BW: Ok, so that’s your rap against the previous coalition. I want to get to what people are saying your government will look like, which has different kinds of landmines. First, you served as prime minister, for those who are unaware of your political history, from 1996 to 1999 and then again from 2009 to 2021. That is fifteen years of leadership, longer than American law would grant any president. What is going to be different this time? What is the vision that you have for this term and what did you not accomplish in those fifteen years in power that you want to accomplish now?

BN: Well, the first thing is, what is the mission that has guided me? I said to you at the beginning of our talk that it’s to achieve the prosperity, security and permanence of the State of Israel. My belief was that Israel has to be very powerful. It’s not enough to be moral. It’s not enough to be just. It’s not enough to be liked. It doesn’t even make a difference. If you’re weak, you don’t survive in our area. By the way, beyond our area, you can see that you can be devoured by aggressive forces that gobble up nations or conquer them or destroy them. So for Israel to be strong, you need a strong army. There is one problem with that conception. Ben-Gurion, the first great prime minister of Israel, believed we needed an army; he helped found the Israeli army, without which we wouldn’t be here. He also declared the state, another act of tremendous leadership at the time when people opposed that. But once we had the army, our neighbors also had armies, and they got stronger and we got stronger. Except that we need F-35s, we need submarines, we need drones, we need cyber, we need intelligence. These things all have one characteristic: they cost money, a lot of money. How are we going to get the money to support our army?

I was a free marketeer by inclination, but I became a rabid free marketeer in my terms as Prime Minister and especially as Finance Minister, I served a stint in that role as well. I had to create a strong free market economy to sustain the military; I had to lead a free market revolution. Israel is now a different country. It’s one that is fundamentally different from the semi-socialist country that I inherited when I came into power. I had to turn Israel to a free market economy, which ultimately, by the way, cost me politically.You say people eulogized me? They eulogized me many times, especially after I conducted these reforms, which basically shrunk me to 10% of the Knesset. I was dead. I was politically dead. I’ve come back from political death.