by Rabbi Yair Hoffman
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As part of VINNEWS new podcast, Rabbi Yair Hoffman, the host, interviewed Malcolm Hoenlein. Below is a partial transcript of the podcast – filled with very valuable insights and information.
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YH: Malcolm Hoenlein has been a leading figure in Jewish relations, both in regard to Israel and in regard to Jews in countries throughout the world, for decades. He is friends with presidents, kings, and world leaders. His insights and leadership skills are a guiding light to the community.
We are on with Malcolm Hoenlein, the vice president of the Conference of Presidents, and the top of conversation is the future of US/Israel relations in the coming few months, I guess, till January 20th, and onward. Would you say that that would be a good way to split up this conversation? What’s going to happen now while still under President Trump and afterward?
MH: Certainly. I think both are very interesting topics and certainly interrelated.
YH: The announcement of John Kerry, rather than Secretary of State as he was under the Obama administration, being in charge of the environment now. Do you think that’s a good thing? Is that President-elect Joe Biden showing that he’s going to take the Middle East in a different direction than President Obama did, or do you think it doesn’t matter?
MH: Well, I think if he was going to take it in the same direction, he would’ve made him Secretary of State or National Security Advisor. And there was some concern about that because often during the Kerry time as Secretary of State, there were contentious moments and some difficult times.
YH: So that’s a good thing. That’s a good-
MH: The fact that he’s climate czar and not a member of the Cabinet as such, unless he’s invited to be a participant, but he is a member of the National Security Council. So we’ll have to see how that plays out. The fact is that he’s not a member of the Cabinet unless he’s invited to participate, but he is a member of the National Security Council. But his specific area doesn’t relate directly to the Middle East any more than any other part of the world.
YH: The second area of … A number of people did not yet congratulate President-elect Biden. I think that that may also be a very good move because, while the President has been excellent to Israel, excellent to the Jews in general, that might be the kind of thing that could get him upset. So do you think that the other political groups in Israel that are coming down hard on Netanyahu for not giving that congratulatory phone call, do you think that they’re kind of being selfish of sorts, trying to gain political weight at the expense of Israel’s relationship with President Trump now till January 20th?
MH: In Israel, they take advantage of every opportunity for political gain. And especially at a time when they’re looking towards the possibility of elections, and they’re looking at the possibility of a new administration having a different policy, and those who will want to exploit those differences for political ends. So I think you have that one layer.
The Prime Minister did call Mr. Biden, as did President Rivlin, and both congratulated him. There was some criticism for him doing that and saying that that is a betrayal. It is not a betrayal. It’s what governments around the world did. And recognizing reality, he didn’t make a determinate call, he was making a courtesy call to build ties with the apparent victor. And we’ll see yet, but it’s not completely over, but I think the direction is pretty clear to most.
Israel’s relationship with the United States is so essential, and it should be bipartisan. It shouldn’t be seen as one party or the other. We want Republicans, Democrats, liberals, and conservatives, everybody to support Israel. And I think the prime minister’s obligation is to reach across either side of the aisle regardless of who’s in charge, but he should maintain and sustain good relations with everybody. And I think that the Prime Minister has tried to do that overall. There are strains with the Democratic Party, especially after his speech on Iran.
YH: In Congress. Right.
MH: Right. But we have worked hard for that. And I think overall, the support remains very strong. You still have overwhelming support when it came to the QME, when it comes to the aid to Israel programs, way beyond just the military support. There’s so many other areas that on a day-to-day basis come up that doesn’t get publicity. So overall, the relationship with and support for Israel in Congress is strong. And hopefully, in the new administration it will remain that way.
YH: We don’t have a Senator Inouye anymore. Is there anyone that is stepping up to the plate to kind of take his place, or that’s something of the past? In other words, we have a lot of supporters, but nowhere near in the Senate as the former Hawaiian Senator-
MH: You mean a champion for Israel rather than-
YH: Yes.
MH: … just a voice.
YH: Exactly.
MH: I think Lindsey Graham has been that kind of person. I think there are many who have stood up at difficult times. On the Foreign Relations Committee, the chairman, Senator Risch, has been very supportive. The minority leader, Senator Menendez. I think that there are quite a few people in the House that you could point to who have been very supportive of the US-Israel relationship, introducing measures, again, in most cases on a bipartisan basis.
So little attention is paid to all of the positive things because it’s not news when dog bites man, but when they’re critical of Israel, then everybody jumps on it and blows it way out of proportion. I think the results of this election bring more pro-Israel people to the Congress. I think that the balance will be there. We have to continue to work hard and build relationships and sustain them over time. But there are people there who have very strong voices, who have stood up consistently for Israel. And unfortunately, the fact that their names aren’t widely known is regrettable.
YH: So maybe we should make some sort of an effort to make their names a bit more well-known. You have any-
MH: Well, I think, yes, that’s a very good idea, but we have to get the Jewish media and all the podcasters and everybody to interview them, to highlight the positive actions. Look at all the things that were done, whether it’s particular members of the administration, like the Title VI applications and fighting antisemitism, the special offices, what the members of Congress did in adopting the IHRA definition and promoting the Holocaust education.
I mean, so many things, which are done on a bipartisan basis, when non-Jewish members of Congress who are taking the lead often on these matters, whether it’s funding Iron Dome or so many other issues. To a sense, we take it for granted. It’s not a healthy approach. We have to appreciate each measure and laud those who are responsible. So it’s a collective responsibility between community and you in the media, make sure people know.
YH: Maybe we should have kind of like a reverse AIPAC showing the Jewish media which senators and representatives are pro-Israel and giving them the contact information for interviews and such.
MH: I don’t think it’s reverse AIPAC. I think it’s something AIPAC would welcome. They do it in their realm. We do it. We do reach out to these people and bring them before the Conference of Presidents. We try to give them exposure [crosstalk 00:00:08:01]-
YH: I mean to the Jewish media.
MH: I mean, we do make them available. We do webcasts and things where we invite Jewish media to cover it. But you’re right that we have to do more to highlight some of the lesser known people. I once read a small article, as an example, in a paper about a Congressmember from an area in Florida near Orlando, or part of Orlando, but non-Jewish part. And she made remarkable statements, so I wrote her and thanked her, and she invited me to come to Washington the next time to visit with her, which we did.
And it turned out she’s this amazing woman, Valerie Murphy, who was a boat child from Vietnam, is the head of the Blue Dogs, is very pro-Israel, outspokenly pro-Israel. Doesn’t do it because she gets money or recognition or anything else because she doesn’t have a Jewish constituency. But it’s the kind of person that we can highlight who can become a further leader in Congress in getting the message out.
And there are many like her, I think, from across the board, and we have to build alliances as we are working to build coalitions against Jew hatred and pro-Israel and all the other issues. And we have to be there also on some of the issues that they’re concerned about.
YH: Would the Conference of Jewish Presidents be willing to prepare a list of candidates that … or not just candidates, but representatives that should be interviewed and supported and make that available to various media sites?
MH: We can certainly … I mean, I don’t like preparing lists because they get out and then somebody who’s left off becomes [crosstalk 00:09:38]-
YH: Uh-huh (affirmative). Gets upset.
MH: We can certainly recommend or highlight when they do things, as we try to do with our statements and thank those who do extraordinary things. And they’re going on every day. People don’t understand the level of cooperation, the military intelligence cooperation, which went through all the administrations, Republicans, Democrats alike, that the aid level has been maintained regardless of administration.
There are so many positives in the US-Israel relationships. The Juniper Cobra joint defense measure exercises, where thousands of Marines come to Israel. They just did now in Iron Dome on defense, and you know that Israel sold two units of the Iron Dome to the United States, and they’re going to be on our southern border. But the joint training on the F-35s, and then joint exercises, bringing in Greece and Italy and Cyprus and others into it. And so many things.
But when it’s good news about Israel and the US, the general media is not interested. And that’s where we have to help fill that void. There is a lot of positives and things that are going on between Israel and other countries as well, and the United States plays a supportive role in that. We see in Africa how they are now reaching out to Israel. You see in Asia how they’re reaching out to Israel. All the predictions of Israel’s isolation have been turned on their head.
YH: Shattered. Right.
MH: And Ramallah is no longer the road to a peace agreement, nor the road to Washington. Now it will play a more important role probably in the next administration, but a lot of the assumptions have been upended over recent years, and we have to work. We’ve worked for 10 years on the Mediterranean initiative to bring Israel, Cyprus, Greece together. Now so many… have joined. And you have in the Gulf … Now, think about linking them, as President Sisi told me already years ago he wanted, when I talked to him about the Mediterranean initiative and work with the Gulf, to link them. So you could have from the Persian Gulf, from the Arabian Gulf, all the way to the Atlantic Ocean.
YH: Kind of like a Mid East NATO.
MH: And you link it then to the Quad, which some of the countries there have spoken to me about, which is Australia, Japan, India, United States. So you could have from the Indo-Pacific all the way to the Atlantic. There are so many potentials that you can turn the region on its head and take Israel out of the Middle East, put it in the Mediterranean. And many other countries, Arab countries, Muslim countries, European countries, want to be part of it because they realize that this could be so valuable in fighting terrorism, energy, all of the things that they care about, tourism, economic development. And Israel would be the hub.
YH: If you have more time, let’s talk a little bit about the future of some of the incredible developments that have happened in Israel under the Trump administration. Do you think that the embassy will remain in place in Jerusalem?
MH: I absolutely do. Yes.
YH: Okay, fantastic.
MH: Vice President Biden has made that clear, that he will not move it. That will not be reversed.
YH: What about to the north, the Golan Heights? What do you think will happen with that?
MH: I don’t think that they will reverse the decision. I don’t think that they will advance it. I don’t think that you will get similar pronouncements in this administration to what we had, I mean in the coming administration, to what had in this administration.
I think the US-Israel relationship will be very strong. I think that the people that he’s named so far are, by and large, centrists. They are people who have history of involvement with Israel. There’ve been areas of disagreements on Iran, on other things. It’s not going to be the same, but every administration comes with its own direction and emphasis. But Biden has a long history with Israel, and I don’t anticipate that there will be hostility. But we’re not going to get the same kind of measures as we got in the last couple of years most likely.
I don’t believe it will be reversed, but … And then when you have resolutions in the UN, as we had, again, talking about giving back the Golan. To who? To Syria? Does anybody think about what it means when they say Israel should withdraw? You’re going to create a vacuum, or you’re going to let Hezbollah, Hamas, the Islamic, the Iranian militias, and Iran come into the Golan, which is what they’re trying to do every single day.
They just this week placed missiles that, thank G-d, were discovered. But they did tunnels. They’d send drones. They’re doing everything, and they’re trying to move their troops all the time closer and closer, and Israel has to force them back and sometimes take even cross-border action. They’re threatening it. So the idea that that Israel could do anything, could withdraw or anything else from the Golan is ludicrous today.
YH: It seems to me that the relationship with President Sisi has never been better in terms of Egypt-Israel relations. Would you agree with that statement, and what do you think the future is in terms of how Biden will affect that relationship?
MH: Well, the Egyptians are very concerned. Obviously, we’ve had a long relationship and I have had many meetings with Sisi, and I pretty much have some sense of his thinking. But I’m hoping the administration will continue to build ties. As you know, that past administrations had supported Morsi and left very bitter feelings in Egypt. Right now, the relationship with Israel is excellent. I think it will continue to be that there’s common interest.
I think that the Iran issue and this concern about Iran is driving many Arab countries closer to Israel. And concerns about what adaptations will be made to the agreement or to renewing it will further drive them closer to Israel. As Arab leaders have said, it’s a permanent aircraft carrier that’s based in the region. They look at Israel for the economic benefits, for trade, for what we’ve seen already in the UAE and in some of the other countries quietly yet, but in Bahrain openly, in Sudan now, and others who are negotiating. It’s important that they came to realize that Israel is the source of stability, that they’re tired of being exploited by the Palestinians, the kleptocracy that they all talk about, the disappointment amongst the people about the Palestinians wasting all the billions and billions of dollars that they got.
So I think that we can anticipate the Egyptian-Israeli relationship to be strong. Gaza represents a threat to both countries, and their cooperation there is really critical to their security. And we see that Gaza is trying to replace Egypt and Riyadh with Turkey and Qatar. So all of those things represent direct security concerns, and so I anticipate the Egyptian relation to remain strong. I hope, though, it becomes more a peace of the people than just for the government.
YH: There’s an interesting book called The Dictator’s Handbook. It basically delineates the problems with a dictatorship and how that they don’t necessarily have to fulfill the will of the people. And Sisi, while he’s good with Israel and everything, he has not tried to bring that relationship toward the people, as you pointed out. Is there anything that you think could be done in order to normalize Israel among the Egyptian people as well, and not just the formal military leaders that are now in power?
MH: Well, I would not agree that he hasn’t tried. When we were there visiting, he took a picture with our group, and I said, “You sure you want to have a group photo?” Because they were telling us no pictures and stuff. And he said, “No, it’s all set up.” We went in a room, and there was a set up for a group photo. And literally, we were not out of the presidential palace, and he already posted it on his Facebook picture.
YH: Oh, that’s good to hear.
MH: I will tell you that he spent an hour and a half, and every time I have gone there to meet, he spends time with us. And when he comes to New York, he invites us usually during the UN General Assembly. I think he has tried to improve this … They fixed up the synagogue in Cairo. There are other efforts underway that he has supported of remembering and rekindling, the history of Jews in Egypt. Not going back all the way perhaps, but to the period when we were less than happy there. But there is this recognition on his part. And I can tell you when we were there, he arranged kosher food and everything for our visit.
So they are trying, but there’ve been decades of hatred inculcated into the people in the Middle East, and you see it across the board. The numbers still are disturbing in terms of the attitude, but there is a change. We see the beginnings of a real change. And especially towards normalization, where 40%, 50% will say that they support it in various Arab countries. There’s a general dissatisfaction. 65% of the young people in almost all the countries, except the UAE, want to leave. And Israel was too often the rallying point where they could deflect attention from internal divisions or from their political challenges towards Israel.
We see in Saudi Arabia, in the UAE, and other places that changing. Textbooks are changing. Egypt changed theirs, Saudi Arabia changed, UAE did. The articles in the newspapers talking about relationships with Israel, openly talking about the trips, and the UAE openly displaying products from Israel with Israeli flags, and nobody knocks it over, nobody challenges.
So there are changes. It’s a long process, it’ll take time. Sometimes they do not do enough, or as fast as we would like them to, but we have to understand the circumstances under which they operate as well.
YH: As far as the Muslim Brotherhood, former President Obama I think kind of was a little bit too into them, as we saw when they supported Morsi. Do you think Biden will go in that direction at all? What are your thoughts on that? Do you think they’ll be more supportive of Sisi? Or what’s your feeling?
MH: I don’t think that they will support the Muslim Brotherhood. I do think that there’ll be greater pressure on the human rights agendas, whether in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, other countries, which did not get the same emphasis in the last couple of years. But I think the Muslim Brotherhood is recognized as a danger and a threat, and hopefully, it’ll be … It still remains a danger and a threat.
And today the major backer is Erdogan of Turkey, and I hope that there will be direct consideration of the direct threats posed by Turkey throughout the region, equal to that of Iran in many respects.
YH: Really?
He is challenging governments, supplying weapons, paying for the riots on Al-Aqsa, on Har Habayit, on the Temple Mount. And it’s something I discussed with Erdogan, and bottom line, he said, “Look, you can’t be a caliph without Jerusalem.” His rhetoric is very hostile.
YH: What happened to him? He used to be normal.
MH: I’ve known him for a long time, and whenever he comes to America, he asks for a meeting, and we generally had it. He has become more and more radical. He’s building supposedly more than 10,000 mosques around the world. Each week, he sends the message, and it’s a Muslim Brotherhood’s message. He has weaponized the immigration issue. And they say when he gets a cold, Germany gets pneumonia because he’s got 4 million people, Turks, there that he can activate. He can open the flood gates of immigrants into Europe. He is building bases in the Red Sea, in Qatar, in Afghanistan, in Syria.
I mean, it’s his attempts to resurrect the Ottoman Empire just as Khomeini was trying to rebuild the Persian Empire. They cooperate where it serves their purposes, but most places they’re in conflict, like we saw in Nagorno-Karabakh and Yemen and Libya. But they’re all involved in these key hotspots, any one of which could explode where Russians and others are involved and at least seven, eight countries. And most of these places are involved in the conflicts, and Turkey is generally on the wrong side of those issues.
President Obama, President Trump in the beginning, everybody thought that they could win them over, and he knows how to talk to them clearly. They come to the realization that he is a very dangerous force, but he’s a member of NATO, he’s a critical army in NATO. But I think now they saw with the purchase of the S-300s from Russia and the air defense systems, and the role that he’s playing in Syria, for instance, he’s in concert with Russia and Iran to get the US out, but fighting both the Russians and the Iranians there.
He is in conflict in many places in the world. Fighting the pipelines, trying to extend his sphere of influence around Cyprus in a conflict zone. So I hope that they will be able to focus on some of these challenges and take a strong stand, whether it’s against Hezbollah, Muslim Brotherhood, all of these terrorist organizations.
YH: Right. And one last topic, the Iran deal. Looks like Biden wants to step back in a little bit. What are your thoughts on that?
MH: Well, it sounds like he wants to do it more than a little bit, but he does say that he wants to change it. He doesn’t want to go back to the deal as it is and that it would have to be revised with longer deadlines and more strict inspections and has to cover much more. In parallel, there has to be agreements reached to limit their missile capacity because they’re moving ahead all the time, developing that. They’re moving ahead on the weaponization.
These are the three parts. You have the nuclear, the weaponization, which means applying it to a weapon, and then the missile for the delivery systems. They have now shown that they can put up inter-ballistic missiles. They are developing their own … They have built submarines and these fast ships, which are very dangerous in the straits against American shipping. And they have harassed American ships in April and civilian ships, oil tankers.
So there’s a big agenda with Iran that includes all of their activities, whether in South America, where they’re again now, with the elections in Bolivia and elsewhere, resurrecting the old coalition, and the Iranian influence in Venezuela, Bolivia, and Nicaragua, et cetera, which is a direct threat to our security, as well as to that of our allies in the region. Their efforts to undermine the government.
There’s a big agenda with Iran that the administration is going to face, and the only language that works is when they’re tough because we see that when Israel has struck at the thousands of targets, when Iran tries to smuggle weapons, everything, there’s no retaliation. They went into Tehran, they took out the files, they knocked on the doors, they flew over Tehran to show them that they can reach them there. There were nine explosions in Tehran at critical facilities. But no retaliation. And they didn’t blame Israel because then there would’ve been demands for retaliation. So it shows that the only language they understanding is to be strong and tough.
YH: All right. Well, thank you so much for your time, your insights, and also, most importantly, everything that you do to protect Israel, to protect the … The majority of the Jewish people are there, that’s where our Torah is, that’s where everything is. And we really appreciate everything that you do. Should have continued strength and good health.
MH: Amen. And remember what we do for them, we’re doing for us because it’s [inaudible 00:25:55] enemy see us as one, and when Iranians want to target, they hit Jews living abroad. And we know now that one of the reasons that they struck at the leader of ISIS is because he was threatening Jewish installations abroad. They’ve attacked synagogues [inaudible 00:26:15] so nobody should think that it’s just about Israel. It’s about the collective Jew. That is Israel, but it’s about all of the Jewish people collectively.
YH: Yeah, that’s true. But we really should try and figure out some sort of system in which the Jewish media would be able to have access to such interviews. I think it would be mutually beneficial both for the pro-Israel politicians, as well as the media itself, for everyone in general. I’d love to be in touch with you on that in the future.
MH: Absolutely. My pleasure.
YH: Okay. Be well.
MH: Thank you. You, too.
The interviewer can be reached at [email protected]