‘It’s always good to have friends,’ says Israeli PM
Following energy talks in Thessaloniki, Benjamin Netanyahu talks to Kathimerini about growing cooperation between Israel and Greece
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says he believes that the proven and likely energy reserves in Israel, Cyprus and Crete are more than enough to support natural gas exports to Europe even through an East Med pipeline.
In an exclusive interview with Kathimerini, Netanyahu stresses that an East Med pipeline is a real possibility right now, while also touching on the particularly close relationship that has been forged between Greece and Israel on cooperation issues in the fields of security and military training. He underscores the assistance provided by the Hellenic Air Force to fight the forest fires that threatened Haifa last November, while also emphasizing the importance that developing the innovation and high-technology sectors has had for Israel. Netanyahu does not rule out Israeli investments in Greece, while he also talks about the importance of Thessaloniki to Jewish history and culture.
First of all, a lot of Israelis have come here, and I mean 400,000 Israelis go to Greece every year, and that’s up an enormous percentage, and also to Cyprus. Secondly, you know our militaries have on occasion joint exercises and we cooperate on the question of terrorism. Third, we are now discussing something which, if it materializes, has I think tremendous possibilities for all our countries, and that’s an Eastern Mediterranean pipeline that would connect the gas fields of Israel and Cyprus through Greece to Italy and to Europe. And fourth, there is everything else. And we are doing just about everything else, including on this visit, where we discussed the internship of young Greek and Cypriot students and engineers in Israeli not only at Israeli universities but Israeli high-tech companies. This is the best form of technology transfer that I know of.
We have substantial gas reserves in Israel that are already proven, proven gas reserves, smaller but still substantial, in Cyprus, and possible gas reserves off the shores of Crete. So we are talking about big reserves that can go naturally to the European market. If we pool our resources it will cost a lot less to build a pipeline for potential companies than for any one of us alone. That obviously makes sense.
No, we have enough gas to support multiple pipelines. The Eastern Mediterranean pipeline was considered a fantasy a year, year-and-a-half ago, and since then we have begun to explore it more systematically and scientifically. There was an initial survey done by a Greek company – actually a Greek-Italian company – and they came back and said it’s feasible, and it’s doable, and it’s profitable. So now we are going to the next phase and we are going to check it even more carefully. But if it’s a go, we’ll go. We always hope that things will be resolved peacefully.
Well, it’s been 44 years I think – something like that – and if they can start and finish it in the next four months we will be delighted, believe me.
I think there is a natural partnership. It’s reflected right now in something that affects people’s lives – even their ability to live, but you don’t think about it – and that’s our ability to send firefighting planes to each other. This is not military, this is rescue operations. We had some fires in Israel and Greek pilots came recently and actually saved a piece of Haifa, our Thessaloniki by the sea. Greek pilots came with your planes which have certain capabilities that our planes don’t have. And in a future crisis you may need our planes that have capabilities your planes don’t have. Instead of each of us buying these fleets, we have one fleet. It’s a joint fleet – yours, ours and Cyprus’s, and including Croatia too. Recently our pilots flew to Cyprus and put out significant forest fires. This is an illustration of the fact that we have common interests that affect the well-being of our people. On security this is always the case and certainly on fighting terror: It’s always good to have friends.
Investments
Yes, I do, I do. I think it’s possible, but we have to look at how these things happen. How did the Israeli high-tech sector emerge? It emerged when Israelis went to work in the start-up companies of Silicon Valley and then came and replicated it in Israel, and American investment followed these Israeli entrepreneurs who came back from the US and built these incredible companies. So, I think in many ways the best way to replicate this for Greece is to do exactly what we did.
Have a few dozen – in the beginning – maybe more Greek engineers and students come and spend time in Israel, in Israeli companies. Let them absorb the special culture, the start-up culture, let them make friends with their Israeli counterparts. You know some of them are going to be entrepreneurs and some of them will want to live here. Maybe all of them would like to live here, or maybe they would like to raise their children in the Greek culture, speaking Greek, in their own homeland. This is what happened to us. Israelis came back to Israel. Greeks can go back after spending these few months or few years in Israel and you will be amazed at what happens, because we are testament to that. It happened in our case and we are now the other place in the world in terms of concentration of technological innovation: There’s the United States, closely followed by Israel.
We’ll be very happy if the same thing happens in Greece, because it will give you a tremendous sense of hope for the future and a tremendous economy.