General Consul of Israel in Miami: “With our actions we help the world”

Consul General Elbaz-Starinsky is committed to building partnerships and coalitions for Israel with the people and governments of Florida, Kansas, Missouri, and Puerto Rico, as he focuses on strengthening relations in the areas of politics, innovation, technology, trade, business, tourism, media, and culture, as well as promoting interfaith cooperation, and combating Antisemitism and racism.

-Florida and Israel have developed a deep relationship during the last few years. Greater Miami is home to the second Jewish community in the nation.

Florida means a lot to Israel. Governor DeSantis led on May 2019 a trade delegation of more than 100 people to Israel and signed more than 20 Memorandums of Understanding. And that was almost the cherry on top of the relationship between Israel and Florida. Also, during Governor Rick Scott’s mandate. As a junior diplomat then, I was involved in Governor Jeb Bush's visit to Israel in 2005, where he focused on strengthening economic and academic ties. So, the relationship is historic. Of course, also the Jewish community over here is very involved, very committed. It's part of the culture of this place. And it really makes South Florida in general, but Miami in particular, probably the epicenter of Jewish advocacy and connection to Israel. This community have stood up and have scaled up their connection, contribution, involvement, dedication, commitment to the state of Israel. And that's true also for local elected officials. All the way from top down, they know what Israel is for the world. They know what Israel means for their community.

-The possibility of Iran developing nuclear weapons is a thread for Israel, neighboring countries, and the world. How far can this confrontation go?

We don't know, but we are determined to remove the threat. We know what we want or what our goal was when we initiated this operation. Our goal is simple in terms of describing it, but of course it's pretty complicated in terms of doing it. We went for this operation to remove the existential threat that is hanging over the state of Israel. It is something that I urge everybody to really understand, an existential threat that was hanging over a sovereign, independent country that was directed at us from Iran. We have learned through history that when people or leaders are calling for your destruction, for the state of Israel destruction in this case, they also backed it with a plan. They are developing destructive nuclear weapons. They have developed a ballistic missile program, and we see the catastrophes that these missiles are creating in Israel these days. So, this combination of their threats, their rhetoric, their agenda, their ideology, and the practical steps that they have taken in terms of the nuclear program and the ballistic missile program, all this joined together to create an imminent existential threat for the state of Israel, a threat that Israel is determined to remove. It's an important thing to notice. We are doing this for the entire world. In the Iranian terminology, Israel is the small Satan, and the U.S. is the big Satan. Iranian proxies have murdered hundreds of Americans. They are threatening the entire world. Their proxies are operating across the globe. And they are undermining stability and security. All the countries in the Middle East are threatened by Iran. The Saudis, the Emiratis, the Bahrainis, all the moderate countries are threatened by Iran. Nobody wants Iran to become a nuclear weapon. Not only in the Middle East, but in the entire world. Their ballistic missiles can reach any point in Europe. They are partnering with Russia against Ukraine with intelligence and with drones and with missiles. So, at the end of the day, we are the forefront of the Western civilization. We hear the support from President Trump. We hear the support from the French president. We hear the support from the German consul. Even the Japanese prime minister said Iran cannot have nuclear weapons. That's a threat to the entire world.

-Israelis are in constant call to go to shelters. How do they perceive this situation?

I'm talking both as a consul general, but also as an Israeli whose family, friends, colleagues are all in Israel. I talk to my parents and to my brothers every night throughout the night when they're in the shelter. It is extremely hard. It is very, very hard to go on in your everyday life under this threat. And think about it, people are just going a couple times a day into the bomb shelter and then barrages of missiles, ballistic missiles, each one carries a thousand pounds of explosives, are hitting the center of Israeli cities. Destroying entire blocks, killing dozens of people, injuring hundreds. It's very hard, of course, to continue with everyday life. We are very, very resilient. And when it comes to removing the threat from Iran, there is no politics in Israel. There is no right or left. We know that this thing needs to be done, and it probably needs to be done by us. All the other attempts throughout the years have failed. Negotiations and sanctions and agreements, all these have failed. The Iranians are masters of negotiation and of buying time, gaining time, just so they can move forward with their nuclear program and all their military ambitions. We have realized we have no other choice.

-Israel is facing several military fronts at the same time: Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis from Yemen among them. How does a small country like Israel keep such an effective fighting force?

We know that since we established the State of Israel after the dreadful Holocaust, we have no other place to go. We have nowhere to go. And that is what we did during the war of independence in 1948, the Six Days War in 1967 and the Yom Kippur War in 1973. We knew that if we took one step back, we would lose our country. We are surrounded by millions of square kilometers of Arab states, so we are fighting with determination for our lives. Add to that the fact that we have invested throughout our history, we have invested in science and research, technology, and values. In the end of the day, we built a society that supports a great state, developed, prosperous state with a great security force, which is guided by very, very clear values and principles and determination. And that makes us stronger.

-It seems to be that international media covers the situation surrounding Israel in different ways

On the first day of the operation against Iran, the media reported that we have eliminated a nuclear scientist in Tehran. And then just a few days later, the Iranians attacked the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel. I urge your readers to look into the word scientist, which is used in two different ways. One, the Iranian they call scientist was developing nuclear weapons that would lead to only destruction and pain and death, while our scientists have produced a few Nobel Prizes generates and try to create a better place, better humanity, better world, developing medications and innovations. That is in the end sense also the difference between us and our enemies. We are trying to make our world a better place. And they are not.

-According to The Jerusalem Post, senior Israeli officials believe that President Trump has decided that the US will strike Iran if it refuses a deal that includes dismantling its nuclear program.

I will start with a disclaimer. I am representing the Israeli government, any questions about the policy of the American president should be directed at American officials. I will say, however, that President Trump has said over and over repeatedly, Iran cannot and will not have nuclear weapons. And many other presidents have said it in the past. Iran has been given the opportunity to negotiate but aiming at depriving them from becoming a nuclear weapon. The Iranians were very, very arrogant. They thought that they could play with everybody just the way they played with many others throughout the years. And they didn't realize that the reality had changed. I can't pretend to know what the United States will do. But I can tell you that we are doing whatever we can to make sure that Iran does not become nuclear to hurt us and others. Now, should it be done only in a military way? No, it doesn't have to be done only in a military way. But we have reached a point at which we had to act militarily.

-Many countries still don’t understand that Israel is surrounded by forces which don’t want to negotiate peace and have two states, Israel and Palestine. Why is this reality so hard to see?

The Israelis are the first one to know the price of war. And we are the first ones to want peace with our neighbors. And we have tried through various channels, various negotiations, various plans to have peace with our neighbors. Each time there was a round of peace talks, the answer was escalation and wave of terror: in the 1990s after the Oslo Accords, and more terror in the early 2000s, and later after Israel disengaged from Gaza. They said they would make an economic hub and prosperous place for Palestinians in Gaza, and they used the money instead to build tunnels and smuggled weapons to attack Israel. So, we had what happened on October 7th. 2023. They murdered 1,200 people in one day and kidnapped others. And we are determined to bring all the remaining hostages back home. Hamas couldn't care less about their statehood, independence, or sovereignty. They only care about killing Jews and destroying the state of Israel. Countries have tried to use and even abused the Palestinian cause to hurt Israel, not to help the Palestinians. And they've used that in the international community, and they've used that in the media, and they couldn't care less about the Palestinians.

-Does the position of countries against Israel, like Brazil, Cuba, Colombia, Spain, and Venezuela, has to do with anti-Semitism?

Venezuela, since Chavez,’ chose the path of aligning themselves with Iran, of aligning themselves with the axis of evil. Even Hezbollah was meddling in this country. But Venezuela is about the regime, it’s not the people. Same with Iran. We have no problem with the people of Iran. It's a great people. It's a rich culture and history. Spain is a different subject. Spain has been taken over by extreme left, and we see that across the world. I would say even in the United States we see extreme left. We see that on college campuses, we see that sometimes in media outlets, that whatever Israel does, it will be criticized, there will be double standards that are applied on the state of Israel, and this is what I call institutionalized anti-Semitism. It is a challenge that the Jewish communities around the world is facing. In the US, regardless of the political affiliation of the president, the support for the state of Israel was always staunch.

-Regarding the war in Gaza, Hamas claim over 55.000 civilians’ deaths, including some 20.000 terrorists they don’t recognize. We understand the numbers might have been risen by them, but even half the figure doesn’t make Israel look good.

War is horrible. It brings only misery and destruction and agony and pain, and we would like to refrain from military operation and war as much as we can. And every civilian death is a tragedy, and it's painful. I'm a father of five kids. I'm a brother. I'm a son. I know what it means when your loved ones are in danger. When they are hurt or hit. This war could have never started if Hamas didn’t attack us on October 8th., 2023 or released the hostages the days after. They had 255 hostages. Now they have 53. In this war, Hamas repeatedly have used their civilians as human shields. They have used and abused the institutions such as hospitals, such as mosques, such as schools, such as international organizations and institutions. They've abused them and made military targets of them. We just saw that the whole tunnel underneath the hospital in Gaza was used by Mohamed Sinwar, the brother of Yahya Sinwar, to lead military operations. We never, ever target civilians. Never.