As Israel approaches elections later this year, it’s fair to assume that even the great political survivor, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, is closer to the end than the beginning of his career. One politician who is often seen as a potential successor from within his Likud party is Nir Barkat, a tech millionaire who served as Jerusalem’s mayor for a decade. Barkat, currently the country’s minister of economy and industry, has previously declared his intention to vie for his party’s leadership.
I sat down with Barkat for a conversation on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. What follows here is a lightly edited and condensed transcript.
Ravi Agrawal: Let’s start with Gaza. Since the cease-fire deal in October, hundreds of Palestinians have been killed. Do you know why?
Nir Barkat: I don’t know what information you’re getting, but the Israeli security forces are securing Israel. And if anybody tries to challenge them, they’re risking their life. There were a number of frictions, mainly of terrorists that tried to hit Israelis. A number of Israelis were wounded and killed as well.
RA: The number that I’ve heard cited is more than 450 people, and UNICEF says that more than 100 of them were children.
NB: The minute that the leadership of Gaza will decide to leave their weapons, demilitarize, deradicalize themselves, and seek to do peace with Israel, they’ll find a good partner.
RA: You’re saying the cease-fire wasn’t sufficient?
NB: I don’t know where you’re getting your information. That’s not the information I know, but the point of the matter is it depends on the local leadership in Gaza. The minute that you’ll have peace-seeking people, we will have peace with them. And as long as they threaten Israel, we will know how to defend ourselves.
RA: Look, I think what Hamas did on Oct. 7 was awful, evil, and should be condemned. But the New York Times is reporting that Israel has destroyed more than 2,500 structures in Gaza since the cease-fire, and even some Israelis are saying that it’s an “absolute destruction” of whole neighborhoods. Why was that necessary?
NB: We left Gaza over 15 years ago. And everyone wanted to see Gaza become the Singapore of the Middle East. All the energy that Hamas had to create infrastructure—they embedded terror infrastructure as part of the civil infrastructure. You see all the tunnels connecting underground, all preparing to attack Israel, to launch missiles. The only way to take all that infrastructure away is to remove it. And the people of Gaza have to decide. If they allow terrorists to build terror infrastructure underneath their homes, we will take that apart.
Nobody in the world has faced such a terror regime. They don’t care about their own lives, they don’t care if people die, they hide behind the civilians, which poses to Israel a big, big, major challenge.
RA: But the question always comes back to this: At what cost are you restoring security? Because we’re at a point now where much of the world now is calling this a genocide.
NB: Which is nonsense. We totally disagree. The facts are wrong. And we’re totally committed to secure our people. We’re totally committed to take apart—by the way, over 50, 60, 80 countries are signed on the initiative of U.S. President Donald Trump.
RA: I was going to ask you about that. What do you make of his Board for Peace?
NB: I’m happy and I want to thank President Trump for this initiative. In many, many ways, it’s balancing or an alternative to the U.N., which is totally dysfunctional throughout the decades. And hopefully this will help us give the umbrella for creating peace in the region. I wanted to emphasize again, it depends on the people of Gaza. If they continue seeking to have another Oct. 7, which unfortunately Hamas does, then we will make sure we disarm them and replace their leadership. We will never, ever again allow jihadi leadership like Hamas to threaten Israel. We will eliminate that threat.
RA: How do you feel about someone like Russian President Vladimir Putin being invited to be on Trump’s Board for Peace?
NB: Anybody that wants to join the initiative is welcome. We have some reservations about some of the countries in that we will never allow them to have a foothold in Gaza—some are adversaries to Israel in many ways. But to have an alternative group of countries, an alternative to the U.N., led by President Trump? I think he’s doing a good job, and we’re supportive.
RA: When Trump announced the start of phase 2, there were reports that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office opposed some of those plans, but it looks like now they’ve come around. Are you able to tell us what happened there?
NB: Well, mainly we want our hero, Ran Gvili, back home. He’s still under the siege of Hamas. We want [his remains] back. That’s part of the first stage of the agreement.
The second thing is that we want to see a plan of dismantlement of the arms of Hamas. And we want to make sure that Hamas and similar people to them will not continue leading Gaza, because we know their intention and we will never allow them to rearm or regroup or re-prepare for another Oct. 7.
RA: President Trump has urged your president, President [Isaac] Herzog, to pardon Prime Minister Netanyahu. Do you have an opinion on whether that should happen?
NB: Sure. I’ve expressed publicly many times before that it’s sort of very awkward that in times of war—Prime Minister Netanyahu is doing a phenomenal job leading Israel—you’ve got to free him from his trial duties, postpone everything, or even cancel it. And that’s my view, and it’s not changed.
RA: I want to talk about U.S.-Israel relations. The American population has shifted in its perception of Israel. Polls show that support for Israel has declined, specifically among younger people and also Democrats. How worried are you about that?
NB: We view the United States as the best partner for Israel, because of values and because of our relationship and many historical reasons. And we have to make a major effort to be bipartisan in the United States. We have a lot in common, and that’s a goal that we have focus on.
RA: There are negotiations for the next 10-year tranche of U.S. military aid to Israel. Are you confident that the Trump administration will renew the aid package?
NB: Prime Minister Netanyahu said that he is willing to, in the next decade, reduce the aid to Israel in a 10-year process to zero. I support that. I think it’s the right move. Making Israel think more independently is the right thing for us. And we want to eventually, after a process, to look the Americans in the eye and say, “Thank you for the huge support you’ve given us throughout the years, and we’re now independent.” It’s good for both sides.
RA: Does this have anything to do with U.S. tariffs?
NB: No.
RA: Because I know they’re at 15 percent on Israel right now. And a lot of countries are striking their own deals: The European Union with Mercosur and with India, for example. Are you looking at doing something like that, too?
NB: It has nothing to do with it. Naturally, we’d prefer no tariffs. But once the United States decided on tariffs, we want to have the best deal possible with them. And we’re collaborating with the Americans. We will have the minimal based on the tariffs that President Trump decided on. It doesn’t include services, and the majority of what we export is services. And anyway, we’re now looking to expand our focus to India and to other countries in Asia. And then maybe the next thing would be to look at Africa.
RA: Purely in economic terms, that makes a lot of sense, but as I was saying earlier, there are all these growing boycotts of Israeli academic institutions. There are proposals from the Netherlands, Spain, Belgium, Ireland, and others to ban imports from settlements. In terms of soft power, Israel is going through a tough moment. As I mentioned earlier, a lot of countries believe that Israel has committed genocide. You’re the minister for the economy and industry; isn’t all of that getting in the way of business now?
NB: Israel did not commit any genocide. It’s nonsense. And people have to understand that democracies have to defend themselves. Very few people in the world had to be challenged by such a jihadi group. And I’m telling you, underneath the radar, all countries, the majority of the countries, seek to learn from our experience, both in terms of defensive and offensive tools and values. We were caught with our pants down on Oct. 7, a huge blow. We recovered really quickly. If you look at the evil axis, starting with Iran, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza, and other places, of course, the world is looking at this in an amazing way and seeks to learn from our experience.
RA: But my point is that there are enough countries that are very concerned about what Israel’s done. I get that you don’t want to call it a genocide…
NB: It’s not genocide.
RA: But the countries that believe it is, and that face a lot of public pressure to cut off ties with Israel, is that not hurting the economy?
NB: Well, I think it’s going to hurt them. And what I’ve learned throughout my business career is that if, let’s say a specific country in Europe is stuttering with Israel, fine. We know where we’re wanted, and we’ll do better business in places that want us. We know how to bypass any obstacle. Look at Turkey as an example. In the middle of the war, almost two years ago, they decided to stop trading with Israel. Guess what happened? We found alternative routes and the country that suffered the most is Turkey itself because Israeli entrepreneurs were very flexible in their thinking. You know, like water, we know how to bypass all obstacles. And eventually, we’re very proud of what we do. We’re proud of the quality of products we can produce, and anybody that challenges us, eventually we’ll know how to either bypass or get to the same position through other means.