DANIEL REISNER PODCAST TRANSCRIPT
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Daniel will begin as a way of introduction. Thank you very much. Again, for being here, you have one of the most interesting as a lawyer I've ever seen. It's really unbelievable. You started your career in the IDF as the head of the international law department. You were there for, I think almost 20 years, 19 years.

Um, after that you went into private practice, um, where you deal with all sorts of interesting, uh, international more issues of regulation, uh, trade Homeland defense, uh, in between, and throughout those roles, you've been involved in the peace process and, uh, advising different Israeli governments. You're also a teacher.

I must note that I could speak to you about each one of these items for hours and hours now, as unfortunately, we don't have that much time and we're going to have,  so much interesting information into an hour or so. So, um, you know, one of the things I love speaking to Israelis and do, as you can speak to direct, there's a bit more of a, there's not as much social code.

So one of the things I was writing as I meet for the first time, they say, I tell where are you from? Uh, other places you can't really ask such a question, but I'll start with that. Where are you from? Tell us about your background may be pre ideas. So I was born in a, in a town in the North of Israel called Haifa.

Uh, but I spent the formative years until age 10. I grew up in London because my father was a banker. So he took the family with him to London. Then, unfortunately, my father passed away when in London. And so we came back to Israel and I went back to being an Israeli boy and, uh, And when I grew up in reached age 18 and finished high school, the question is, would I do the regular army or would I do what we call the military academic reserve, uh, which is a program whereby you study first.

And when you serve in the military in your chosen profession, and I decided after a lot of back and forth to choose between my two interests, one was computers and the army had already offered me a position in the rather. Uh, a prestigious, uh, computer, uh, unit, or should I go and study law, which I had no idea that was interesting or not, but it sounded like something I could enjoy.

And then serve as a lawyer for the military. And I chose plan B and, and, uh, and more or less, it was all downhill from there. So I funded the Tel Aviv university and then joined the military advocate General's Corps in the IDF as a young, very young, uh, ed, not even a lawyer, the young law school graduate.

And, and that started my career. Wow. Unbelievable. So, I mean, I know you, other people that have entered that route, um, you know, different departments in the IDF, but, um, you know, and, and Israel is a place of so many lawyers. How do you distinguish yourself? How did you land up progressing, uh, and ultimately leading the IDF legal departments?

How did that come about? Well, you know, when you are a military officer, uh, one of the questions is what are the criteria for advancement in the military? Okay. Uh, um, uh, and I think, eh, eh, eh, uh, w I once coined the phrase saying that there are three criteria for advancement in the military, one is capability.

One is connections, and one is luck. And that is not necessarily the right sequence. Okay. So I think I was fortunate enough to be in the right place at the right time. I explained what I need. I joined as a young officer in the international law department. Um, and I went there and I was fortunate enough to be given responsibility for some of the more important.

Uh, security related desks of that department, which brought me in contact with all the operational part of the army. But also because I was a native English speaker, I was the obvious choice. Every time there was an international dispute or something, which required the legal English, I with the obvious choice.

And therefore when we had, um, Our first international arbitration ever, which was with Egypt on the TBA arbitration. So I was chosen to be the lawyer on the, on the arbitration. So I, and incident after incident, that we're fortunate enough to meet the right place at the right time with the right smile.

And therefore what actually happened was when the first Intifada broke out in 1987. Uh, I was the lawyer responsible for supervising counter-terrorism activity, the idea from a legal perspective. So that brought me to the attention of everyone, because I was in all the meetings saying you can't do that.

You can't do that. I have no idea about that either. And so everyone knew me and then the Intifada ended the 1993, the Oslo process. And suddenly we embarked on the peace negotiation. So. Again, what do you need for peace negotiations? Someone who knows the facts on the ground while I'm there and someone who can, I could negotiate and draft in English.

Well, that's me. And so I found myself as a, as a Saudi on the peace negotiation team. Uh, and then I had incredible fortune, uh, that in 1994, By which time I was a nine year veteran, which is obviously nothing, but, uh, I was a veteran than I was the old guy. 'cause I was the oldest serving officer in the unit.

Um, uh, the peace negotiations with Jordan broke out. And the interesting figures that, uh, uh, usually such negotiations would be led by the legal advisor of the ministry of foreign affairs. But the prime minister then trusted this negotiation to the legal advisor of the ministry of defense. And the point is that he hated the legal advisor of the ministry of foreign affairs.

So he refused to let him and his team participate in the negotiations. So he needed a lawyer. So he called me up and said, how would you like to be the lawyer for the peace process with Jordan? And I said, where do I sign? And so I ended up being the lawyer who negotiated the security of the water, the border, eh, the Jordanian agreement, just because I hadn't angered somewhere.

So being in the right place at the right time. And by 1995, would I be doing that for about 10 years? For some reason, the military thought I was good enough to head the department. And so they pointed me to that position of point position I held for about nine years. Wow. Really unbelievable. And you know, I read one of your press releases on the ministry of foreign affairs website, so detailed about international law issues and, you know, actions on the ground.

You know, looking back on those years, you've done so much. What, what stands out as a accomplishments that you're proud of and B frustrations, you know, I've heard you speak about how international law can only go so far. Um, you know, the, the, the agreements of the parties and the reality of the grip on the ground sometimes trumps even international law.

So looking back, what are your main accomplishments and disappointments over that period? First of all, uh, I have to say that I was extremely fortunate to have been a witness to some of the more dramatic events. That my country, uh, participated in over the last 30, 40 years. And if I look at the first chapter, which is the military chapter, then, I mean, I D I D I went from counter terrorism and war to, uh, to peace process and making friends with the neighbors.

And I managed to be involved in all that. In a relatively short timeframe, uh, and somethings would stand out for example, that in the Palestinian negotiations, I often found myself in the negotiating room with people who have been clients of mine in the counter-terrorism work. In other words, I remember reaching the hotel in Taba, where we negotiated with the Palestinian the same Taba.

Concerning which I had been on down betrayal theme for Israel with Egypt. Right. So I guess I come to the hotel and I walk into the elevator to get up to the floor where my room is. And one of the other Israelis who sees me elevate and says, I hope you make it all the way up. So I look back and I see that with me in the elevator are two Palestinian leaders.

You believe adjuvant Mohammed, the Klan, both former high-profile terrorists. Both of whom I had approved that deportation from, from the West bank and Gaza personally, and they knew it. And we actually became friends. We have that in discussions about the deportation and both of them, by the way, justified it.

But it was shocking to hear the explanation I learned to forget Jibreel. Jim said to me, one day, you know, you absolutely right to deport me, but I was incredibly offended. And I said, why were you offended? He said, because the other two people, you deported with me with small fry and they made me look small.

Well, how about we deported from Gaza for terrorism. He's not one of the senior aides to the UAE leadership, by the way, uh, once told me, you know, Daniel, you Israelis are wimps. And I said, how are we with this? And he said, when you guys interrogated me, before you decided to deport me, you asked me questions.

And of course I've been done. So most of the questions, but then you deported me to Egypt and they interrogated me and they know how to interrogate. Now I tell you this story, because I remember the feeling of it's like being in the movie, except it's real. I mean, all of these incidents happening. Uh, and they happen more often, uh, um, type of feeling of, of, uh, of unreal to it.

Right. Um, what am I most proud of in my military career festival? I very proud of the role I did play during that period in two worlds, one in the peace process and two, which I continued later two in the counter-terrorism work. I have developed some legal theories. I. I hope I managed to save some lives.

Uh, uh, and, and I'm very proud of that. I'm also extraordinarily proud of the fact that I managed to help raise a generation of incredible international lawyers. That's true. And, and I need them today and they are, I mean, To be all the are way better than I was. And that they've reached the highest levels of everything.

I have former assistants who are now international professors at the best universities in the United States, uh, senior government officials. I mean, you name it, they're there. And every time I meet them, I have this feeling of photo and fatherly pride that I was there for part of the additional career.

So I'm very proud of that as well. Perfect. I'm a bit saddened by the fact that I have become a very cynical international lawyer. And that speaks to your earlier point of view, that international law is more of an art form than, than, than a, uh, legal system. And as a result, it can cater to almost all wishes.

And, uh, and that is a bit saddening because you would want international law to be a more robust, cohesive uniform basis for international dialogue. And it never was. And I know that you may have lost your parents listening in. And I know that many low faculty where they teach public international law portray the picture of a cohesive, uh, uniformly applied system globally, which is all about justice and right.

But that's rubbish. That's not what international law is that components within international, which are better than others. And some of them are quite good, but it's actually a patchwork of rather. Basic and sometimes contradictory and sometimes wrong ideas. And, and once you realize that when you've practiced it for enough time, you might lose the faith in international law as a tool for, for, uh, big, the basis for international relationship.

Uh, it can be useful, but. It's definitely not something which you can, it's not solid basis, almost anything. So, I mean, I'd like to delve a bit more into this cause it's fascinating as one of the leading experts on international law, you're kind of giving it a bit of a bad name and rightfully so. I mean, most recently the ICC, the head body of international criminal law was somewhat politicized with their recent decision.

I'm happy for you to go into that a bit more and, and other, such things, when you talk about. The Wars, uh, the, the operations are very,  all these things. These are the awards that, uh, Israel and Gaza had. You know, there's so much criticism from the international community yet. I know as an Israeli, you know, it's, it's pure self defense.

So how does that, you know, drive together those differences of opinion. Let's start with what's happening now in the international criminal court. Um, first of all, for the sake of full disclosure, I am not an objective. Uh, a view of the proceeding. I actually submitted, uh, uh, an Amicus brief to the international criminal court in this case.

So, uh, I would all listed that they should understand that I have a bias on this one. Um, but let me start with the international law question. Forget the Israeli Palestinian dispute and what we've been doing to one another over the years. The international criminal court was established in 1998, the international criminal court was not established by God.

It was established by human beings in the document, which was fine. Did Rome and in effect, we've invented a new coat, which did not exist before. Now the big question one month after herself, and this is a question for the ICC, but it's true for all international law. When you set up something new to whom does it apply?

And the answer in international law is it applies only to those countries which have agreed to participate. I left and time has elapsed and international practice has shown that all countries view it as binding, irrespective of the question of whether they are party to it or not. That is the basic distinction between conventional and customary international law.

There's absolutely no doubt that the ICC is a conventional mechanism, which means that it was established by a group of countries. I participated in the negotiations on the ICC, but Israel, uh, while we signed the ICC statute, we never ratified it. And in international law, that means nothing. And subsequently following the U S.

Formal the signing of the treaty. We also did the same and I've recently heard that the Russia also did the same. And so we have never been a member of the court. And so the legal question, which I think is really important is can the court have jurisdiction over a non-member state? Be it the United States, be it Russia with China, we choose, I think China, I'm almost positive.

Um, Or can it askew that they have authority over a non-member state? And this is something which is really annoying to me because Hey, in international, the answer is clearly you cannot set up an institution which is conventional and give it powers over there. Non-state puppies you call. And if you're trying to we'll do that, you are breaking international law, if you do.

And yet that is what the international criminal court. Is attempting to do here. It's attempting to do it here and with the effect of the us, by the way, based on the following logic that it has jurisdiction over the territory of state parties, which means if the United States conducted a war crime within the territory of another state, which is the party, the court will have jurisdiction over the United States.

Okay. No, I'm not arguing that that's what the streaky fifth, but the idea that you have jurisdiction over a citizen of a non-state party is a huge event, huge event of international. Now in the Israeli case, they jumped over three obstacles. Obstacle. Number one is we're not a state party obstacle. Number two.

They have decided that the West bank and Gaza strip are part of another state, a state, they call the state of Palestine state. They claim already exists. This is what the prosecutor has maintained. And once a majority opinion of the court appears to have accepted Palestine exists. Now it doesn't matter that the Palestinians don't came to the exist.

Well, that stuff issue. It doesn't matter that the Aaron bleed doesn't claim that they're there. That's not visual either. It doesn't matter that you will never find any formal state of Palestine in real life if it doesn't exist. But for the, because of the ICC statute, they have decided nothing does exist.

And the third Ruben set and therefore, when I started was accepted of the state party to the ICC in 2015, It meets the criteria for a state for the ICC statute. Now that's another huge jump and it runs counter to reality, but it conforms to political center. The third jump is okay, so you think you'll have jurisdiction over non-state party?

You think Palestine is a state and therefore if Palestine agrees to the, and it's a state party to the ICC, so it can grant you jurisdiction. Jumping number three is what is the territory of Palestine? Because in order for the cartel jurisdiction, the alleged offense had to occur on the territory of a state party.

I know that the prosecutor says. Everyone knows that all of the West bank, including East Jerusalem and Gaza of the territory of the Palestinian state and the majority of the court says, everyone knows because the prosecutor said it. And I strongly recommend reading both the majority opinion and the pre-trial chamber, but especially the minority ruling of the Hungarian judge coverage pattern.

I have to say, judge  ruling is extraordinarily well-received. And the way he described it, he says the prosecutor wants you to accept the fact that you should agree with her because she said that you should agree with her. In other words, she sets up the premise and claim that the premise is a fact. And then she says, I've already shown that.

And that's the vicious circle that she, that she promotes in a, uh, in a report. And he said that the majority opinion justified it to parrot what the prosecutor said without ever asking any of the legal questions involved. And so. This is a perfect example of the abuse of international law for political motivation, but it's easily done because international law is so fluid.

And so, you know, we call it the Swiss cheese, but without the cheese, just the holes, uh, you can usually invent any sort of interpretation and it could be even potentially stable for a while, which is exactly what the prosecutor did and what the majority judges did as well. Um, and that's the case. I, you know, I'm personally involved in, but also I think it's really dangerous for Israel.

It's really dangerous for the courts and it's really dangerous for any other non-state party for a variety of reasons, which I think I've explained, do you think this very much de legitimizes the ICC and international law? Not only this, but perhaps other things in the past, there's been criticism throughout the years.

Um, I mean a wide range of criticisms, but in your opinion, does this really, um, put a stamp on how politicized the court really is?

I don't know. I really don't know. And I'll explain why I think with respect to the court, the court until today has only prosecuted Africans, right? And the court has been under immense pressure to stop being the code for African war crime than becoming the court for world Walker. Right. But the problem is who fighting in this world, it's usually either one of the, uh, um, major superpowers or one of the proxies.

So if you want to touch upon anything outside. Uh, Africa, if you either go to Europe or go to Asia or go to America, it's very difficult to find a conflict of a scale. Would you justify ICC involvement, which does not involve either Russia or China or the U S or European powers, et cetera. Therefore in many respects, the Israeli Palestinian conflict is the one conflict concerning which the ICC believes it could legitimately expand its jurisdiction without necessarily triggering world war three.

Now, if you understand that, You understand why the special focus on this dispute by many of the ICC staff who have no political leanings or affiliation whatsoever. Right? However, add to that, the fact that the previous prosecutor of the court before, uh, uh, Fatou Bensouda, uh, Campo actually wrote the blueprint for how Palestine.

Could get jurisdiction and be a member of the court. He published it in an article and they'd been following his advice ever since to the letter. And he was a very capable lawyer. And in effect, he, the one who engineered the Palestinian membership, he wrote to them get recognition as a non member state, the UN.

On that basis. If you can legitimately get a backdoor pass into the ICC statute and then you have member state, and then you can play it again, but he wrote that and they follow it. So while the ICC itself, I don't think in most of the people that are not political, I am a hundred percent positive that some of the key figures had specific political agenda, but.

I want to be clear. I'm not saying that they did so because they hated rallies in the light Palestinian. I think that that's so far variety of reasons, specifically, with respect to Ocampo, I've heard that his agenda was, he wanted to become a law professor at Harvard and understood that lobe Israel bashing could and taking a human rights focused pro-Palestinian position could be very useful to promote that future career.

Now I say that because it's a cynical approach to how people make decisions, but I've become a cynical person with respect to how people make decisions, perhaps realistic based on your experience. Um, I, I want to just take a different angle a little bit and ask you about, um, mediation in general and, uh, you know, your experience in the peace process.

When I asked you about the moments, when you walk into a room with people, you know, Oh, entrenched in positions that are completely different for you. And, you know, even before anyone's opened their mouth, that, uh, you know, you're disagreed. How do you approach that in attempt to come to some sort of understanding?

And you mentioned some successful peace negotiation, negotiations, Egypt, and Jordan. Those are the two, uh, peace negotiations in existence. I know this 20, 20, there's been some other. Relations that have warmed up with Arab countries and the new treaties of peace that we have with the UAE. And we have,

we have a few new ones, right? You don't know this, but one of the things that one of my hobbies is negotiation and I've been teaching and practicing negotiations now for 35 years. I'll tell you a secret. Uh, for some reason I managed to convince some big multinationals that I know what I'm doing in negotiations.

So I've been giving. Negotiation workshops and seminar for some of the leading global multinationals are for several years. Uh, and it's fascinating to fie how fields of more companies and big companies negotiate. Uh, um, and it's a great opportunity that I taught it in university and I practice it in daily life.

Now I say that because there's no easy answer to your question. But I'll give you a story, which will explain one of the techniques. Are you okay? I remember we were negotiating with the Palestinians in their hotel room in Egypt and Cairo, and this was the initial stages of the water negotiation and, and you press them, came to the Ruby.

And apparently he was a history professor at a re important university in Gaza. And one of the things which happens, especially in this type of heated personal dispute, is that he came in with a full belly full of anger, Israelis, and Jews. And he viewed that meeting as an opportunity to vent. And so he said, he told me the following story.

He said, you know, the story of the Exodus of the Jews from Egypt. And I said, yep. I've heard of it before we even have a holiday every year to commemorate it. That's how, you know, the Jews fled from Egypt and went into the desert. And while the devil, I said that the story is that. And then they came to the kingdom of, and they conquered cater.

The people have came in Sunday, saw that the Jews were the big, you know, what go up and saw they joined them and became part of the Jewish Israeli, like kingdom. Yay said, and then came the Christians and the Christians around the Jews. Well, actually first came the Muslims and the Muslim from the Jews and now the same people from Canaan now.

So the Muslim was stronger, so the all became Muslim and then came the Christians and they throw out the Muslims and saw the same people coming down on you that the strong people were the Christians. And then the Muslims came back. And the throttle, the Christians again. So the canines became Muslims and he says, do you know what the motto moral of this story is?

And I said, I've absolutely no idea. He said, the moral of the story is that we, the Palestinians are the descendants of the original people of Canaan. And you guys are just immigrants from you.

What a misunderstanding. Yeah. And, um, and so I looked at him and now what can you respond? Right. I mean, it's obvious that he's coming from for what he believes is, right. So one of the techniques I use in negotiation is eight to let them vent and beat to you. The sense of humor. So I said to him, you know, then I have a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian dispute and he says, what solution is it?

If you guys always change religion on the basis of who's stronger than we are we're back. So we want to become Jews. I don't think he liked that broke for fatigue. Uh, but the point I'm making is, um, the stages to every negotiation. Or mediation or whatever. And the initial stages is a stage where you are trying to convince the other side, not that you are right, but that you believe in what you are saying.

And that is a required first stage of any negotiation, especially once. So sensitive and personal and historical and strategic as peace negotiations. But at some point in time, you get over it and you reach the issues and then you are supposed to negotiate on the subject matter. And I have to say that quite often, people will start it off with such speeches, either left the negotiation room after they gave the speeches, which is what happened to that professor.

Oh, after a while they got fed up with the noise of the old voices and they started negotiating. That's not the real subject. So one of the rules of negotiation is patience. You have to wait the time and place for everything and the agreements do not just pop up. You have to create a relationship and you have to go through a process.

It's like an alcoholics anonymous process of 10 stages of a negotiation at some point in time. You and the other side would realize that you headed towards an agreement. Uh, and you may not even know how you got there, but to this point, amazing. And I mean, is there a role of a mediator in these processes?

The Israeli Palestinian conflict, usually it's the Americans. And what is their role? Because there's such a bias. Let's say a medias radiators are supposed to be completely impartial. So where, where does a mediator, if at all, for them

again, the difference between theory and practice in theory, The mediator must always be a objective third party who has no prior association with either of the party. That's a trend that is by the way. Absolutely true of almost all commercial BDS, um, political mediations, uh, especially actually of this type where the mediator told our government.

I never object. They're all always slanted in one direction or the other be Navy United nations or China, Russia, the us or the EU. Everyone has an opinion on everything. Everyone has a history with everyone. So the expectation that we'll find an alien to mediate is apparently unrealistic. The real question is what are they supposed to do?

Right. So the easy answer is the supposed to facilitate the meeting and help overcome obstacles. That is what you would want the mediator today. Unfortunately, sometimes the mediator becomes more than just a mediator. I can tell you that in many of the negotiations, when Americans wanted to be in the room, This immediately resulted in a difference in positions on the Palestinian side, because they were talking for the American audience and not for the Israeli one that even a funny incident.

I, I, I participated in, uh, we were negotiating in a hotel in Tel-Aviv me and the chief Palestinian lawyer on the legal arrangements around the 1995. . And we have a big row, American consul general within the room with us. And after we fought for about an hour back and forth, he said, look, I've been listening to you guys fight now for three days, we've actually worked and we've come up with a draft, which we think can help you move forward.

And he put it on the table. Now I had no idea was going to do that. Neither did the Palestinian. So both of us were annoyed. So we both read it and we both hated it for different reasons, obviously. And so we reached our first agreement, the first agreement and that committee, you know, that the agreement to throw the Americans out of the room.

That's amazing. And we actually said to them, thank you for your assistance. We'll call you if we need you, please leave those exact words. Uh, and then we went back to our fighting. And by the way, we finished with an agreement that we did reach an agreement, just took a slogan. We did it our own way. So to be a facilitator, as an art form in and of itself, not everyone can do it, but it is really useful if both sides trust the third party, then.

The third party could have an influential role. If the third party is viewed as biased by one of the sides and it's two against one, and it usually is even worse than a one-on-one negotiation. Speaking of which like, you know, based on what you just said, the Americans are so powerful and influential, uh, in these processes.

So, I mean, w w on the one hand they criticized the lead as all leaders. So you have, uh, Abu Mazda and Abbas. Who's not willing to negotiate. Some people blame BB, some people blame Trump for being too partisan. And now I'm sure there's a blame on Biden for being too partisan. So I guess just a general question.

Is there a peace process going on right now? And, uh, other parties, even the speaking that you know of

let me start by saying that I am unaware of any formal track, one, uh, piece of negotiations, character Gordon, going between Israel and the Palestinians. I'll even go one step further and say, and your Canadian audience may be shocked at what I'm about to say. Um, up to about 10 years ago, the Israeli Palestinian conflict was on the top 10 list of important conflicts around the world.

You could go anywhere around the planet and be it, um, A newspaper or radio station or TV station or an internet station, there would be something about what the Israelis did to the Palestinians or the Palestinians did to them ready almost everyday. Um, something happened and what happened? Well, the combination of, I think, three phenomenon, a people got tired of listening to us, fighting.

And we went through all of the Oslo peace process and failed. I'm one of the Oslo peace negotiate that we failed to bring it to resolution to the world, developed additional problems. So if, and you can choose your continent and there's a long list of things, the theory, the legal Slavia and the Island, and the, I mean, you can decide where you want to look.

Every part of the world has its own issues. Thirdly, uh, and you regional threat arose, which is Iran, which is not just a regional threat. It's something virtual becoming a global threat, another global, but global frightening potential superpower. So what actually happened is that the Israeli Palestinian conflict lost its rating.

And if once it was in the top 10 list, I don't even think it's in the top 100 lift anymore anymore. Yeah. Now to make it clear where they fit anywhere, I'm not talking about Toronto where I'm sure it's not on the top 100 with, I don't think it's not on our list. Right. And you know how I can prove that to you.

We have an elections coming up next month. W this is our fourth election in the last two years. Right. You know that there's no single party in Israel? No single party. Be it right-wing or left-wing, which has Israeli, Palestinian negotiations on its agenda for the election. Not one it's as if it's a non issue in Israel anymore, because we've lost hope we've, it's nothing to do with DB.

Yeah. It's also the lift saying, we know what the Palestinians are about. We're not better. Right. And if you go to the Palestinian side, don't be shocked to learn that the very few political parties on the Palestinian side, slobbering for an Israeli Palestinian negotiation. Exactly. Zero. So, let me ask, what's your take on that?

How do you see the future based on the status quo? And I'll just point out all these beautiful quotes by Shimon Peres. It says how, uh, you know, the Jews, uh, contribution to the world is this satisfaction. Meaning we always want to improve things. And the late Jonathan sacks, I know his brother is your partner there at, on Fox.

He says our choose to have to, they're not optimist, but they're always hopeful. So what is your take on the future? I know you called yourself a bit of a cynical. A lawyer at this stage, but, uh, and you're putting so much time in the Israeli Palestinian conflict, which is now frankly dead. So how do you see the future?

So what is the conflict? Isn't that the peace processes is simmering under the carpet. Um, yeah. Um, I'd say one thing before I answer your question, I'll add one component. Okay. Um, the component was that we always fought. That, uh, you know, in ancient building techniques, when you build an app that always a stone at the center of the top of the art, which is the Keystone, which carries all the weight and, and sort of, uh, sends the, the, the weight alongside the two sides of the arch.

Right. And without the Keystone, the arts doesn't work and arches, and be developed a ministry over the years by many different nations, but all of them realized you need the Keystone. And it's very difficult to build. Well, we already fought the Israeli Palestinian conflict with the Keystone of regional peace for though.

So everyone told us that if you want to make peace with the Gulf, with the Northern Europe, African States, et cetera, you have to go through the Palestinian first. And in fact, the Palestinians repeatedly said something happened last year, that illusion evaporated, because I've been doing business in the Persian Gulf.

Now for 14 years, we've been at peace with them for ages. They just didn't dare let anyone know because they didn't want anyone to think that they'd given up on the Palestinian cause. In 2020 due to the combination of their lack of interest of the Palestinians anymore. And that total disillusion looked with the Palestinians, the one hub and the rising threat of Iran.

On the other hand, the Arab countries said, you know what to heck with it. We'll go public with what we've been saying in private. Now for years, we like you. And what you feel now is that suddenly the Israeli Palestinian conflict is not an apparently has never been the Keystone for regional peace. Now that's a huge development and they're the reason why I'm a mother and his team have publicly attacked.

Any Arab country has made peace with Israel over the last year, which is extraordinary. I mean, think about it. They're saying you should not make peace with Israel, right? Well, that's still supposedly in negotiation for them. I think this is going to have a huge impact on any future Israeli Palestinian dialogue, because the Palestinians lost most of the ammunition when that happened.

I think losing that ammunition will have a result will have an impact on the expectation level because their hand is weaker than it used to be. On the good side. I will also say

that it sort of decreased the size of the Israeli Palestinian conflict to where it should be. And it's removed path of the over drama, which I've been attached to it. And suddenly it looks more solvable. It is Karen side than it used to be if it's the biggest conflict in history. And, you know, I once gave a lecture about it.

Uh, how long does this field has been going on? The anecdote I shared in the middle of a negotiation session with the us president was that during the third crusade, Richard, the Lionheart together with Phillip or France, Went to the Holy land and they fought Hadid or cold salad, like a salad, uh, by, by English speakers.

And they, the crusaders managed to take control over all of the coastal areas, but they couldn't take control of Jerusalem. And when they realized they couldn't take Jerusalem, Richard wrote to Salahuddin. A letter saying let's negotiate Palestine. And we have three issues on our agenda, the division of the Holy land, the Holy sites and the remnants of the Holy cross.

And I remember saying to people, I just wrote the agenda for other negotiations today, and we're still with the same bloody agenda. Just the parties keep changing. So, if you look at it from that perspective, you can legitimately ask yourself what type of  allows you to think that you will be the generation that will resolve this thousand year old dispute.

But if you put it in its proper perspective and say, we are now two neighbors fighting over territory and a few other issues, but the rest of the area is relatively quiet and we are, most of us are joined in. Agreement on what is important, what is not, maybe that will be conducive to bringing us back to the table on both sides was more realistic expectations.

And I say that because at the end of the day, Avi, I don't see an alternative, but an Israeli Palestinian agreement. And in my opinion, a two-state solution, not because I think it's the best solution. It's just the least worst solution for both sides. So at the end of the day, I'm quite confident that it will happen.

Uh, um, I just don't know when. Well, that's great to hear, uh, comforting, to know that there's hope in the future. And I mean, like I said, we can talk for hours and hours about every aspect of your career. Each one is so fascinating. You have a wealth of stories in each. Um, I'm, I'm curious to know you're one of the very few lawyers that have managed to go from the public sector of army to a very successful career at Hertzog.

Uh, law firm. I don't know what you call it now. I think your tagline is Israel's leading law firm and rightfully so, got some fantastic leading lawyers. They insuring yourself. So I know you started out on your own and then went there, but the question is more, how do you go from public law to the private sector, which is a rare move.

First of all, as I told you earlier, I was extraordinarily fortunate. And, uh, when I decided to leave the military. I was 40 years old and I was offered a, uh, the position of the military advocate, general of the army by the chief of staff. And I met with them and I said, sir, I thank you very much for the offer.

I highly appreciate it. I would have been the youngest general in the army. And I said, I just don't want the job. And he said, who refuses after 20 a military carry, who are a few of this, the highest position? And I said, I have 10 reasons why I think I should leave. And he said, start talking. And my number three, he said, I think you should leave.

And one of the reasons I said to him was that given the fact that the military career in Israel ends at a relatively young age, you need to be able to be young enough to start a new career when you leave. And, and if you stay in too long, You will be overqualified and too old to actually be able to start a new career.

So the first fortunate thing of they allowed me to leave and to accept my refusal, to pick that up from, um, then I was fortunate enough to do, to work for almost two years in one of Israel's largest charities, as a manager, and to learn two things about myself. Hey, I didn't like working in the manager for a charity.

And we, I liked being a lawyer. In other words, you have to try something else before you realize what you really like. You know? And then, because as the manager of this huge charity, I used all the loaf of the liberal as my advisors. And every time they did something, I said, all this stuff, Oh, I could do that.

The leap from there to private practice, didn't look as scary as it would have been. And so I set up my own law firm, uh, using the old movie cliche. If I build it, the makeup and shockingly enough clients came in from day one and I never looked back. And the other point is that I was very fortunate that I could translate my government expertise into the private sector now to be fair, uh, only about 20% of what I do is public international law today.

But I'd had some really significant public international cases. I spent three years defending a group of Dutch companies in the Netherlands against war crimes. Um, I've handled the ICC K fear. I I'm now, uh, I've been asked by a country in Asia to represent them in international dispute. I have. Public international locations and that fascinating and interesting.

And I'm fortunate to be also the only one. It doesn't want in such a practice. So it's easy to be able to locally, but most of what I do is I translated the same tools and I now specialize in international trade in areas where international law meets international commerce. And that's a huge area. And which, again, I was fortunate to be one of the fastest liberal to do it.

And because of my background, And all of the government officials knew me because I was the lawyer for the priest buffers and all the minister, you'll be all the generals newbie. So they trusted me enough. So when I went into private practice, I kept on coming. So I was fortunate enough that I could actually capita, uh, capitalize on my past, in my future.

I've learned that that was much more luck than anything else on it. Absolutely. I mean, as, as I said, you have one of the most interesting careers around and you're still going strong, really, uh, beautiful to see, uh, and, and continuing to, to inspire people. You mentioned how you had, you brought up a new generation of international lawyers.

I mean, clearly if I may, um, maybe you can touch upon that a little bit. And the question is, what advice would you give to younger lawyers, law students, and how did you go about fostering that new generation of top lawyers?

That's I have to tell you one of the things which keeps annoying me is how much more professional they are than I was at Berry. In other words, it's a combination of improved schooling and improved tools, but lawyers today are in many respects, armed better than we were at the equivalent page. Uh, but at the end of the day, it's all about the individual.

Not about anything yet. Um, I meet. I continued to teach because I love teaching. I meet a lot of young, uh, uh, highly qualified, highly intelligent people. And one of the challenges they face is that in today's world, you're supposed to choose the career path, uh, and the no clear career path anymore. Because when I grew up.

You know, if you were smart and you were supposed to study, then you had to choose between the exact sciences medicine and law Wallace. Uh, that's where the smart people went right today. I have to be fair. Even having a degree appears to be 99% of the cases, the waste of time, because given the fact that you can study almost anything you want by yourself at home in a few months, Uh, the necessity of going to school only makes sense if it's something so complicated that you actually need people to walk you through in a way where you had the old, the old university, or if they need you to have a breadth of knowledge, which you would never get if you studied yourself because people dig holes in knowledge, but they don't go wide.

Usually now that's a huge change. So when young people come to me, they have sons. I mean, my oldest son is going to leave the army soon and he's always dreamt of being a physicist, but he came to me a few days ago and said, you know that, but physicists, you know, the fuck clearly a career move because before PhD, we're not really qualified for anything.

So I leave another degree with, well, I can work with I'm playing around with computer science or engineering so that I have a profession as well now. The younger generation of lawyers today, they have numerous career path before them. I don't distinguish between the subject matter. I distinguish between the type of career.

You can be a private lawyer in one of a million different fields and areas. Although as you know, RV. We are qualified for everything. So theoretically unite could handle divorces. Uh, you could negotiate a multinational M and a agreement, although I don't know how to do that. Maybe, you know, diver, but theoretically, our diploma allows us to do everything which is rubbish, right?

I mean, uh, one of my best friends in the UK is a lawyer who used to be the lawyer for princess Diana. And she called him up one day and said, you know, uh, I'm going to divorce Childs. I want you to be my lawyer. And he sent her a princess, Diana, I've never done a divorce case in my life. And so she responded.

So it'll be the first for both of us. So Lance can theoretically do anything private lawyer. So that's the universe. Another option is to be a government lawyer. Now you'll make less money, but you'll make a bigger difference to your country. So, I dunno what the Canadian word equivalent to Zionist is a Patriot, maybe nationalists Patriots.

If you will, I have an inclination to do better, better for your country than working for the government is obviously the way to go. Then we have the group that want to be judges. They don't want to work for the government. They want to decide for other people what they do and it's a sub group, but it's separate.

And then you have that condemning. So the people who come to me, lot of them have a look at my career and say, uh, you started in public international, or you now do international trade. You do all of that. How do we do the same thing? And my answer to them. I have no idea how I did what I did. It sort of happened.

And I took advantage of opportunities as they came to me. So the only thing I can tell them is start walking the path you want. Identify, which of these speaks to you. And then if you're good enough and you manage to walk along the path of you'll be, you know, you'll be noticed sometimes they'll give you the option to reach a fork in the path where you can choose another direction.

It happened to me. It does not necessarily have to happen, but if you want that option, you have to choose a path. When you feel confident you can walk well. So I also recommend to people, if you can be one of the few people in life, we're actually working thing they're interested in because most people don't please do that.

Absolutely. That's what it's about. I mean, from my experience speaking to and dealing with the leading lawyers, more experienced lawyers is what really makes the difference is your time you give to others by teaching, by doing things like this. I think that that's really a distinguishes if you will. And, uh, you know, I'll just say thank you again for your time on this, on this busy day, your words have been insightful.

And before I let you go, I'll just ask, is there any other wise words, do you want to leave us with any tips for the younger generation of lawyers? Uh, how do we become the best lawyers we can be?

I'd share with you. The thoughts I give to my students, the front of thing is that you need to remember that the law was made by man and not by God, if you believe in God. In other words, it's not the divine. Uh, it wasn't handed down by the universe. It's not karma is just a bunch of people just like us sitting together and making political compromises and coming up with documents, which then we call the rule.

And once you realize that is what the law is, you accept it for what it is. It's not perfect. It doesn't attempt to be right. Although many people tend to conflate it with, with justice. Lo strive for justice, but never reach it. It's always a compromise. So if you're not in love with the law, you can look at it for what it is.

You can also then use it as a tool of doing good. And for me, uh, low has always been a means to an end and not an end itself. The end should always be the betterment of society, the betterment of your country, the betterment of situation of individual people. And I have to tell you, I know that making peace treaty is more, uh, you know, interesting, amazing, and everything.

And I remember being in palaces and the white house, et cetera. These are personal stories I would take with me, but the satisfaction of. Helping a client. Uh, I have three clients who claim that I saved the life and I think the cliffs to our right, the satisfaction I have invalid individual cases greatly surpassed the, you know, the, the, the, the same satisfaction I have of the big fit.

And so. I would end by saying that I don't think that they get is necessarily better in some respects, even a small case where you have an individual and you read the right result, which ends up people, you know, getting what they deserve, et cetera, in some, in some parts of life. I think nothing's wrong.

Absolutely. Thank you. I mean, everyone has a need to make a difference and I have no doubt about it. You've made a huge difference. The lives of so many and also in the nation of Israel peace processes, the lifestyle, the things, and you continue to be a fantastic lawyer. So thanks again for your time and sharing your wisdom.

And, uh, maybe we'll have the opportunity to chat again soon. Thank you, grandma Javi for this opportunity to speak to her otherwise never. Well, yeah. And now that you're out there, I'm sure you'll be getting close.

Bye for now. Thank you.