death in America. People saying, well, it's actually Israel. Something bad happens, so it has to be Israel has to be behind. Or Israel was behind the Iraq war. There is no doubt that the militant anti-Israel sort of strident position is”
2020-07-03 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Mark Regev One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I mean, anti-Semitism is supposed to be a relic of the past. Yes, anti-Semitism was supposed to be dying out. It was supposed to be on the ash heap of history and that it became an issue in Britain in the second decade of the 21st century was, I think, a shock to many people.”
2020-07-03 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Mark Regev One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Go to meetings and talks and so forth, and there's always people come up to you afterwards and they always say, oh, if only Israel did this, everything would be better. And I would always be polite and listen. And sometimes I'd smile and say, well, I'll tell that to the Prime Minister next time I talk to him on the phone. That's an interesting idea, yes. But the truth is, it's presuming there's a certain amount of hubris because they're saying you guys don't understand. You guys don't know what's good for you. I understand living far away in London. I understand better than you do. what is in your interest.”
2020-07-03 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Mark Regev One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And in the sort of regime that exists now on the West Bank under Fatar and President Abbas, if a future Palestinian state is going to just be another failed Middle Eastern state, if it's going to look like Iraq or Syria or Yemen or Libya, which unfortunately there are signs that could well be the case, how is that good for peace? How is that good for Israel? More importantly, how is that good for the Palestinians? In other words, when people say a Palestinian state is the solution, I think it's important to put a number of qualifications. Is it a Palestinian state that is peaceful? Is it a Palestinian state that is democratic? Is it a Palestinian state that wants to live with Israel side by side? Or is it just a superior platform to continue the struggle against Israel? These are questions that have to be asked.”
2020-07-03 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Mark Regev One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Because any piece has to be based on reality. You can have a two-state illusion. It might look nice on a piece of paper, but it will never be implemented. A real solution has to take into account the realities on the ground. And first and foremost, you have to build peace on security because we know that peace that can't be defended won't endure, it won't survive. peace arrangement has to be based on security arrangements. A realistic two-state solution, that is something that is serious and can work. I'd also like to say something else. When people, and it's also part of common parlance, people say, oh, the two-state solution, the two-state solution. If a future Palestinian state is just another failed Middle Eastern state, and I say that very much aware of the current political realities in Gaza under Hamas rule,”
2020-07-03 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Mark Regev One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The Palestinians. It's the Palestinians have consistently refused to engage with Israel. They prefer to go to the United Nations and to the EU and to try to get resolutions condemning Israel, but they don't negotiate face-to-face with us. And then you have to ask the following question. If the Palestinians have adopted a policy of refusing to engage, then do we let them condemn us all to the status quo or can we take initiatives that we think will help both sides better on further down the line?”
2020-07-03 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Mark Regev One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So I don't know, but I'll answer your specific point. And that is there are checkpoints and you can presume they're there because the Israelis are terrible people who just want to oppress their neighbors, or you can say maybe there's a reason the Israelis checkpoints up. If the checkpoints weren't there, would not terrorists be coming into Israel and trying to murder our people? Is that not what happened before there were checkpoints? In other words, Israel in defending itself in defending our people has taken a number of steps. Now, maybe some of our steps you could say they weren't effective or some of the steps weren't measured enough. But to argue that Israel has not the right to protect its people and that there isn't a real threat, that is to ignore reality. Now, Israel has been calling and still calls today Prime Minister Netanyahu did it this week for negotiations with the Palestinians. It's not Israel that has refused to negotiate.”
2020-07-03 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Mark Regev One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think you're giving too much credit to the UN Human Rights Council and its mechanism and the people it appoints to work for it. This council has spent more time attacking the only democracy in the Middle East than it has condemning the autocracies of the Middle East. They've spent more resolutions on democratic Israel. The only country whose body politic actually enshrines human rights than the regime in Iran or Assad's regime in Syria or the terrible regimes in Libya and in other parts of the region there's institutional bias there and I don't think it does Western media any service to Western publics when you automatically quote these groups that are known to be biased. It's not just Mark Regev who says”
2020-07-03 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Mark Regev One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We hope hurting the process of peace and reconciliation with our neighbours, but finding a more solid and rational and realistic foundation for the reconciliation that must come.”
2020-07-03 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Mark Regev One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, all Israeli governments, Labor, Likud, all governments have always said since the war of June 1967 that we won't return to the 1967 lines, that we're entitled to defensible frontiers, the lines of pre-67 weren't the lines of peaks. They weren't recognized international borders. They were ceasefire lines, and they didn't give Israel not peace or security. In fact, they were so precarious in many ways that they were an opportunity or even an invitation to aggression at Israel's most narrowest point. The country was barely nine miles wide. Now what the new government in Israel is trying to do is to say, do we have an opportunity to maybe get a situation where we can get international recognition for defensible borders? And in doing so,”
2020-07-03 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Mark Regev One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I saw myself as to explain to international audiences the thinking process and the decision making process of Israel's democratically elected government. Can I say the following? I firmly and sincerely believe, as you've heard from what we said earlier, in the essential justice of Israel's cause. And though, like all Israelis, yes, I can have a critique of this or that particular policy on the whole. totally convinced in the justice of what Israel is all about. The idea that the Jewish people deserve national self-determination in their homeland, that the Jewish state is entitled to security, that Israel lives in a very tough region and that we are entitled to defensible borders and to be able to protect ourselves. I'm not going to apologize for that. I firmly believe that. And if I, as the Israeli government spokesperson or as the”
2020-07-03 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Mark Regev One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So the second one happens a lot, okay? But I know governments are made of human beings and human beings make mistakes. They make mistakes the whole time. And governments can make mistakes. And sometimes at the time, you don't know what it was a mistake and you found afterwards that it was a mistake. Sometimes at the time you feel it was a mistake and in the end it turned out to be a right decision. But I always took pride in the following. I'm representing a democratically elected government. And to be frank, in this part of the world, there aren't so many democratically elected governments. I don't think there are any. And Israel, for all our glorious imperfections, yes, we are a free, open, tolerant, liberal, multi-party democracy. No one voted for me. Let me be clear. I didn't stand for election.”
2020-07-03 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Mark Regev One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I actually am a bit cynical when people say things like that because it's like they don't want to deal with the argument so they want to deal with the style. You said silver tipped or something you said in yourself. The way I speak. Silver time, thank you very much for correcting me. It's a way, I think the observer was saying, oh, this reg is obviously justifying in defensible, yes. But the truth is it's their way of not dealing with issue. Why couldn't they deal with the arguments? I didn't see it as a compliment. I saw them as running away from the issues.”
2020-07-03 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Mark Regev One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, as you are a professional journalist and you take pride in your professionalism, I as a diplomat take pride in my profession and I don't take it personally. If the person asking me the questions was being tough and even sometimes abusive, I would remember they are doing their job. It's their job to ask me tough questions and it's my job to give the best answers I can. And if I respect their profession and they respect my professionalism, that's fine.”
2020-07-03 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Mark Regev One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So I learned that whatever you do professionally, it's best to prepare. And so I learned, but no one told me this. It was sort of how do you say trial and error? I didn't read a book on how to be a good spokesperson, yes, or how to be a successful spokesperson. It's something that you learn with experience. And I've no doubt that over the years, the sort of mistakes I'd made earlier on in my career, I was less likely to repeat. I might have made different mistakes, yes, but you learn as you go on, as I'm sure you're a better journalist today than what you were 20 years ago, so to speak. But am I answering your question? I'm not sure.”
2020-07-03 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Mark Regev One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So I met Israeli Arabs, Palestinians when I was at university in Jerusalem. Serious conversations on politics, I think, only happened when I became more professionally involved. And I can tell you that of all the things I did in London, conversations that I had with some Palestinian intellectuals, business people were some of the most rewarding periods of my time in London.”
2020-07-03 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Mark Regev One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I understand it and I'll say something that is Be controversial, but I believe it to be true. In January, when we go to Holocaust Remembrance Day services, commemorations, people empathize with Jews who were the victims. But what if the Jewish people have decided that they don't want to be victims anymore? What if the Jewish people have decided that they don't want to be on the receiving end of persecution and violence anymore? They want to be able to defend themselves. They want to be sovereign and free and independent and equal among the nations. Will you still have solidarity for us then And I think some parts of Western society, modern Israel is not what the Jews are supposed to be all about. We're supposed to be different. No, I'm actually proud that we are no longer history's victims, that we are no longer stateless and defenseless.”
2020-07-03 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Mark Regev One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So I never was angry at my father or the way that they acted. I know that they were victims of a terrible hatred and a terrible regime. But I'll turn your question around, if you'll allow me. I remember when I was in the Israeli army, my father said something to me like he was very proud that there was a younger generation of Jews who could defend themselves if need be. Because ultimately he was of a generation where the Jews were not only stateless, but they were defenseless. I mean, the stories of Jewish leaders going to Churchill and to Roosevelt and begging them to drop bombs on the camps to stop the extermination for all sorts of reasons didn't happen. The fact that the Jews can now be sovereign and independent and defend themselves, that is, from my father's generation, that was a very significant and important change”
2020-07-03 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Mark Regev One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Correct. He never said anything to me. And I only found out that I hurt him after he passed away, of course. But what I did was not atypical. A lot of Jewish people who came to Israel, they adopted Hebrew names. It was part of like reconnecting with our past. And it was part of me connecting to Israel. Also, don't forget, Freiburg is a German name. And I always associate it with the people who tried to kill us.”
2020-07-03 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Mark Regev One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You asked tough questions, but that's your job. Yes, my father was not happy, though he never told me. And when he passed away, And I was sitting in the tradition afterwards as the family sits together for days after the funeral and together. And my sister, my older sister told me in a very older sister sort of way that you really hurt your father when you changed the name”
2020-07-03 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Mark Regev One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I wouldn't say wrong, I would say not for me. And not for the thought of things that I was looking for and my career goals and so forth. And for my wife, I mean, remember, she was born there and grew up there. And maybe she was also wanting to see broader pastures, so to speak.”
2020-07-03 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Mark Regev One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think always people are changing and there are new influences, but when we made a decision to leave the keyboards, I moved to Tel Aviv and I started doing a doctorate. And I was total failure as an academic. And my wife came to me one day, there was an ad in the paper to join the Israeli Foreign Service. And she said, why don't you take the exam, the entrance exam? And I don't know why, but they accepted me. And the truth is, had I been any more successful academic, I would never, ever have become a diplomat.”
2020-07-03 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Mark Regev One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I didn't totally turn my back because my wife was born on the keyboard. She grew up in the collective education structure and she is with me today. And so part of the keyboards would always be with me.”
2020-07-03 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Mark Regev One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“100% correct. I was on a kibbutz from 1982 through to 1989, that's seven years. Whatever one thinks about the kibbutz, it is probably the most successful experiment in real democratic socialism on the planet. And I probably therefore can say with a smile that I have more experience in practical socialism than many of your listeners.”
2020-07-03 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Mark Regev One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“they were lucky to survive he always said if you'll allow me to digress he always said that he owed his life to the Royal Air Force They were in a particularly precarious situation and one night the RAF came over and bombed Mugdebug, bomber command. And in the smoke, in the flames, in the confusion, in the chaos, in the death, they literally ripped off the Jewish stars that the Nazi regime forced them to wear so they'd be identified. They escaped to the countryside where they were in hiding until liberation.”
2020-07-03 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Mark Regev One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So that was never said explicitly. There's no doubt people of my father's generation, in the main, didn't talk about the war. They didn't talk about what they went through. And the way they dealt with it, and I don't think my father was out of the ordinary, they sort of built this huge wall between then and today, so to speak. And they went through terrible things during their war years. And of course, my father, I mean, he was a child, yes. He was an infant and then a child and then a young teen before he was liberated in 1945. And so we obviously went through very difficult things, but their way of dealing with it, which I presume modern psychology would say was totally wrong. They shouldn't have done it. But they just put it behind them. They didn't want to talk about it. And we as children never asked him. When we became young adults, we improbed him a bit, but he was never eager to talk about those sort of things.”
2020-07-03 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Mark Regev One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“My mother's family were Polish Jews, and they actually got out in the late 1920s, early 30s. And of course, had they stayed, had they not left Poland, chances are they would have been murdered like most of the Polish Jews. My grandfather on my mother's side, the family folklore, says that he was on a train and he read in a magazine on this train journey that Australia was the country of the future. And he decided the whole family should go. And so a train ride, magazine piece, and the family's lives were saved. My father's family was less lucky. They were German Jews. My father was born in Magdeburg in 1931. He used to joke that that was the wrong time or the wrong place for a Jew to be born. And they were trapped in Europe for the war years. And they came to Australia as what was at the time post-war refugees.”
2020-07-03 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Mark Regev One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, as you say quite correctly, I'm an immigrant to Israel, and that is not atypical. Israel is a country of immigrants. In many ways, we're a country of refugees. This was a country that was created by people who were seeking a homeland, many of them who were fleeing persecution or even worse. So my story is not atypical, and I'm not the only Australian Jew who's immigrated to Israel. There's quite a few of us here. I mean, Australia is a great place, yes. In many ways, there's no logical reason to leave Australia. But I remember feeling as a young man growing up in the 1970s, and there was the Omki for War of 1973, and I remember thinking that here I was in Australia, you know, living the good life. And in Israel, people were fighting and dying to protect the country. And I thought that was unfair, that I should be doing my part as well. I remember I was a teenager then saying it would be irresponsible and immoral if I wasn't willing to play.”
2020-07-03 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Mark Regev One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“To be fair, nothing is finalized until it's finalized. And so far there's been no official announcement. And so I'm afraid that until there is an official announcement, I have to be rather vague about what I'll be doing”
2020-07-03 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Mark Regev One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, indeed. In Israel, everyone who arrives internationally has to go two weeks into self-isolation. And I haven't left my flat since arriving in Israel. And I can tell you even on one morning, I got a knock at the door to check that I was, in fact, keeping my quarantine. We take these things very seriously in Israel.”
2020-07-03 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Mark Regev One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source