These discoveries are the result of a historic collaboration between the American and Israeli private sectors, which has radically changed the global position of the Israeli energy market. Israel went from being a state struggling to meet its energy needs by importing oil and other energy sources, to a country with enormous energy output that exponentially exceeds its needs.

The completion of the development of the Tamar gas field in 2013 ushered in the natural gas revolution in Israel. It was during this year that widespread use of natural gas became a part of the electricity generation process, and large and medium-sized industrial plants began to consume local, cheap and clean natural gas instead of costly and polluting petroleum distillates.

This breakthrough enabled Israel to wean itself from historical dependence on energy imports, and it is doubtful whether it could have become a reality if not for Israel's collaboration with the American private sector.

The results of the revolution were not long in coming: According to data from the Energy Ministry, since natural gas production began at Tamar, it has saved the economy a staggering 46 billion shekels ($13 billion) in energy costs alone. This has translated into a steady reduction in the price of electricity, and if not for the use of natural gas, the price of household electricity today would be dozens of percents higher.

This has also had a tremendous environmental impact. Sulfur oxides emissions in Israel have diminished by 62% and nitrogen oxides emissions decreased by 50%. The widespread health implications aside, the reduction in pollutant emissions also has considerable economic significance, translating into a saving of some NIS 14 billion ($4 billion) in air pollution damage-related costs in Israel.

In the three years that have passed since the natural gas framework regulating the production outputs and development of Tamar, Leviathan, Tanin and Karish fields, Israel's natural gas market has experienced an unprecedented momentum: Leviathan is on the brink of commercial production, the development of Tanin and Karish is well underway, and for the first time ever, exploration missions are taking place in Israel's economic waters.

Today, the gas exploration and production sector in Israel is international in nature and is based mainly on private Israeli, Greek and American companies.
No more coal

Toward the end of 2019, when production in Leviathan goes online, the Israeli economy will have at its disposal two independent production line with a maximum annual supply of 23 BCM – more than double the current production capacity. In 2021, when the Tanin and Karish offshore fields go online, maximum production capacity will reach 30 BCM per year.

The significance is clear: through these three separate gas supply systems, the Israeli economy will enter a new era characterized by a multitude of natural gas suppliers capable of producing energy from Israeli sources in excess of the country's energy needs. Theoretically, this means Israel would be able to cease all energy imports. Instead of using polluting and expensive fuels such as coal and oil, it will be possible to use the cheap local source of clean natural gas.

Moving all energy consumers in Israel to natural gas is not feasible in a short period of time, as substantial changes of this nature cannot take place overnight, but it is possible to drastically accelerate the reducing the use of coal.

According to Energy Ministry data, in 2018 the use of polluting fuels for routine electricity generation – i.e., coal and some oil distillates – was 29%. The ministry projects that the use of these polluting fuels in 2019 will drop to 27%, and it further predicts that Israel will cease using coal between 2028 and 2030.

The regulatory measures taken so far to reduce the use of coal are certainly welcome, timely and courageous, but the parallel position, which supports maintaining a relatively slow pace of departing from coal, is based on the desire to avoid becoming dependent on a single source of energy supply. This concern, however, becomes obsolete given the future of the development of Israel's offshore gas fields.

The optimal policy should determine that the use of coal must be reduced to a minimum by the end of the year, and said use should be scaled back further until the use of coal completely halts by 2024 at the latest – prior to the Energy Ministry's official policy naming 2028-2030 at the timeframe. There is no doubt that such a decision will be the most economic and environmental for the Israeli economy.

Amir Foster is executive director of the Association of Oil and Gas Exploration Industries in Israel

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Despite everything, including the friendship that has survived for decades, I can remember tough questions that I heard one woman ask back in about 1974. Why did the nearby Arab village look the way it did? Why was the quality of life and level of development there so poor, compared to – yes – our community's. What seems obvious to you can look bad to Americans. Today, the quality of life has in a sense been equalized, and at least that little village with its mud huts has grown a lot more than the kibbutz. But that doesn't matter, because a considerable number of the volunteers from the late 1960s and early 1970s are furious with Israel. Back then, they experienced the country for themselves. They saw what a country looked like after a war. Today, they are experiencing Israel via infusions from the left-leaning media.

But the real emotional schism revealed itself to me when I arrived in the US in the late 1970s. Then, the opposite question was raised – what would US Jews do if a change in their fortunes forced them to leave America? Flee? One older woman gave me a clear answer: the first choice would be Vienna, Austria. And if that didn't work out, they would leave for Germany. A current event such as the investigation into attorney Michael Cohen, which has caused all the anti-Semitic stereotypes to rear their heads, has caused a few people to question the future of the Jews in the US. The assimilated Jews are aware of their Jewishness, but Israel is not an option for them.

Some of the Jews we used to know have developed a knee-jerk anti-Israel reaction. All the existential threats to the country don't bother them. They blame the Israeli prime minister for the mass shooting at a Pittsburgh synagogue. The anti-Semitic cartoon in The New York Times reflects not only the reflexive anti-Israeli atmosphere but also the hundreds of thousands – if not millions – of Jewish readers who read The Times like their grandfathers read Psalms. The Times could only have run a cartoon like that if it was sure that American Jewry would accept it, and that some of them might even light was it was offering up.

Abandoning conventions

To understand something about ties between Israel and American Jews, we might start with a key event that took place during World War II, as the murder of millions of European Jews was coming to an end. The battle to save the Jews of Europe took place before Israel was founded, but it was a sign of conflicts and struggles to come, which continue to repeat themselves. In Israel, there are leading Holocaust scholars to whom one mustn't mention the name "Peter Bergson," the pseudonym of Irgun activist Hillel Kook. Kook's activity in American proved that one could be effective in a relatively short time, and there was no need to depend on institutionalized Jewish leadership. Researchers such as Rafael Medoff and David Wyman revealed only a generation ago how apathetic then-President Franklin D. Roosevelt was about Jewish refugees and how little he did about the mass murder itself, which his administration knew plenty about.

In his book "The Abandonment of the Jews: America and the Holocaust 1941-1945," Wyman exposes the huge moral failure of Roosevelt, the American hero that US Jewry worshipped (and many still do). At the time, the Jews' alliance to the Democratic Party was made stronger. Some of Roosevelt's close advisers were Jews. Stephen Wise, who was known as the leader of American Jews, helped Roosevelt hide the Holocaust from the Americans. If he and his friends didn't shout or cry, why should The New York Times run a headline about the annihilation of millions when it could bury the story at the bottom of an inside page?

Kook embarrassed the Jewish establishment by demanding that the US allocated special aid for the Jews. He was filmed describing the shock he felt when he saw the first report on the Holocaust in The Washington Post. Because of him and his group, the US administration established the Emergency Committee to Save the Jewish People, and some say that the committee was responsible for rescuing some 200,000 Jews. Kook thought that the Holocaust was a little more important than any awkwardness that might be caused to American Jewish leaders, and enlisted partners such as the great screenwriter Ben Hecht. They wrote provocative full-page ads that ran in The New York Times and horrified the public and organized huge events in which Hollywood stars and theater stars, including Marlon Brando and stars like Paul Muni and Edward G. Robinson, who until then had kept their Jewishness a secret.

Kook, the brother of Rabbi Avraham Yitzhak Hacohen Kook, founder of Israel's chief rabbinate, arrived from Palestine and created a new, rare kind of leadership. He behaved in a way that was unacceptable by battling for American public opinion and put direct pressure on the administration and on Congress, skirting the established Jewish leadership. Two other leaders that broke convention with American Jewry were Yitzhak Rabin, in his years as ambassador to Washington, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The Holocaust changed how leaders of American Jewry did things. One person who appeared as a great leader was Abba Hillel Silver, a Reform rabbi from Cleveland. He was a key figure in forging ties between the leadership of the Jewish population and the former Soviet Union ahead of the UN vote on partition.

The Jewish-American-Israel relationship always reflected international diplomacy. Silver joined forces with Moshe Sharett and Eliahu Epstein (Eilat), who were trying to contact Russia's ambassador to the UN, Andrei Gromyko. He succeeded and they learned that the person pushing to supposedly pro-Zionist line was none other than Josef Stalin himself. But the Russians wanted not only to push the British out of the Middle East by establishing a Jewish state, but they also wanted to influence American Jews to vote for the pro-Soviet Left in the 1948 election. It turns out that two years earlier, in the mid-term election, most American Jews has voted for Republicans to punish the Democrats for Roosevelt's pro-Arab stance. The left-wing candidate for president, who was supported by the communists, was Henry Wallace, a staunch pro-Zionist. Eventually, Harry Truman wavered, and the State Department and the American establishment as a whole threw their entire weight against the establishment of a Jewish state. The Jewish vote, general public opinion, and the position of the USSR caused Truman to go against the defense and foreign policy establishment and the US wound up supporting the establishment of a Jewish state and was the first to recognize it after it was founded on May 14, 1948.

An obviously fateful moment

After Israel was established, a kind of formula for relations with US Jewry was determined when Ben-Gurion struck a deal with Jacob Blaustein, head of the American Jewish Committee. The deal laid out the following guidelines: that Israel wanted US Jewry to continue to exist safely and to flourish; did not see itself as allowed to interfere in its affairs; saw it as an equal partner in caring for persecuted Jews in the world; and did not see it as a Jewish population in distress. This meant that Israel would refrain from activity urging American Jews to make aliyah. American Jews, who numbered 5 or 6 million, were strong and – as a community – wealthy compared to the Jewish state, which in August 1950 was home to a little over a million people and under a policy of austerity. Donations from American Jews had a decisive effect on Israel's economy.

In the 1950s, the US government was alienated from if not actually hostile to Israel, and American Jews did not have easy access to the White House under President Dwight D. Eisenhower. The establishment of the state under Truman, as well as McCarthyism, pushed more and more Jews in the direction of the Democrats. The test came when Operation Kadesh started on Oct. 29, 1956. Eisenhower blamed Israel's war against Egypt in the Sinai for eclipsing the Soviet invasion of Hungary.

At the time of Operation Kadesh, Abba Eban was doing double duty as Israel's ambassador in Washington and at the UN. In his autobiography, he writes that the 1956 operation embarrassed and confused American Jews. Abba Hillel Silver thought it was a serious mistake. American Jews worried that the operation, which was vital to Israel's security, threatened their standing in the US and thought it preferable for Israel to do nothing lest the crystal chandeliers shake over the heads of the various US Jewish organizations.

But later on, Abba Eban, one of the greatest orators in the history of the UN, gave a speech that sent a shockwave through American public opinion and brought US Jewry around to Israel's side. After the speech, Ben-Gurion wrote to Eban and told him he himself had had doubts about Kadesh, but Eban's speech had convinced him of its justness. Four months later, when both the Soviet regime and the US administration were warning Israel to withdraw immediately from the Sinai Peninsula, which it had just captured, US Jews were already united behind Israel's demand that is receive something in exchange for a withdrawal.

A similar but bigger test happened in 1967 over the Six-Day War. Israeli-American ties were far from close. There were a lot of questions about President Lyndon Johnson's stance on Egyptian leader Gamal Abdel Nasser's shenanigans. In those years, Israel depended on lobbying in the president's close circle. The Arab-Soviet "blockade" of Israel caused public opinion to swing in its direction. Johnson, who was in crisis because of the escalating Vietnam War, was mainly concerned about re-election.

A conflict of interests for the Jews

Everything was mixed up: strategic interests, the Jewish issue, and domestic politics. The closest person to Johnson who was in close contact with Israel was an American Jew named Ed Weinberg. A day before the war started, Johnson sent a warning telegram to Prime Minister Levi Eshkol stressing that Israel must not be responsible for launching a hostile action. Abba Eban read the message to the cabinet at the fateful meeting in which they decided to go to war. Weinberg sent a similar message to Israel's ambassador to the US, Abe Herman: Don't fire the first shot.

But it seems that one of the US ambassador to the UN, Arthur Goldberg, who was particularly close with Johnson, sent his Israeli counterpart, Gideon Rafael, a message saying exactly the opposite: "This is a definitive moment for Israel's existence, the problem is not oil via Eilat or not. If we do no overcome the challenge of Nasser, Israel's international and security standing will collapse, and the Arabs will attack it while they are strong."

Legendary Finance Minister Pinchas Sapir was in the US at the time. He reported on a meeting he held with Jews in Boston immediately before the war. Sapir described them as "miserable and afraid," and said they had sat up together until 1:30 a.m. "They asked, 'What will become of us?'" Sapir later wrote.

When the war actually started, Sapir was in Rio de Janeiro, but the panic was certainly similar to that felt by American Jews. Reports were saying that the Egyptians were already in Israel. "People were sitting and bursting into tears," Sapir said.

"To protect Israel, we'll have to sell our paintings, our horses, and our wives' jewelry, and maybe even our stocks," said Edmond de Rothschild. Menachem Begin heard that and said in a cabinet meeting, "And Baron Rothschild would still have something left."

Professor Michael Walzer describes the feeling on the Jewish Left in his book "Just and Unjust Wars." There was a recognition that the war actually started on May 23, 1967, when the Straits of Tiran were closed. Walzer claimed that Israel was "justifiably afraid."

"There are threats that no nation can live with," he writes. The war was, therefore, a justified pre-emptive strike, whereas the justification for the Arab threat to Israel was based on the assumption that the Jewish state had no right to defend itself because its very existence was illegal.

Always someone to blame

This is the world Israel is still living in – with one difference. Many Jews have suffered a moral collapse, and based on what they read in The Times, they think the Jewish state has no right to defend itself because even if its existence is legal, it is no longer legitimate.

It was Rabin who broke the mold of Israel handling its contact with the US administration via the Jewish establishment, and not only because the Jewish establishment was mostly Democratic and the administration of President Richard Nixon, which came to power in 1969, was Republican. Nixon was the first senior American diplomat to visit Israel after the Six-Day War. Before he was elected president, he formed close ties with the new ambassador, who had been IDF chief of staff in that war. In later years, Rabin would pay a price for his end-run around the Jewish-Democratic establishment.

Rabin was critical of the Democrats' position and praised Nixon, whom American Jews loathed. He launched direct lines of communication with US power brokers, without any need of a lobby. Leading Jews from the Democratic side warned him not to criticize the party's position. He was seen as interfering in US domestic politics, and ahead of the 1972 election openly supported Nixon's re-election bid.

The 1973 Yom Kippur War brought the American conflict of interest in the Middle East to a head. On one hand, there was a material consideration of oil, and on the other, Israel in terms of ideology and in terms of domestic US politics. Nixon, who was accused of being an anti-Semite, took Israel's side, along with Henry Kissinger, who was also not beloved by the Jews.

Before the war erupted, the matter of Soviet Jewry was a hot potato for Israel, the US administration, and US Jewry. The Jackson-Vanik amendment to the Trade Act of 1974 threatened to scupper the détente, with Congress demanding that the USSR not enjoy trade benefits unless it took steps to address human rights and allow its Jews to move to Israel freely. That initiative, which Israel and American Jews backed, threatened the crown jewel of Kissinger and Nixon's international strategy.

A future in question

What is interesting is that the more complicated Israel becomes, it is less understood by American Jewry. On one hand, the Jewish community had been traumatized, mostly when anti-Semites on both the Right and Left accused them of "double loyalty." On the other hand, there were the myths fostered by films like "Exodus," "Ben Hur," and "Cast a Giant Shadow." Jews feared events such as the trial of the Rosenbergs, who were accused of espionage and executed, or the later affair of Israeli agent Jonathan Pollard; but there was also the character Ari Ben Canaan, played by the blue-eyed Paul Newman, and Kirk Douglas as the Jewish prince.

American Jews were comfortable with the homogeneous, idealistic image of Israel exemplified by the Jaffa oranges girl, or the red roofs of kibbutz homes. Now that Israel has a much stronger presence diplomatically, economically, and in the media, it's hard for them to accept. Independent policy and even opposition to the American president, such as existed in the time of former US President Barack Obama, has led to a crisis among the Jews. Under Nixon, when Israel butted heads with the administration about aliyah from the Soviet Union, it created no political difficulties for the Jews. They were part of the Democratic opposition. Under Obama, when Netanyahu was unafraid of conflict, the Jews – who were part of the presidential coalition – were in trouble. The prime minister wasn't counting on them as a base of support for his policies against Iran.

Since then, it would seem that a rift has emerged between Israel and important sectors of American Jewry. Some Israeli leaders think that Israel must espouse a strategy of "healing the rift" with US Jewry. Some say that's a mere slogan, because liberal Jews and even some other parts of US Jewry are undergoing a process of starting to identify Israel with powers we did not know in the part: every year, hundreds of young people from abroad volunteer to serve in the IDF, and the number of visitors who arrive with Birthright-Taglit is big enough for hostile groups to try and torpedo the organization's activity.

In the first few years after the Six-Day War, aliyah from North America rose significantly. Between the Six-Day War and the Yom Kippur War, some 5,000 American Jews made aliyah each year (most of whom eventually returned). In the past few years, aliyah from North American has seen a serious uptick and is approaching the peak numbers of the late 1960s-early 1970s. In the 10 years from 2000 to 2010, American aliyah stood at 350-600 per year, whereas last year (2018), some 3,500 American Jews made aliyah. Who can say whether the trend will continue?

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On May 14, 1948, 2,000 years of exile came to an end. My parents have described this moment to me dozens of times. My father in Jerusalem, my mother at Kibbutz Kfar Hamaccabi, both of them, along with our entire persecuted nation, glued to their transistor radio. Israel's establishment was a defining moment in their lives and the lives of the Jewish people, who felt an excitement the likes of which it seems we would find difficult to imagine today.

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At the very moment when that historic declaration was read, a unique bond was formed between the State of Israel and the United States.

The Declaration of Independence, the closest thing to a constitution that Israel has, includes universal, democratic and liberal principles that reflect those same principles upon which the United States was founded. As Israel's first Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion said, "The State of Israel … will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture; it will safeguard the Holy Places of all religions; and it will be faithful to the principles of the Charter of the United Nations."

A genius document, to be sure.

When I was asked to write about the special relationship between the two countries, I was reminded of a defining moment in my life, my US citizenship ceremony. At that time, the issue of citizenship was fairly negligible from my perspective. I didn't give it much thought. I had been a green card-carrying US resident for a number of years, and I applied for citizenship for purely technical reasons. But the ceremony itself surprised me.

Imagine thousands of people of all races, backgrounds and belonging to every social status gathered together in a dreary sports arena, taking an oath of allegiance and pledging to abide by a series of laws, which while written a long time ago, remain groundbreaking to this day. I was surprised by how emotional the ceremony left me. I mean, I am the proudest Jewish Israeli there is. Why should I get all emotional over an American political ceremony? Until suddenly, I got it. I understand the uniqueness of the US political structure and the connection and similarity between Israel and the United States.

You are considered an American citizen if you agree to play by the rules of the American Declaration of Independence, as Thomas Jefferson wrote, "We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness."

Israel's Declaration of Independence and the US Declaration of Independence are a reflection of one another.

They are sisters, just like their countries.

Continuously striving to improve

Throughout the Western world, there are many today who question the ethics of liberal democracy. Liberal democracy is not the unequivocal decision that "majority rules." The majority does not rule; the majority has a moral responsibility. Liberal democracy looks out for the rights of the minority with great fervor. This is no simple task, and sometimes it's downright infuriating, but even Ben-Gurion and Jefferson knew they needed to set these foundations out in writing for future generations, lest we momentarily forget.

I have done my part for Israeli public diplomacy, in public and behind the scenes, for over a decade. I have spoken to thousands of people from all over the world thousands of times, it's in my blood. After years of public diplomacy work, I can confidently say that I know what works, and what will subtly, but definitively, silence Israel's detractors: Minority rights, women's rights, Arab rights, LGBT rights, freedom of worship and freedom of speech, even if what is being said makes us uncomfortable, government support for Israeli artists even if their work is critical of the state: All these things prove to the world that Israel, just like the US, encourages dialogue and discussion and is even attentive to them.

Liberal democracy is what allows for discussion, even if that discussion is heated. If we continue to preserve the values that both Israel and the US were founded upon, who will defeat us? As long as we take care to maintain these principles, the special relationship between the countries will also be maintained, and the BDS movement, along with all the other boycott movements, will lose their power and be swept into their natural place in the trash bin of history.

And if we could borrow one more element from the Americans, let it be the principle laid out in the preamble to the US Declaration of Independence, which notes that this historic document has been ordained and established "in order to form a more perfect Union."

Yes, the country they were fighting for and willing to give their lives for is not perfect, nor will it ever be. But they aspired to continue to improve that union, that same idea, that country. They understood the process was ongoing and would never be fully complete, but that the very existence of the process would ensure its principles were preserved.

How inspiring.

Thank you for everything, our older and wiser sister.

Noa Tishby is an Israeli actress, producer and singer.

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Krieger, 58, is a married father of seven from Kfar Haroeh in central Israel, which is also where the offices of the Shem Olam Faith and the Holocaust Institute for Education, Documentation & Research, which he established 20 years ago, are located. He set himself two principle tasks: to make the institute focus on the resilience shown during the Holocaust and make it accessible to members of the younger generation.

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Krieger was one of the pioneers of the Israeli high-school trips to the ghettos and death camps in Poland.

In 1987, when Israel did not yet have diplomatic ties with Poland, then-Tel Aviv Mayor Shlomo Lahat sent a delegation of city councilmembers to Poland. According to Krieger, Lahat had a personal relationship with the mayor of Warsaw, which was how the trip came to take place. Two of the councilmembers were friends of Krieger, who asked him to serve as a guide on their trip.

Krieger's parents were Holocaust survivors, and he himself read and researched the subject in depth.

"I took it all in from my parents, who both were in the same place in the Lodz Ghetto. My mother was there until 1944 and was sent to Auschwitz. She was in the death march, made it on all fours to Germany and was liberated at [the] Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. My father went through the labor camps, was sent to Auschwitz, was sent to labor camps and was liberated at Bergen-Belsen. I heard a lot, I read a lot about the period. I got my degrees in history at the University of Haifa, I wrote research papers. That first trip with the members of the Tel Aviv Municipality really got me to a place where I realized something needed to change."

Through his work at the Shem Olam institute, Krieger promotes a different narrative from that which we normally think of on Holocaust Remembrance Day.

"The story that was present in my home was different, [it was] a story of strength. I can barely remember stories of suffering, humiliation, starvation. It was there, but it was on the sidelines. It wasn't the central story.

"There is one example that has accompanied me throughout my life. From the time he was born, my father would fast on Fridays, not eating until they got back from the synagogue. From the moment he was sent to the labor camps, he asked himself, 'How will I preserve myself, my identity? Will it all just be about existential needs?' He decided that he would not eat his ration of bread on Friday, and he would save it for the Shabbat, for Kiddush [the Shabbat evening prayer]. And so regardless of the ups and downs of that time, when he had a slice of bread, he hid it in his armpit for Shabbat. He told us, 'I did not keep the Shabbat, the Shabbat kept me and my identity.'"

The heroism of man

Krieger says that every story told in his home had an element of strength, how they always helped someone else, how try tried to observe the religious commandments. "And then, hearing the Holocaust stories as an adult, I feel that the Jewish people messed up. Something in the story doesn't feel right. Because the story is [really] about the dilemmas and the resilience that was shown by every family, in public, in the leadership - how they dealt with ethical, moral, humanist, cultural questions. They were coping every moment.

"For example, there is a ration of bread. Do you take it from the children and give a little more to a grandmother that doesn't feel well, or how do you divide a load of bread for one family so that it lasts two days? The dilemmas were what accompanied them all the time. My story of the Holocaust is one of spiritual resilience created within the inferno. That is why I established the institute, which is turning the tables. Everyone knows the Holocaust was the greatest tragedy of the Jewish people, but they do not know that is also the most authentic laboratory that reflected the spiritual resilience and spirit that could be found in each every one of the Jews. It is true that there were people who failed, but in that whole time and despite the many dilemmas, the way they coped was miraculous.

According to Krieger, "We found official archives in Poland, in files that deal with various issues that concern all kinds of aspects of coping, we saw questions of keeping the Shabbat in such a time, of keeping the holidays like Passover, a lot of issues of mutual assistance. We found, for example, a women's organization established in the Warsaw Ghetto whose aim was to help … deported Jews from other villages that were in chaos, people who came from absolutely nothing. They took care of everything for them, and that while they were not in any better situation themselves."

Q: How is your institute different from, let's say, the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial and museum?

"All the other institutes focus on the story of suffering, the killing, the numbers. In recent years, they have also experienced a significant change, possibly because we raised the issue of resilience to the agenda, and maybe it it's the period [we are living in]. With the passing of years, we absorb different messages. Now the focus is more on resilience, education and theater in the ghetto, things that reflect the human spirit, but the gap is still huge."

Connecting with the inner language 

At Shem Olam's education department, Krieger says, "We've raised the banner of the issue of looking ahead. We have an education department that doesn't think about our children and our grandchildren today, but rather our grandchildren's great-grandchildren, [and] how we can make the Holocaust accessible to the generations that follow. Those who, when you tell them the story, will after four seconds say, 'I got it,' and lose interest. And if we add to that the distance in time and the Holocaust's transformation into a historical story, it could be complicated."

According to Krieger, there is also a problem with messaging.

"[Late President] Shimon Peres came to the UN and said, 'Never again,' and 'We will know how to fight.' That's all right, but the youth that is born into this doesn't connect with it."

On the trips to Ukraine, there is also an emphasis on, on one hand, making the Holocaust accessible to the younger generation, and on the other hand, contending with relevant issues to everyday life.

As Krieger explains, "We don't just talk about how Jews died, but how they lived."

Political strategist Moshe Klughoft recently helped Shem Olam take his efforts one step further, incorporating children's TV stars in a project aimed at helping them reach the youth market. Singers and other celebrities were given songs and stories from the Holocaust era to make their own, with the emphasis being on the sanctity of life, not the inculcation of death.

According to Krieger, every generation speaks its own language. While in Israel, we speak Hebrew, the youth speaks a different version. He says we need to take those who can speak to the younger generation in their language- whether they are singers, celebrities, like Kirel - and help them connect with the issue.

Q: A s a rabbi, do you not despise celebrity culture?

"Absolutely not. … I met with Noa in our offices, in the studio … and she really connected to the story of a mother who worries she is going to die and disappoint her son who is left alone. It's a difficult song. Noa said she wants to go and see things from up close. We went for two and a half days with the producer and the manager and she got into the story at a level that is hard for me to describe. Some of her family perished at Auschwitz, it took her to a personal place. We stood there next to Crematorium No.2 and her father told her the family's whole story. She felt like she was connected to something.

"When we left, she said, 'Let's take a selfie,' and she put it on Instagram. I am less knowledgeable about all this, but within an hour, an acquaintance of mine called me and told me I was on a page with 500,000 followers. Crazy. Later Noa returned to Israel, went to schools, talked about it, she was on TV. She helped bring the youth and the children into this important story. Instead of another ceremony …. They played the songs we made with all of the singers. That speaks to the young people and that is very important."

Q: Doesn't it make the discourse around the Holocaust superficial?

"Absolutely not. It doesn't make it superficial; it opens the gate."

Q: Speaking of Holocaust stories being made accessible to today's youth, what did you think about the "Eve Stories" Instagram project, which dramatized the plight of a Jewish teenager murdered by the Nazis by imagining her documenting her final months over social media?

"Very impressive. A fantastic project. I am very much in favor of it. I am in favor of anything that doesn't veer from the truth and takes a real thing and mediates it into the native language of the present."

Krieger attributes particular importance to communities in the United States, where he plans to embark on a similar project to the one in Israel.

"We want to take songs from the time of the Holocaust [and translate them into] foreign languages in order to open the issue up to the world. It is the defiance of anti-Semitism."

According to Krieger, "American Jewry has an important role as far as the memory of the Holocaust is concerned. With them, it's not just a memory, but a day-to-day battle.

"Students on campuses are forced to fight anti-Semitism. They are fighting BDS [the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement] and all those anti-Israel movements. When they talk about the Holocaust, they are told the Jews have always known how to cry about something. We give them material that they can use to respond, material that doesn't talk about the low points, but about the values, the greatness and the strength of those days during the Holocaust."

Q: Are you afraid the Holocaust will be forgotten?

"Absolutely. We are constantly saying, 'Never forget,' going to Poland and doing everything we can, but that is no indication. When you go to the young people, you see that there is already forgetfulness. It's true that … in Israeli society, every single person knows what the Holocaust is, but there is no longer any in-depth knowledge, and that is precisely where we enter the picture."

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World Zionist Organization Chairman Avraham Duvdevani was the one to lead the organization as it was course-correcting.

"We asked ourselves who we were," he told Israel Hayom. "This intellectual challenge led to us outlining specific and significant areas of activity while preventing overlaps with other organizations. Since then, the overall scope of the activity has grown a number of times, but the workforce has hardly changed. We just work harder and better than before. The mission of maintaining Jewish character is a constant struggle."

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The first undertaking by the newly invigorated WZO was to encourage immigration to Israel. This is a complicated task, especially in the United States, where Duvdevani says Jews see themselves as American first.

"We can't change that, so we try to convey the message that America is an address, but Israel is home, a home for American Jews. One of the tools we use to encourage aliyah is a Hebrew ulpan [seminar] where the language is taught and students also become familiar with other subjects about Israel, and the options they have if they move here."

"Over the past two years, we have opened 148 Hebrew ulpanim in France alone. When we announce the opening of a new ulpan, it's filled within a week. We have opened ulpanim in Argentina and England, as well," he said.

One mission that has not changed and that dates back to WZO's earliest days is its support of settlements and by government decree, the organization deals with everything pertaining to the settlement enterprise in and beyond the Green Line and in the Negev and the Galilee.

"On average, we help erect one or two communities a year in the Negev and the Galilee," Duvdevani noted with satisfaction. "There are quite a few difficulties on the way, like the lack of available land in the Galilee but still, we manage to ensure the Judaification of the Galilee."

The World Zionist Organization is trying to integrate its efforts to encourage immigration and its commitment to the settlement enterprise, and its latest initiative speaks of establishing a settlement comprising immigrants from North America, who will settle in a designated neighborhood in Migdal Haemek, southwest of Nazareth.

A third cause WZO champions is the education of Diaspora Jews. According to Duvdevani, "We have gone up from 50 emissary teachers to 220 teachers in schools in different countries – 130 of them in the United States –and we can't keep up with the demand. It is also impossible to separate this from another mission that's close to my heart – teaching Hebrew to Jews worldwide. We have undertaken a mission to save the Hebrew language, whose status in the Diaspora is fading."

"It used to be that you would visit any Jewish school in South America and you could converse with the students in Hebrew because they learned the language from as young as the kindergarten age. Today, unfortunately, I have to speak English with them. In the United States, you often find that you can't speak Hebrew with many rabbis."

'There is no Zionism without Judaism'

The World Zionist Organization looked for a creative solution and found it in the form of Jewish parents who could not afford to send their children to private Jewish schools.

"Parents who send their children to charter schools can choose a second language for their kids to learn, provided that a certain number of parents demand it," Duvdevani explains, "so various schools were founded where they teach Hebrew, and we assist with that instruction. The US government sponsors our emissaries – and they teach the Jewish people's language," he proclaimed.

"To raise awareness, we have initiated the establishment of a public council for the cultivation of Jewish language and culture in the United States. It comprises American Jews, each of whom must speak good Hebrew in order to be accepted as a member. There are about 8,000 Hebrew teachers in the US, but teaching isn't regulated – there are no uniform curricula, no diplomas for teachers, and no supervision."

The result, he said, is that the overall public perception of Hebrew teachers suffers.

"To rectify this situation, WZO has founded the Union of Hebrew Teachers in the United States. Within a week, 1,000 had joined it and we will oversee their training. The change we want to see hasn't happened yet, but our efforts have results," he said.

Q: If we look at Hebrew as a case study, what are your insights about the future of American Jewry and the future of Israel's relations with it?

"What we do is critical. A recent survey conducted among Jewish students in the United States asked them how they would feel if Israel were to cease to exist. Some 37% said it wouldn't matter to them, and it's only getting worse. Previous generations were reeling from the horrors of the Holocaust, but even then many American Jews didn't see eye to eye with Zionist Jews elsewhere."

"For the first Zionist Congress after Israel's inception – held in 1951 in Jerusalem – delegates came from all over the world, including a delegation from the US. They, if you can imagine, opposed the draft resolution that named the ingathering of the exiles in Israel as a top objective [for the Zionist Movement], claiming that they [American Jews] were not in exile."

Since then, Duvdevani continued, American Jewry's connection to Judaism and Zionism "has further diminished. In addition, unlike most other Jewish communities, American Jews don't really carry any 'Holocaust baggage.' They have Holocaust museums, but there is no experience that automatically communicates the importance of the Jewish state's existence as a guarantee that the Holocaust will never happen again."

"The nature of the United States as a country that praises the values of individualism is not without its impact. Judaism and Zionism in its wake, have a much more public and collective mindset – it's not that we don't see the individual as important in our culture, but the status of the collective is more significant than in the American ethos, and if public and private interests collide, public interest prevails."

"That is why Zionist youth movements have had very little success among American Jews. Herzl wouldn't have been able to establish the Zionist Movement in the United States. Our conclusion is that unless we do something to increase the activities we do today, things will go south."

Q: Do you agree that the tables have turned and while Israel may have needed American Jews' help in the past, now Israel must help American Jews to maintain their Jewish character?

"Absolutely. Recent Israeli governments have recognized that they have a responsibility for Diaspora Jews, and have backed that up with substantial investments. Programs like Birthright and Masa Israel Journey are costly endeavors, but the more we work to deepen our bond with American Jews, the more we help them – and ourselves."

"The absolute majority of American Jewish children do not come across Jewish or Zionist content – not in youth movements, not in school, and not in their community centers. At the First Zionist Congress, Herzl said that there is no Zionism without Judaism, and that is so true. I wish we had billions to invest so that every Jewish child in the world could go to a Jewish school and receive a Jewish education."

Burying our heads in the sand is dangerous

As if the cultural struggle was not hard enough, American Jews have come under actual threat in recent years.

"We are witnessing a troubling rise in anti-Semitic incidents in the United States," Duvdevani warned. "American Jewry is dealing with expressions of anti-Semitism left and right, ranging from classic to modern anti-Semitism."

The fight against anti-Semitism is another issue that the World Zionist Organization seeks to champion and its efforts in this arena are headed by WZO Vice Chairman Yaakov Hagoel.

WZO's struggle against anti-Semitism in the US takes into account the needs and sensitivities of the community and its leaders' wishes, he explained.

"There are a number of basic and important levels on which we operate, first and foremost is dealing with anti-Semitism on the internet. The internet is a prolific means of disseminating anti-Semitic messages, inciting hatred, distorting facts, and calling for the boycott of Israel."

Understanding the importance of raising public awareness of growing anti-Semitism, the World Zionist Organization established a media center dedicated to fighting anti-Semitism.

The center is staffed with young interns from around the world who participate in the Masa program, who help find and expose expressions of anti-Semitism online. Uncovering these expressions and incitement against Jews and alerting various authorities and webmasters of them helps raise awareness of the severity of the phenomenon.

"Many of these incidents are exposed and brought to the public's attention only because of WZO's project," Duvdevani said.

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"At the time, I was no longer the ambassador," Oren tells Israel Hayom.

"I was serving as an MK, but I suggested, among other things, that the US and Israel prepare a document in which they would jointly define what would be considered a violation of the nuclear deal and agree ahead of time on how the US would respond to any violations. At the end of the list, I included a request for American recognition of the Golan Heights as sovereign Israeli territory. Netanyahu brought the matter up, but Obama laughed in his face," Oren says.

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Oren served as ambassador to the US for over four years, but his intimate knowledge of bilateral relations started long before that. He grew up in New Jersey in the 1960s, the son of a Conservative Jewish family who lived in a mostly Catholic neighborhood, where he racked up a few experiences with anti-Semitism.

"So I'm not upset about or wonder at what's happening today," he says.

He joined the Habonim Dror Zionist youth movement, which wound up changing the course of his life.

In 2012, when Oren finished his ambassadorial role, he told Israel Hayom: "When I was 15, we went to Washington with the movement, and the height of the visit was a meeting with Yitzhak Rabin, who had been IDF chief of staff in the Six-Day War and was at the time Israel's ambassador to the US. Rabin talked to us some, and I felt that it was the best moment of my life. I told myself that I wanted to represent Israel in Washington. That was my life's dream."

After Ron Dermer replaced him as ambassador in 2013, Oren continued to focus on US-Israel relations. He went on a speaking tour of the US to promote his new book, "Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East: 1776 to the Present."  The book came after a long series of studies and other published books, some of which were bestsellers in the US and Israel, and mainly focused on American history and as it relates to Israel.

Take advantage of the window of opportunity

So Oren, both as a historian and as one who has sometimes had a hand in history, has his own perspective.

"The Trump administration is the most friendly toward Israel since the state was founded. In this administration, there isn't a single official who is problematic for Israel. Even in good administrations such as the ones of [Bill] Clinton or [George W.] Bush, there were senior officials who made trouble. But with Trump, there's no Condoleezza Rice, there's no Caspar Weinberger, and there's no James Baker," he says.

Q: From a historian's point of view, how does the current period of US-Israel relations look?

"Bilateral relations have undergone a process of evolution over the years. President [Harry] Truman is remembered as a friendly president because he recognized Israel, but he actually boycotted us during the War of Independence when we had our backs to the sea. [Dwight D.] Eisenhower was very tough on us and his secretary of state, John Foster Douglas, was a real anti-Semite. President John F. Kennedy was very critical. He was the first who met with Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion, but it wasn't at the White House, it was at a hotel in New York and the meeting was a difficult one.

"The big change came in the 1980s under [Ronald] Reagan, but at the beginning, he boycotted us too, because we blew up the [Osirak] reactor in Iraq. He stopped the shipments of F-16 jets and voted with Iraq against us in the UN Security Council. Today, who could imagine a scenario like that? Under Reagan, two principles that characterize [US-Israel] relations were formed: no surprises and no outward discrepancies. If we were shouting at each other, it had to be behind closed doors and not in the open. For example, when Bush Jr. published the road map [peace plan] in 2003, Arik Sharon had received it two weeks earlier. Obama was the one who violated these principles, but the current administration has reinstated them."

Q: Is this administration is the best Israel has ever had, what will a historian who looks at this period 50 or 100 years from now see?

"A lot depends on the question of how we take advantage of the opportunity and the time we have left. We don't know if the current president has another year and a half or five and a half years in office, but in any case, it's not long. We need to take advantage of this window of opportunity to address all the important issues, like Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran, the Palestinians, and so forth."

Q: Practically speaking, do you suggest taking action against Hezbollah while Trump is still in office?

"We should consider it. Hezbollah has 130,000 missiles [stored] underneath homes in 200 villages. The IDF projects a rate of fire of 2,000-4,000 missiles per day, compared to 200 to 300 per day in the Second Lebanon War. So the IDF won't have a choice but to launch an operation, and in a war, we'll need ammunition. Would a Bernie Sanders or an Elizabeth Warren administration give us ammunition? A move like that would entail heavy civilian casualties and not only on the Lebanese side of the border. Who will give us diplomatic and legal protection? Who will give us a diplomatic Iron Dome in the UN Security Council and at the International Criminal Court in The Hague? The current administration certainly will."

The challenge of bipartisan support

When he was appointed as an ambassador to the US in 2009, Oren gave up his American citizenship. Until then, like most US Jews, his family had tended to support the Democratic Party, which in the 20th century supported Jews and their state more than the conservative Republican Party did. But in recent years, Oren has personally felt, as an individual and as an emissary, that the Democrats are distancing themselves from Israel, while the Republicans are embracing it.

"In May 2010, after the Mavi Marmara flotilla, I was summoned to a meeting with all of Obama's staff at the White House. They were exerting heavy pressure to establish an international investigative committee that would probe the incident. We opposed [this], suspecting that a committee would reach foregone conclusions. During the discussion, I asked Obama's advisers if they would be willing to defend us against possible sanctions at the ICC in The Hague. I showed them a law Congress had passed in 2003, which says that if anyone tried to put American soldiers on trial, or soldiers of an American ally, the US would take steps against the nations trying to do so. I showed them the law and they answered, 'Do you really want us to boycott Norway?' I said, 'Yes,' but they laughed at me. That's how it was with Obama. The current administration doesn't laugh, it boycotts."

Q: Can relations only deteriorate after this administration?

"I don't know. There are a lot of demographic processes that indicate that the Democrats will return to power, if not in 2020 then the next time. There are Democratic candidates who are very good for Israel, but there are also others [who are not]. I don't know if a Democratic president would maintain the same policy toward Iran, or if they would return to the nuclear deal Trump pulled out of. I also don't know if American recognition of the Golan would remain in place, or the recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and the relocation of the US embassy in Israel. Bernie Sanders, for example, would certainly return to the nuclear deal and undo the embassy move. He is one of the leading Democrats and there are other progressive leaders like him."

Q: Is Israel losing the important asset of bipartisan support?

"We haven't lost bipartisan support, but it is being challenged when it comes to the question of what issue is being discussed. If it's loss of life (among Arabs), you see the cracks. In the time of Obama, there were instances like that … after Operation Cast Lead in 2009 and Operation Pillar of Defense in 2012 or after the Marmara flotilla. When it comes to Iran, for example, we've lost bipartisan support because the Democrats aren't with us. On the other hand, on the two-state solution, there is bipartisan support, and even AIPAC is in favor of it – but the Israeli government is not. So bipartisan support is being challenged from all directions."

Q: Are these processes that Israel can influence?

"We can't solve all the problems, but we do need to set a strategic goal of maintaining support among the progressives. That is a top priority, even if our success is partial. We need to bring as many delegations as possible [to Israel] and send as many representatives as possible there. We need to show ourselves that we're doing everything possible to preserve bipartisan support and all sectors of the Jewish people. Thus far, we haven't."

Q: How should Israel prepare for an era in which the US has lost its standing in the world?

"I would always tell Bibi that we need to thank Obama. Because before Obama, we had 40 years in the 'nest.' Mommy America protected us. He came and threw us out of the nest. He forced us to stand on our own two feet. We always knew that the crisis would come, and as a result of it, the prime minister went to China, to India, and to Africa, and our diplomatic situation has never been better. Israel isn't a kid anymore, it's older than half the states in the UN. The US will remain an important ally, but we are strong and can stand on our own two feet."

Despite the bleak prospects about the attitude of the Democratic Party toward Israel, Oren wants to mention one moment during the Obama administration in which they did rush to Israel's aid.

"It was 6 p.m. in Washington, 1 a.m. in Israel. I was on my way to the White House for the annual Hanukkah party," he recalls.

In Israel, it was a time of mourning. Half a day earlier, 44 firefighters, prison guards, and police had been burned alive in the worst wildfire in Israel's history. Oren and the Jewish leadership were invited to the annual White House Hanukkah party.

"I went in and my phone rang. The prime minister was on the line and said, 'Michael, we have a problem. I need you to see what the US can do. We don't have the tools to get the fire under control and we need as much flame retardant and firefighting aircraft as possible, as quickly as possible.' I told him I would speak to the president."

When Obama was available, Oren explained the situation briefly and asked for America to do everything it could.

"Obama replied, 'Give Israel everything it asks for.' We opened an emergency room in the White House and we were there most of the night to handle the crisis. Representatives of the National Security Council and Homeland Security were there with us. A few hours later, eight American firefighting aircraft that had been scrambled from US bases in Europe landed in Israel, carrying cargoes of flame retardant."

"By the way, Obama himself took off that same night for a flash visit to Afghanistan. The first call he made when he landed was to see if Israel had gotten everything it asked for. That's how it is. Even with Obama, the picture is always complicated."

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With that race, in one fell swoop, Adams managed to put Israel on the map.

But above all, the hosting of the race gave new meaning to concepts that are usually discussed at length at various academic conferences on how to improve Israel's standing, concepts such as "Israel advocacy," "branding," and "the winning the hearts and minds."

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As far as Adams is concerned, Israel advocates are doing it all wrong. He believes people don't want to be told what to think; people lose you as soon as you start preaching to them.

"You know, 85% percent of the world doesn't really care about Israel, and isn't particularly political. So we have the extremists, who hate us; we have of course our followers, who love us; but as for the massive numbers of people in the middle, if we show off this normal Israel to them they would get a favorable impression of the country," Adams said in an interview with Israel Hayom.

Adams brought the Giro d'Italia to Israel in part because he is a cycling enthusiast himself; and he has even assembled the first professional cycling team in Israel, The Israel Cycling Academy, which recently won a race similar to the Giro in Hungary.

He believes that by showing Israel to the world through the lens of the Giro, and through other major spectacles, he can transform Israel's image abroad.

That is why he has been heavily involved in other major projects to showcase Israel around the world: He took part in funding Beresheet, the first Israeli spacecraft to the moon, and although it crashed, it still managed to reach the moon bearing an Israeli flag; he runs a special fellowship program to promote Israeli research; and just recently, he turned the Eurovision Song Contest, hosted in Israel this year, into an epic production.

He hopes that by engaging in these nonstop efforts he can brand Israel as a normal country and make people curious about it, and ultimately to disabuse them of the negative perceptions they have been fed by the media.

"I don't believe that hasbara [Israel advocacy] by itself is effective, it doesn't reach the massive majority of people who don't really care about us. In the case of the Giro, we reached almost a billion television viewers and sports fans and they got to see Israel for four days, including three days of helicopter footage showing the beauty of the country," Adams said.

Adams was an advocate for Israel for many years before he made aliyah in late 2015. He is a well-known figure in the business community and heads Iberville Developments, the real estate empire founded by his parents. He was appointed as CEO and president of the company more than 20 years ago, when he was just 35, and has run it with great success ever since.

His father, Marcel, was taken into a Nazi forced-labor camp in Romania during World War II but managed to escape in 1944 and reach British-controlled Palestine. After Israel declared statehood, he fought in the War of Independence and later moved to Canada.

It was there that Marcel met his future wife, Annie, who had also made a similar journey from Romania to then-British Mandate of Palestine and then finally to Canada (at one point, she was even held in a British internment camp in Cyprus).

The company Marcel and Annie founded owns and manages countless shopping centers, office buildings, and houses, but the real home for their son Sylvan has always been in Israel. Upon making aliyah he even had the title "Self-appointed ambassador-at-large for the State of Israel" printed on his business card.

Q: What does it mean being an ambassador-at-large for Israel? Does it include being an ambassador in your native country's capital, Ottawa?

"Of course. It means representing Israel, period. The reason I call myself an ambassador is because all of my projects relate to the promotion of Israel. When I made aliyah, I decided that the next chapter of my life would be devoted to the promotion of Israel, the promotion of what I call 'normal Israel,' the Israel that we experience as residents every day: the open, the tolerant, fiercely democratic, diverse, free, and – importantly – the safe country that Israel is, and to project that message on the world stage in a massive way with projects that reach massive numbers of people.

"The usual news about Israel is very monochromatic and frankly gives a very distorted picture of what the country is all about. It is not a true portrait if all you talk about is rockets in Gaza and things like that. People have this impression that Israel is not a safe country. I am referring to the regular folk that is not that tuned in and don't have a dog in the fight but if asked, they would have a slightly negative impression of Israel and certainly don't understand that it is a diverse country and a free and open and tolerant country. The Giro is a great example that proves the case. It lifts the morale of the entire country, it unifies us and brings us together … nobody wants to miss a party, we are the most enthusiastic and energetic people I have ever seen."

Q: Are you going to bring the Giro back to Israel?

"We brought it for the first time in 101 years; we managed to take it out of Europe for the first time and bring it to Israel. So what I like to say is that it won't take 101 years to bring it back."

Q: What is your next big project in Israel?

"What I'd like to do is set up a fund, an endowment, that would provide funding to bring these kinds of events [here] on a regular basis. I would like to have a fund that is proactive and out seeking major events to bring them to Israel. And I am certainly prepared to invest heavily myself in this fund. I think the government should invest with us, but I think it should be predominantly private funds that contribute to this because I think we need to stand up for our country and provide resources for our country. The Giro is proof of this concept, Eurovision is proof of this concept that shows Israel in a very positive way. We proved that we reached a massive majority who don't care about us, those who are not interested in lecturing. Of course, I am not suggesting that we shouldn't continue to argue for our rights and our righteousness, but I think that if we want to reach masses of people we have to do this a little differently, and hasbara will not work. We need to reach people in a non-lecturing, non-polemical way and show the reality of normal Israel, show it to people. My experience with first-time visitors to Israel is that they are almost universally impressed and surprised. They say, 'We didn't know this.'"

Q: You made aliyah in late 2015 and by September you will have already seen two Israeli elections. This makes you an official Israeli. What can you tell Israelis, as a Canadian, about how to take things in perspective, in light of Israel's ongoing political drama?

"Canada is also a parliamentary democracy, but Canada is a British parliamentary democracy. And Israel has gone to proportional representation, which is a much more democratic system. Israel has one of the most democratic systems in the world. There is a counterplay: The more democracy you have, the less order you have and the more chaos you have, because every vote counts, unlike in Canada, where Prime Minister Justin Trudeau got a dominant majority for his party with only 39% of the vote. In Israel, Likud and Blue and White got about 27% each, and they have to go shopping for coalition parties. It's a very democratic system and the result of democracy is that you have a little bit more chaos. So it's interesting; we are living in interesting times."

Q: Do you miss the calm of Canadian politics?

"No country thinks it has calm politics. In Canada, although Trudeau has a constant majority, there is constant opposition and criticism, and every country faces political debates, which seems to be important to that specific country. And the only difference is that in Israel, we live in a much tougher neighborhood and the consequences are very serious. With all of that, Israel has a thriving economy, [which is] the envy of Canada, to tell you the truth. Where Canada will grow at 1% this year, Israel will grow at 3.5%, so Israel has caught up with all of the Western countries. Every place in the world has something to complain about; we are no different. In Israel, people complain about the weather. I never understood this. You know, every day is perfect, but no, Israelis say, 'It's too hot' in the summer, 'It's too cold' in the winter, 'We had rain today', 'We had wind.' And I don't know why the weather is even a subject of conversation in Israel. Come to Canada in February and tell me about the weather in Israel."

Q: So Canada and Israel share the same mission?

"I would say they share the same small country status. Because you know, Canada is at the end of the day a small country, a small player on the world stage. Israel is a much bigger player on the world stage, even though we are a small country. Because of the region that we live in and because of our history and because we are Jews, we make noise. We tend to make noise."

Q: A lot of people don't think of Canada's Jews as part of the general narrative of Israeli Zionism, unlike American Jews, who are at least recognized as having taken part in the Zionist movement's history. How would you change that?

"First of all, I think it's a wrong impression, in the sense that the Canadian Jewish community is much more traditional than the American [one]. We have much less issues with assimilation. Canadian Jews tend to be very Zionistic, and very traditional and family oriented. So I think we are a little more folksy and we certainly identify with Israel, and Canada is the fourth largest Jewish community in the world and very supportive of Israel. The US is 25% of the world's economy, and the US has a high proportion of Jews, relatively speaking. [About] 2% of the population is Jewish in the US. In Canada, it is about 1% of the population. It's a different dynamic."

Adams has a message for Israelis: Patience and the pursuit of victory are worth it. He believes Canada and Israel have been successful precisely because they had their share of failures and because they have long been considered underdogs. One of his goals is to make Israel an Olympic powerhouse, just like Canada.

"When we win medals, like every other country, we are very very proud. We [Israel] have won 9 cumulative medals … I have made a declaration that I would like us to win nine medals in a single Olympic game and this is something I am going to work on. In Canada, when we hosted the Montreal Olympics in 1976, we won zero medals. In the Vancouver Winter Olympics in 2010, we set the record for the number of gold medals ever won by a country. So it shows that it's possible to build it up if you deploy the resources in the right places. And I know that Israelis are winners. All we have to do is set up the right infrastructure and the right structures and offer the right opportunities to our athletes and we can score on the world stage, and it will accomplish my two goals: to show Israelis in the most positive light on the world stage, which brings us better feeling from the outside; and of course to engender national pride from within Israel and to unify the country."

Q: What is the single most important piece of advice you would offer Israelis, having lived in both continents? Should Israelis be optimistic?

"In fact, I experience this all the time. Israelis, when they hear me talk and say all these wonderful things about Israel, they say, 'Sylvan, I love to be around you, you are so positive.' And here is what I found about Israelis: They don't realize that we have the same problems as any modern prosperous Western nation. We have the same problems of politics, of unaffordable housing, of trying to improve the economy; all of these things happen in every single country. But sometimes, Israelis, they actually believe these problems only exist in Israel, and they are hypercritical of everything. I would say: Step back, look at how far we have come in 71 short years."

Adams took an active role in the Israel Hayom Forum for US-Israel Relations held on June 27, in Jerusalem, along with senior Israeli and American figures, with the keynote speaker being former US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley. He says the current US administration should be admired for what it has done for the Jewish state.

"President Donald Trump has been a blessing for Israel. He is the only president who has delivered on America's commitments to Israel: moving the embassy and proclaiming Jerusalem as the capital. The US is Israel's most important ally, it's the most important power in the world. It is 25% of the world's economy. It is the world's moral power and policeman which ensures that wrongs and abuses don't take place. As for Nikki Haley, we couldn't have a better spokesperson, I am only sorry that she left her post early but I am sure she will have a long career in politics and we can have no better friend than the US [when it is] led by people like her. I want to thank her for her strong moral support and for using the language of morality, and being faithful to history. We didn't just show up in 1948 and history didn't start in 1967. We have a 3,000-year connection to this land."

Adams also has praise for the Adelson family, which is the primary shareholder of the company that owns Israel Hayom.

"I want to congratulate and commend [Israel Hayom publisher] Dr. Miriam and Sheldon Adelson, because they are also doing fantastic work, including setting up the forum and bringing Haley, and course Taglit-Birthright [a program that brings Jewish youth from around the world on 10-day tours of Israel]. The Adelsons support that program so beautifully, I believe they are the largest donors and this does tremendous good work. I really commend the leadership of Miriam and Sheldon Adelson and all of the good work that they are doing."

Q: Pierre Trudeau, the father of the current prime minister, Justin Trudeau, was known as a maverick. Do you think his son will show the same bravery by moving the embassy to Jerusalem?

"I am not sure that Trudeau will be brave enough to do it for a very simple reason: demographics. There are more Muslim voters by far in Canada; Canada is a country of immigration, it accepts more immigrants per capita than any country in the world, accepting almost 1% of its population every year, so I believe it is a question of appealing to different constituencies. Trudeau is currently afraid to rock the boat … but I think in the long term all countries will move their embassies and the reality of Israel's capital being in Jerusalem will ultimately prevail."

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Israel Hayom spoke with JNF Chairman Daniel Atar ahead of the Israel Hayom Forum for US-Israel Relations on June 27.

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"The status and importance of US Jewry for Israel over the years cannot be overstated. The Jewish lobby and its influence on Congress and the Senate are also vital to Israel. Therefore, the relations between JNF-Israel and its partners in the US have been deep and warm for many years," Atar says. (US donations to the JNF exceed $150 million per year, compared to donations from everywhere else, which amount to about two-thirds of that sum.)

Q: When talking about Israel and the US, the term "special relationship" is mentioned. Does that apply to the relationship between JNF-Israel and the US, too?

"Naturally, we have many envoys spread across the US, and we support the activity of Jewish communities throughout America. We are also part of the fight against BDS. Five years ago, JNF International signed an agreement with JNF-USA that sets down rules for their relationship.

"We are working in complete harmony and cooperating well with JNF-USA in the vast majority of cases. This means that there is almost no field in which they don't support us or there is not cooperation between us, whether it's in academia, schools, youth movements, industry, handling the water crisis in Beersheba or the Arava, aid to farmers, and more. At this stage, we're trying to direct all our supporters to the Galilee and the Negev, with the goal of strengthening them and thereby strengthening Israel."

In addition to ongoing cooperation, the JNF has also decided to sue Hamas in a US court for the environmental damage that the terrorist group is causing in the western Negev. The lawsuit is currently in its final stages before being filed.

Looking for the next leaders

Atar says that the JNF is emphasizing what he defines as "our major struggle, which has existed for decades and more now than ever, against one of the phenomena that concerns us most – assimilation. In the US, it is increasing to over 70%, so the issue must be addressed and we must find the proper way of dealing with it."

Q: What does that mean?

"The main thing we're doing about it is informal education at JNF branches throughout the world. The goal is twofold: to strengthen Jewish identity and to strengthen ties to Israel. We are using a variety of methods: delegations, lectures, films, and youth movement programs, from the third grade until they reach adulthood, over the course of [many] years. Our goal is for at least some of them to become leaders in their own communities. It's obvious to us that those who become part of a world of Jewish 'content' through youth movement activity don't lose their Jewish identity and bond with Israel. Sometimes it is successful and sometimes, unfortunately, the objective numbers cause us to fail. Ultimately, US Jewry has enthusiastic Zionist supporters across the political spectrum and in this matter, the plurality of opinions is actually a source of great strength."

The land is still being redeemed

Sitting in the JNF building stirs up historic memories. It played an important role when Israel declared its independence. On Nov. 29, 1947, the United Nations declared an end to the British Mandate and that the land would be partitioned between a Jewish and an Arab state, and the leaders of the Yishuv gathered in the JNF building to confer on whether they would accept the resolution and declare an independent Jewish state. In 1988, a decision was made to turn most of the building into a museum devoted to JNF activity and its contributions to the State of Israel. The question of how relevant the JNF was came up even before the idea was floated.

"The JNF is more relevant today than ever," Atar says.

"Apart from the urgent issue of strengthening Jewish identity and links to Israel, the basic matter has not changed – we are still carrying out the commandment on which the JNF was founded: redeeming land. I discovered that a lot of people don't often know that, there are battles against strong forces who bring in money from abroad, the United Arab Emirates for example, that was raised to try and take control of land in our homeland.

"In the past year and a half, the JNF has invested about 500 million shekels ($150 million) in acquiring land, mostly for farmers who are on the verge of bankruptcy. We bought it and immediately leased it to them so they could keep working it. It won't go to waste, and we will keep producing food in Israel. That is how we defend the state's borders, our hold on the land, and the supreme value of Zionism. To that, add our support for youth movements worldwide, putting together work plans and training counselors … and ingraining Zionism, mostly through the delegations of teachers who teach at Jewish schools that we bring to Israel and expose to all the JNF's various activities."

Relocation to Dimona

The main tenet of the JNF's vision for the coming decades is its Israel 2040 plan. The plan is taken into account in all JNF activities and carries extra weight.

"The idea began to take form only a few months ago. The main goal is to bring half a million new residents to the Galilee and a million new residents to the Negev. I'm already waiting to talk with the finance minister in the next government about a budget and getting it started right away."

The plan's official and catchy name is "Relocation Israel – JNF is building the land of tomorrow." Atar is completely committed to it.

"The game-changer that we believe makes it possible to implement the plan is Israeli technology, which does wondrous things and is in demand worldwide. We intend to turn the Galilee into a world powerhouse of food-tech, agro-tech, and biotech. The Negev – in conjunction with the IDF's technology units, which are moving their bases to the South – will make it into a capital of cybertech, security and defense industry, and artificial intelligence."

Q: What are the main emphases of the plan?

"The important goal is to create a demographic change by bringing in a new, strong population that can depend on itself economically, unlike what is happening now. The stress will be on high-tech villages, science campuses, and high-end R and D centers. Alongside them, we'll set up smart cities that are capable of taking in a young, strong, and lively population, and supply everything they need. By doing so, we hope to attract investors and developers, engineers and programmers, young families and students from Israel and all over the world.

"Instead of relocating to Silicon Valley in California, they'll want to relocate to Beersheba and Kiryat Shmona, Nazareth Illit and Dimona. That's a real revolution, and it all stems from the understanding that the strategic strength of the State of Israel depends on there being a healthy and balanced Israeli population, not only in central Israel, which is what we have currently."

Atar is not forgetting the role Diaspora Jews will play in bringing the plan to fruition.

"I believe that Diaspora Jews can and should play a major role in achieving this goal. First of all by making aliyah and moving to those areas. That's not supposed to happen in a vacuum, but rather as part of a complete plan we'll be spearheading in the next few years. I am appealing to them directly: you can be part of meeting Zionism's biggest challenge in the next few decades, and join the many Jews who have already come to Israel in the years the state has existed."

Atar says that "on the most basic level, there's nothing like seeing for yourself to understand the importance of the JNF. It's not by chance that there are thousands of kilometers of bike trails and thousands of acres of trees that have made Israel the only country in the world in which the number of trees grows from year to year. We are present in every aspect of what Israel is: information education, youth activity, pre-army preparatory academies, and now, of course, the cherry on the cake – bringing people to live in the Galilee and the Negev.

"It gives me great satisfaction on a personal level, too. The vitality of the JNF increases every day, and as long as I'm in this role, we will do everything to reach that goal."

The post 'The JNF is more relevant today than ever' appeared first on www.israelhayom.com.

During the meeting, he said the two countries have a "special relationship" similar to what America had with its ally the United Kingdom.

Never before had the White House described its partnership with Israel in such clear terms, as a country that shared the same set of values, a common heritage, and a similar seminal ethos. 

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But when Kennedy talked about the special relationship, he meant more than just values and ideology. 

By 1962, the relationship had grown closer because Kennedy saw Israel as a security asset that could help advance vital US interests in the Middle East. 

Just four months prior to his meeting with Meir, he decided to cross the Rubicon by allowing Israel to procure Hawk surface-to-air missiles.

This was the first time the US let Israel buy such advanced weapon systems, underscoring Kennedy's assessment that the special relationship was of strategic value, and not just a reflection of common values.  

August 1962 was a watershed moment that finally put an end to two separate tracks in the US-Israel relationship: the value-based track and the security-based track. 

The discord that often accompanied this bifurcated relationship began to wane by the late 1950s and ultimately disappeared when the two sides signed the Hawk deal. 

A mini America in the desert

The competing tracks were also very much present in the months prior to the state's founding as the Truman administration grappled with the question of whether to support the UN Partition Plan and whether it should recognize a Jewish state after the plan was approved. 

In this major intra-administration clash, there was President Harry Truman on one side and almost everyone else in his administration on the other side.

The opposition among US government agencies stemmed from a strategic assessment that expressed support for a new Jewish state would threaten core US interests in the region. 

Pentagon and State Department officials said any gesture that would be interpreted as supportive of Jewish independence or recognition of the new state would deal a major blow to America's standing in the Arab world.

With the Cold War clouding the skies of the Middle East, American bureaucrats saw Arab states as natural partners in the effort to check Soviet influence in this crucial part of the world. 

The idea was that a pro-Arab policy would help marshal support and ease the task of containing Moscow, as well as ensure an uninterrupted flow of cheap oil from the Middle East to Western Europe.

As a result, the bureaucrats adopted a more confrontational view toward the tiny Jewish population in Palestine and its statehood efforts. 

But they were countered by others in the administration who offered a different approach, who adopted the "special relationship" mantra, and who tirelessly courted the president, arguing that supporting the Jewish entity was in line with US values and with America's mission. 

This sentiment was shared by a cross-section of American society. 

Thus, even as officials in Washington tried to have the US adopt a policy based on narrow US interests and strategic paradigms, over at Main Street, a special relationship was in the making. 

Ordinary Americans believed there should be a special relationship with Israel because they saw the Jewish community in pre-state Israel as a small version of the American experiment, with a similar history and ideology. 

They were captivated by the state-in-the-making's pioneering spirit and its determination to fight for survival and meet any challenge, very much like America's determination to conquer new frontiers, move westwards and fulfill its manifest destiny despite the many challenges that lay ahead. 

A central theme of this yearning for a special relationship was the perception of the Zionist enterprise as an island of entrepreneurialism, progress, modernization and democracy in an authoritarian region that was stuck in the past. 

The ethos of the frontier, as well as the burning desire to tap the human potential and spread to the vast expanses in the West had a striking resemblance to the Zionist ethos of making the desert bloom. 

Moreover, the campaign to build a national home for a persecuted minority and resurrect Jewish statehood resonated with many Americans because it was a distilled version of their own national ethos and experience.

Americans saw the formation of the Israeli nation as a path that their own nation took; likewise, Israel's tale of a nation formed from the ingathering of the exiles could have just as well been America's own story, as far as many were concerned.

Of course, the deep religiosity of many Americans, and their love of the Old Testament and the Holy Land, was also a major factor in shaping this view. This affinity captured the imagination of many Christians in America, and especially evangelicals, who as early as the 19th century called for the US to help revive Jewish statehood in the Holy Land. 

The pastor of George Bush, a relative of the two presidents, the preachers Thomas De Witt Talmage and many others, including Anna and Horatio Spafford who established the American Colony in Jerusalem, campaigned tirelessly to revive Jewish independence in the land of Israel. 

Bumps in the road

The two approaches to Jewish statehood in the Truman administration came to a head on the eve of independence. 

Truman's close adviser Clark Clifford was the unofficial leader of the camp that advocated a special relationship. Although he was not Jewish, he sympathized with the struggle of the Jewish community in Palestine. 

He considered the establishment of a Jewish home to be a payment of an old historical debt to the Jews after the tragedy of the Holocaust and the ineffective efforts of the Truman-Roosevelt administration to help save the Jews. 

Clifford was also concerned that Truman's rival in the 1948 presidential election, New York Governor Thomas Dewey, would win because of his popularity with Jewish voters. 

Thus, the adviser concluded that a presidential decision to recognize Israel would help his boss in the race and get him the lion's share of the Jewish vote. Hence, the ideological and political considerations fused into one dimension and convinced Truman that he should side with those in his administration calling for immediate recognition. 

Despite being under heavy pressure to remain neutral, Truman made a quick decision and only 11 minutes passed between Israel declaring independence and America recognizing the Jewish state. That was a victory for those who advocated a special relationship, but it was a short-lived victory, because over the ensuing decade, what governed US policy toward Jerusalem was its national and strategic interests, not the values and ideology it shared with the Jewish state. 

Those in the administration who were sidelined during the debate over recognition of Israel, ultimately carried the day during the rest of the Truman presidency and into the 1950s and early 1960s. 

Their view, that the US should focus on creating an Arab coalition against the Soviets, ultimately prevailed. 

Thus, Israel found itself in the backseat and estranged from its ally, which was too focused on regional defense (culminating with the US forging of the Baghdad Pact with Arab nations). 

A stick with no carrot

During the first decade of the relationship, Israel was not viewed as a strategic partner. Moreover, President Dwight D. Eisenhower twice froze aid packages: in 1953, to pressure Israel to stop its construction of the national water carrier because it was in demilitarized land on the border with Syria; and in 1956, to force Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion to withdraw Israeli troops from Sinai after the Suez Crisis.

In both cases, Israeli allies in Congress, among the American people and in the Jewish community, could not stop these punitive steps and failed to win over with their arguments that Israel and the US should have a special relationship. 

As far as the White House was concerned, Israel had become a strategic liability. 

On top of that, these were the years when America was obsessed with countering communism, with Senator Joseph McCarthy's witch hunt and the House Un-American Activities Committee's endless efforts to expose communists.

In light of this climate, the Jewish community chose to scale back its efforts to create a special relationship, lest it trigger a backlash within the administration. 

Israel was left in the lurch, despite proving itself to be a de facto strategic asset when it provided the CIA with the transcript of Nikita Khrushchev's secret speech in 1956.

The dramatic turning point that finally convinced the Eisenhower administration that it should embrace Israel was the eruption of the turbulence in the region in 1958. 

The crisis, which saw Jordan almost fall into Moscow's orbit, was a seminal moment for US foreign policy because for the first time it cast Israel as a strategic asset that was willing to take risks to protect Western interests in the Middle East. 

At the height of the crisis, the US used Israeli airspace for three days after a revolution in Iraq. Eisenhower used the Israeli air corridor to help stabilize Iraq's neighbor Jordan, making sure the pro-American Hashemite family that ruled the kingdom would survive rather than be toppled like the Hashemite family in Iraq. 

Thus, thanks to Israel, the US supplied Jordan with strategic supplies and saved it from becoming a Soviet bastion. 

During that operation, Israel was the only country in the region that let Western planes pass through its airspace, and this was not lost on Eisenhower. 

It was also not lost on Moscow, which issued a strong rebuke against Israel. 

The crisis did not change actual policies and Israel did not get immediate rewards for helping the US, but the perceptual change was clearly felt in Washington. This transformation paved the way for the Kennedy administration's decision to sell Israel Hawk missiles, ending a longstanding taboo on selling arms to the Jewish state. 

The beginning of a beautiful friendship

Eisenhower continued to heed the advice of his pro-Arab advisers even after the 1958 crisis and refused to sell Israel Hawk missiles, but his attitude toward Ben-Gurion was much more positive due to the fact that Israel's stature in Washington had changed dramatically. 

A UN National Security Council memo from August 1958, two months after the operation, made it clear: "If we choose to combat radical Arab nationalism and to hold Persian Gulf oil by force if necessary, then a logical corollary would be to support Israel as the only pro-West power left in the Near East ."

Eisenhower also joined this assessment and in a discussion he held on this matter, he proposed making Israel the head of the spear in this new regional strategy, whose goal was to "decapitate the head of the [Egyptian] snake."

This perceptual shift in the relationship is what led four years later to the Hawk deal and to the sale of much more sophisticated weapon systems later on. 

The Hawk deal closed the gap between the two competing attitudes toward Israel and created a symbiosis between those who harbored a more value-based approach and those who saw Israel through the strategic lens only. 

From then on, it was impossible to go back to the dark days of the 1950s. 

With the help of public opinion 

Despite the strategic shift in relations and the considerable sway Israel's supporters had in Washington (including through lobbying groups), the two countries have had their share of crises.

In 1963, the "nuclear crisis" erupted after President Kennedy insisted that Israel allow inspectors access to the Dimona reactor.

Another crisis took place during Richard Nixon's presidency, when the administration tried to promote its regional peace plan based on an almost complete Israeli withdrawal from Sinai and the West Bank. 

Nixon's successor Gerald Ford also locked horns with the Israeli government and declared a potential "reassessment" in his policies toward Jerusalem because Israel refused to make more territorial concessions as part of its interim deal with Egypt. 

President George H.W. Bush also clashed with Israel, twice. In 1992, he refused to grant Israel loan guarantees because he wanted an Israeli settlement freeze in return. 

A year earlier, Bush and then-Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir had a feud over the peace process. 

President Barack Obama's presidency was also full of bilateral crises owing to his determination to move forward in the peace process and his accommodating approach to Iran and pro-Islamist movements in the region. 

But for all the crises and disagreements, the foundation of the relationship has remained rock solid because it has always been based on security interests and shared values. 

And all through the crises, never did America revert back to its hostile approach from the 1950s. 

Moreover, in many cases, it was Congress that has stood by Israel's side and made sure the president would not take punitive steps against Israel. 

This was the case after Ford threatened a reassessment and after President Jimmy Carter tried to impose a peace plan on Israel. 

The Golden Age

Even though in recent years support for Israel has eroded among liberals in the Democratic Party, support for Israel among the general public has remained steady. 

Moreover, the bold moves on the part of the Trump administration show that the two nations are now in a golden age in their relationship. 

The extraordinary personal bond between President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is very much like the chemistry between Lyndon B. Johnson and Prime Minister Levi Eshkol in the 1960s. 

Thus, in light of this deep appreciation and empathy, it is safe to assume that the administration's much-anticipated peace plan will not create a major rift between the two sides. 

The Israel-US alliance has a promising and stable future.   

The post Israel and the US: The eternal covenant appeared first on www.israelhayom.com.

"Ladies and gentlemen, what a special pleasure and honor it is for me to be sharing the stage with this powerhouse lineup at the inaugural Israel Hayom Forum for US–Israel Relations, celebrating the warm friendship between Israel and our closest ally, the United States of America.

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"Moshe Arens, represented by his daughter Aliza. His accomplishments are too long to mention. But I had the personal privilege a couple of years ago, to hand to Moshe Arens a Bonei Zion Lifetime Achievement Award for meritorious service to the State by an English speaking Oleh. At age 90, he took the stage and delivered a warm and brilliant acceptance speech. Aliza, I was privileged to have known your father, a truly special man.

"Boaz Bismuth, capable editor in chief of the newspaper with the largest circulation in Israel. He is smart, yet warm; hard-working, yet extremely sociable, and also, someone with whom I can converse in French. Merci, Boaz, de m'avoir invité de participer a cette conférence importante.

"Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, you are one of the world's most respected leaders, earning our country new friendships amongst world leaders in Moscow, Beijing, New Delhi, Tokyo, multiple capitals in South America and Africa, and even in certain Arab capitals, a line-up that would have been unthinkable before your tireless outreach to formerly hostile nations. But let's not forget your friendship with the most important national leader, President Donald Trump, with whom, it appears you have a genuine Bro-mance. Well done, Prime Minister, and good luck in the upcoming elections.

"Special advisor to the president Jason Greenblatt. Jason and I just arrived here from the Peace to Prosperity Workshop in Bahrain, where I was honored to be included in the Israeli delegation. We are making new friends in the Sunni Arab world, thanks largely to Jason's, Jared Kushner's, and Ambassador Friedman's persistent efforts. And of course, thanks to you your boss, President Trump for moving the embassy to Jerusalem, recognizing Israel's sovereignty over the Golan Heights, and being so engaged in trying to solve this problem using a different approach than the unsuccessful strategies tried in the past.

"The payoff in terms of investment and the peace dividend that will follow should be persuasive, even if the Palestinian leaders don't yet see it that way. I sat together with Palestinian businessmen at the conference, who withstood pressures at home urging them not to attend, because of the substantial opportunities this process offers for their people. For your information, Jason has the political part of the 'deal of the century' in his back pocket, but I couldn't get him to show it to me.

"Ambassador David Friedman, you were forced to skip Manama, as you were working on another key file with John Bolton, the Russians, and us: keeping Iran out of Syria. Many moving parts to all of this, but what can better describe the United States' commitment to Israel's security and prosperity than investing so much effort, by America's best and brightest. Thank you so much for all that you are doing. We will be celebrating America's birthday in a few days in Jerusalem. Happy 243rd, Mr. Ambassador.

"Miriam Adelson. Special thanks to you for hosting this event celebrating the unique relationship between our two countries. But more importantly, thanks to you and your husband Sheldon for your love of Israel and unfailing generosity and philanthropy on behalf of this country and the Jewish People. Co-incidentally, these are precisely the two themes of my own philanthropy: promoting Israel, and strengthening Jewish identity in the diaspora. Miri, I salute you for the outstanding work you are doing, and am proud to call you a friend. And best wishes to you Sheldon, it is great to see you here in good form, after your recent health battle. Welcome back.

"And last, but certainly not least, former Governor, former Ambassador, and dare I say what everyone else here is thinking, future President (after President Trump's 2nd term, of course), Nikki Haley. Ambassador Haley, may I call you Nikki? Thank you for your unfailing efforts to stand up for what is right and following a morally righteous path, speaking truth to power. You were right to point out that UNWRA perpetuates, rather than works to alleviate the Palestinian refugee issue, and by logical extension, to de-fund this organization until necessary reforms are implemented. You were also right to withdraw the United States from the Orwellian UN Human Rights Council, which routinely proclaims harsh criticism of democratic Israel, while giving a virtual free pass to rogue states such as Venezuela, North Korea, Iran, and Syria. Nikki, Israel couldn't have a better friend. Thank you too on behalf of the entire Jewish People. We already miss your brilliance at the UN.

"So, why is a Canadian guy like me invited to present, alongside these most distinguished speakers at a conference celebrating the US-Israeli relationship? Well, when my wife Margaret and I made Aliya, three short years ago, I printed up these business cards, with a title that reads "Self-Appointed Ambassador at large, for the State of Israel". So Nikki, and David, you're not the only "Ambassadors" on this stage tonight. And, as an Israeli who grew up some 50kms from the US border, I know something about the special relationship with the world's foremost economic and moral superpower.

"Having enjoyed a successful business career, I decided to devote the next chapter of my life to promoting my adopted country, the homeland of the Jewish People. Specifically, I want to speak to the large majority of people around the world who neither particularly like us nor do they strenuously dislike us, because, in fact, they really don't know Israel. But if asked, this massive constituency would largely have a negative opinion of our country. This is due to the constant drumbeat of monochromatic, unidimensional news coverage, focussed exclusively on "the conflict". My mission is to reach out to this silent majority and show them the real Israel, that we who live here experience daily: the diverse, tolerant, open, pluralistic, friendly, energetic, fiercely democratic (just ask our PM how democratic we are here), and most importantly, safe Israel that I know and love. I like to call this: "Normal", yet exemplary Israel.

"Exemplary, because our Jewish cultural imperative obligates us to work towards something called Tikkun Olam, literally healing the world. We are using our technological prowess as a force of good around the globe, helping others in a multitude of areas: helping in drought agriculture, solar-powered toilets in Africa, life saving juvenile heart surgery for Palestinians and Africans, disaster recovery wherever needed, artificial limb technology, and many, many more areas, where Israeli technology and know-how are helping the less fortunate. I'm proud to say that I am an important donor to a number of these programs.

"Our Normal Israel is a haven that provided for an in-gathering of Jewish exiles from 6 continents (there are no Jews or anyone else from Antarctica). Nikki, I don't know if you've ever met any Indian Jews, but I have relatives here through marriage, who are of Indian descent, somewhat recently arrived in Israel, and absolutely thriving here. This is a big, successful, tolerant melting pot.

"But we also have a 20% Arab minority, who enjoy democratic and human rights, including freedoms of worship and speech, unknown elsewhere in this region. We have Arab-Israeli policemen, lawyers, and judges, Arab-Israeli doctors and nurses; believe me, when you're sick in the hospital, you're not asking your doctor about his ethnic origins. The reverse is also true, by the way; your doctor doesn't care about whether you celebrate Shabbat, or Ramadan. We have Arab diplomats representing Israel abroad, and of course, Arab-Israeli Members of Knesset. We even have Arab-Israeli soldiers defending their country. And, somehow, in all this diversity, we all seem to get along pretty well...most of the time.

"When lazy, irresponsible journalists ignore this "Normal" Israel, and portray us to an unfamiliar audience as a war zone, well, President Trump coined a phrase for this: Fake News.

"My experience with first-time visitors to Israel is that they are almost universally surprised and impressed, as the Israel they experience is not what the Fake News led them to expect.

"Some of you may know that I brought the Giro d'Italia Big Start to Israel last year, as part of our 70th birthday celebrations. The Giro is the world's fourth most watched event, after the Olympic Games, World Cup of Soccer, and Tour de France. Close to 1 billion people watched the Giro on TV. Compare this to the largest watched event on the American calendar, the Super Bowl, the 2019 edition of which drew a "mere" 98M viewers. And, unlike the Super Bowl which takes place in an indoor stadium, bicycle racing happens outdoors. So 1 billion viewers saw a large part of our beautiful country, through stunning helicopter photography, from Haifa in the north all the way down to Eilat in the south. I like to think of this as bringing 1 billion first time visitors to Israel, via their TV sets. I told Tourism Minister Yariv Levin to expect a BG and AG effect on tourist visits here: Before the Giro and After the Giro. He is justifiably proud that tourism to Israel has increased to over 4.5M annual visitors on his watch; I truly believe we can do better, much better, as we can and should attract 20M tourists a year. Then, the opinions of our country would change. Prime Minister, let's work together on this, we can make this happen. This will pay for itself many times over, both financially, and in goodwill.

"I also know something else about Israelis; we want to be loved. So if we can reach out to the world in a massive way, and present a positive image of our country, this engenders national pride and unifies our citizens.

"My plan is to bring a constant stream of events such as this, in various fields: Sports, Culture, Music, Science, Arts, Business, and others. To accomplish this, I wish to create a permanent endowment of at least $100M, which I think should be funded largely by private donations, but also with some significant Government support. I am ready to lead by example as the lead donor to this fund. Such an endowment would provide a sure source of funding for these sorts of activities in the future, and ensure more events are held in Israel. The Giro was proof of concept in terms of its effectiveness in projecting Normal Israel abroad and also in fostering National pride and unity amongst Israelis. So was Eurovision 2019 in Tel Aviv, which was seen by over 200M music fans. So was our lunar mission: Bereshit, which demonstrated Israeli ingenuity and technological prowess on a shoestring budget. I was proud to make important contributions to these projects. So did the Adelsons, and the Government of Israel. I think they deserve our applause. Thank you, partners. Sylvan begins the clapping.

"If we can bring major international events to Israel on a regular basis, we can change the image of our country, which sadly today, for the reasons I've described, is not very good. I am calling on philanthropic Israelis and diaspora Jews, as well as the State of Israel to join me in this endeavor. I'll be happy to take pledges at the end of this conference.

"BDS is a small, but very vocal group of haters, astute in the use of modern media techniques. They are inflicting real harm to Israel, by infecting the minds of the silent majority, especially amongst the younger population, including our Jewish Youth, who are sadly ignorant of our history and the reason a Jewish State was re-created in Eretz Israel after a 2000 year absence. By showing our Normal Israel to those people, bypassing the traditional Fake News Media, we are putting a lie to the distortions of BDS, and encouraging the a-political majority to reconsider what they've been sold. This can be done without lecturing, but rather, in this age of short attention spans, with appealing visual and sensory imagery. We have a great product: this special country. We need to sell it better.

"People who know my mission ask me: Sylvan, what are you bringing next? Well, I'm working on several interesting new projects. But don't worry, there will be more, much more, as I'm JUST. GETTING. STARTED.

"God bless the USA. God bless Israel. Thank you."

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