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[DESCRIPTION] Thomas Nides speaks to the camera with a painting in the background. The Touro University logo is at the bottom right.

[THOMAS NIDES] We as people who care about Israel, those of us who consider themselves Zionists and care about a Democratic Jewish state, we have to recognize we have a problem. We can say it's fair, unfair, wrong, BS, blah, blah, blah, The New York Times, we hate The New York Times, we hate the BBC. OK, that's all great. You can whine about it and crack about it. That is what we have to deal with. 

So we're smart. We are Jews. We are smart. We can manage this. If we have a problem, we're going to deal with the problem. It's going to be step by step by step. As you know, when they started all these exchange programs, the birthright programs, we understood 25 years ago needing to take non-Jews and Jews to Israel to introduce them to Israel. We're going to have to have basically, birthright on steroids. It may not be called birthright. It may not be this. 

We need to have a Marshall Plan to reeducate people, to convince people. Part of that starts with these elections coming up. Part of this starts with people doing podcasts. Part of this is communicating on social media. Part of this is recognizing we're not perfect. 

I know people think most Jews are perfect. At least Jews do. We're not perfect. We've got to recognize that. And if we do, we'll begin the process of healing. You've already seen it going on in college campuses. The temperature is down in many college campuses around the country. It's off the front pages of the newspaper. But we have work to do. And we can get this done. We'll figure it out. It's going to take some time. 

[MUSIC PLAYING] 

[DESCRIPTION] Touro Talks intro displaying photos of students and faculty across the university, fading into the Touro University logo.

[TEXT] Touro Talks, Touro University, Ambassador Tom Nides on U.S.- Israel Relations and the Future of the Middle East, November 12, 2025, Tour Talks is sponsored by Robert and Arlene Rosenberg

[DESCRIPTION] Alan Kadish speaks to the camera from an office setting. The Touro University logo is at the bottom right.

[ALAN KADISH] Hello, and welcome to Touro Talks. I'm Dr. Alan Kadish, president of Touro University. Today it's an absolute pleasure to have a discussion about a pressing international relations issue, the US-Israel relationship and its impact on the future of the Middle East. It's no exaggeration to say that today, we have two of the world's experts on this complicated issue, Ido Aharoni, who's a global distinguished professor of business at Touro University, 

[TEXT] Dr. Alan Kadish, President, Touro University

[ALAN KADISH] --former Israeli consul general to New York; and Ambassador Thomas Nides, who is the former American ambassador to the state of Israel. 

Ido Aharoni serves as a global distinguished professor of business at Touro University, 

[DESCRIPTION] Ido Aharoni joins. 

[ALAN KADISH] --was born in Tel Aviv to a family that settled in the land of Israel in the 1870s. His diplomatic career has spanned both coasts of the United States, and he has been the longest serving Israeli consul general in New York. He has lectured and been a member of the Board of Governors at Tel Aviv University, and has been a distinguished professor at New York University. 

In recent years, he's also served as an advisor to several global companies. He joined Touro a couple of years ago, and we're thrilled to have him on the faculty. 

Thomas Nides is vice chairman of strategy and client relations at Blackstone. Before joining Blackstone, Mr. Nides served as a US ambassador to Israel from 2021 to '23. Part of that, he spent over a decade at Morgan Stanley in various capacities, including chief operating officer and vice chairman. 

He was appointed deputy secretary of state and CEO of the US State Department by President Barack Obama, and was awarded the nation's highest diplomatic honor by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for his service. He has also served in a variety of other government positions and on several nongovernmental and academic boards. 

At this time, with a fragile ceasefire holding in the Middle East and tremendous turmoil in international relations among many different countries, often centered on the Middle East, it's a pleasure to have Professor Aharoni and Ambassador Nides with us today at Touro Talks. Welcome. Ambassador Aharoni, I'm going to turn it over to you. 

[DESCRIPTION] Ido Aharoni speaks to the camera with artwork in his background. The Touro University logo is at the bottom right.

[IDO AHARONI] Thank you so much, President Kadish, for your leadership and for your kind introduction. It is a real pleasure to host our dear friend, Ambassador Nides. 

[TEXT] Ambassador Ido Aharoni, Former Consul General of Israel, Distinguished Touro Faculty

[IDO AHARONI] Tom, if I may, good to have you with us. The first time we met was actually right before you went to Israel. 

[DESCRIPTION]Thomas Nides joins. 

[IDO AHARONI] If you remember, we were introduced by a mutual friend from DC. 

And I told you, when we had the very long conversation. I told you, there's no doubt in my mind, now that I interacted with you, that you will be remembered as one of the most popular US ambassadors to Israel. And I think I was right. Everybody loves you, Tom, in Israel. And everybody misses you. 

[THOMAS NIDES] Thank you. Yeah, the feeling's mutual. Thank you. 

[IDO AHARONI] Yeah, yeah. And so it's a pleasure to have you. So what I thought to do today in the short time that we have is to talk a little bit about your personal background, one of the notable Jews out of Minnesota, and talk a little bit about your vision of, how do you see the future of Israel's ties with the United States? How do you explain that despite of this asymmetry, the relationship have been, by and large, very, very intimate, and no matter who's in the White House, by the way? 

And then talk a little bit about your view of what's happening in the Middle East. What do you think are the possible directions? So we have three blocks in this interview. So the first is, obviously, your childhood, your upbringing. It says online that you were born in Duluth. And I was just curious about, what was it like to grow up in Duluth? Your father's a president of the congregation there, the conservative congregation; and also, to know that you are from the same town as the legendary Bob Dylan. 

[THOMAS NIDES] Well, first, a couple of things. First of all, I'm thrilled to be here with you and your TNLI, as someone who I've followed closely your career. And, Ambassador, you've done a fantastic job. And it's not easy being the consul general. 

[TEXT] Ambassador Thomas R. Nides, Former US Ambassador to Israel

[THOMAS NIDES] It's not easy doing these jobs, as you and I both know. And it's sometimes thankless. But, yeah, at least you get to be called ambassador. So with that, thank you for having me. 

As you know, I grew up as the youngest of eight kids in Duluth. What it was like growing up in Duluth was really cold. We used to say there was two seasons, winter and the 4th of July. And the reality of this is, is that I was a Reform Jew. I didn't really actually know the difference between being a Reform Jew, a conservative Jew, or an Orthodox Jew. 

I mean, I just be honest. There's 10 kids in my bar mitzvah class. I'm friends with most of them still to this day. Because there wasn't any Jews there. And we were just Jews. We were cultural Jews. We were not religious Jews. We were cultural. 

We believed being Jewish was bigger than just the Torah. It was about how you conduct yourself. My parents were big community-- very big in the community. My father was, as you point out, the president of the synagogue, although it was a Reform synagogue. 

My mother was the head of Hadassah in the Sisterhood. My father ran the UGA. So we were like activist Jews. I mean, we just grew up with the values which I believe what makes Jews Jews. And one of the reasons I think I had a decent run in Israel is that I liked everyone. I mean, I had great relationships with the authorities. 

I think my first week there I went to Bnei Brak, which, if you have never been to Bnei Brak, it's quite an experience. And I was very close to the left. So my view, this was my job wasn't to take ideology out of it. It was like bringing the communities together and spending time from the left and to the right. 

So I grew up as someone who just really cared and got involved in politics in early age. I cared about just being in the game. I like it. It's enjoyable. And I like to give back. I like to, as I like to say, it's in my kishkas. It's something that I really believe. 

I've been really lucky. I've been very fortunate in my life and career. You know you need to get back. And that's something I spent a lot of time thinking about, not only having been ambassador to Israel, but also being the deputy secretary of state. OK, all that's great, very ego gratifying. But I care about people, and I think that's really important. And that's what makes us Jews. 

[IDO AHARONI] Yeah, no question about it. And by the way, it brings to mind the iconic Coen brothers movie, A Serious Man. I wonder how accurate the movie is in terms of depicting the atmosphere of being Jewish in Minnesota. 

[THOMAS NIDES] Listen, again, it's very funny. I went to University of Minnesota, too. So I lived in Duluth, and Minnesota is about three hours south. It wasn't until I got to Minneapolis and realized that there was a Jewish fraternity and a Jewish sorority, and it was just it was a different way. Because I never really thought of it. Yes, I knew we were special. I don't mean that in an egotistical way, but we were very few people, and I was exceptionally proud of being a Jew. 

I mean, I was surrounded by many of my Christian friends in Duluth. They all had big Christmas trees. We did not. But I thought it was kind of unique to be a Jew. And I think it was kind of like to talk about it and understand it and celebrate it-- so it wasn't a religious journey for me. Although my first trip, I went on the NFTY trip, Northern Federation of Temple Youth Reform Movement. I went there when I was a junior in high school. 

I remember walking up the-- sleeping in the Sinai desert, actually walking beside, not taking the fancy cable cars, which I used to take as ambassador, but walking up at 4 o'clock in the morning. That was an awakening for me. And again, I don't want to get carried away about my awakening as a Jew. It was just like, wow, there's this little country called Israel, really small. A lot of people want to hurt it all the time. It was a beginning of love for being a Zionist, love about being a Jew, and understanding all its complexities. 

[IDO AHARONI] Now, your attraction to political content, so because you were not a politician. You were a civil servant, an official, but not an elected official. 

[THOMAS NIDES] Yes. 

[IDO AHARONI] Your attraction started in high school when you invited Walter Mondale to address your peers at the high school. And so tell us about that experience. 

[THOMAS NIDES] Well, first of all, here's what happened, just to be clear. So I was asked to give the commencement speech. Because for some reason, the valedictorian spot was taken by someone else. I don't know why that happened. So I was given the chore of finding a speaker for [INAUDIBLE]. But now, we are a high school in Duluth, Minnesota. It's not like you get many people to come to your high school graduations. 

So they said, oh, maybe we'll try to get Bob Dylan. Go back to Bob Dylan thing. Well, for some reason, Bob Dylan never returned my emails. I guess it wasn't emails, phone calls or letters. So that was a non-starter. Actually, Bob Dylan was from Hibbing, not from Duluth. But it's all basically the same. 

So I'm like, what am I going to do now? So I'm thinking about it. And the guy who was-- the vice president at the time was Walter Mondale, Jimmy Carter's vice president, trivia question for those of you who don't know. And the guy who was the vice president's, basically, chief of staff, his parents owned the dry cleaner in Duluth, and they were good friends of my parents. 

So I said, well, maybe we can get Walter Mondale to come speak at our high school graduation. Now, vice presidents don't do high school graduations. They do Harvard or the Marines or something fancy. So I started driving this guy crazy, who was the son of the dry cleaner owner, who was the vice president's chief of staff. What do I mean drive him crazy? Letters, petitions, calling him. 

Anyway, just to get me off his back, He. Got Walter Mondale to come to speak to my high school graduation. And that's how it all started. So I got there. And I introduced Mondale. We spent about 30 seconds together. And I said, you need to hire me to work in the White House, because now you and I are so close. I got this. 

And so they hired me as an intern with-- my fellow intern was Amy Klobuchar. So she and I were interns together, a little office together. And the dream still lives. The hope endures, as Kennedy used to say. 

[IDO AHARONI] Amazing. And we should remind our viewers that that campaign ended with a colossal defeat. 

[THOMAS NIDES] Oh, don't. That was so mean. That was so mean. Yes, we did lose 49 states. That wasn't a good thing. And by the way, I was the Midwest field director, and Minnesota was one of my states. So unlike most people, I actually won a state, the only state in the District of Columbia. 

So that was not what we refer to as a great moment. We ran against Ronald Reagan. For some reason, they didn't like it when Mondale said, I'm going to raise your taxes. So, so many people don't like that so much. So anyways, yes, just remind everyone, yes-- 

[IDO AHARONI] Just too close. 

[THOMAS NIDES] --I was unemployed after being a big shot. 

[IDO AHARONI] So just to close the circle, when I joined the Foreign Service in Israel, I'm so old that the prime minister then was Itzhak Shamir. And my first assignment as a young cadet was to host the late Geraldine Ferraro, who was Mondale's running mate during that campaign. And so this-- 

[THOMAS NIDES] Former member of Congress from New York. 

[IDO AHARONI] Yup, yeah, and I had a chance to spend three or four days with her. And her daughter came with her. And it was actually very nice. And we did talk about that campaign. 

[THOMAS NIDES] Yeah, it was great. It was not the highlight of my career. But it was cool to do it. But just a record, just to get a job, it's not good to work on a campaign that loses 49 states. Just to help any of you who are watching, and you're watching your kids work on campaigns, you might want to say, try to work on campaigns that win. It's better for career opportunity than losing. 

[IDO AHARONI] Now, you combine a very interesting experience, both as a banker in the world of business and as a diplomat. And one of the classes that we teach is called Business Diplomacy. What are the things that we can introduce to the world of business, the elements from diplomacy, that can enhance business? 

And you are a natural born diplomat. You're a natural born diplomat. There's no question about it. I've seen many. You're one of the best I've ever seen. what are the things that you can share with the many, many students that are watching this, in New York and outside of New York, about lessons from your diplomatic experience that you would recommend implementing in their business practice? 

[THOMAS NIDES] It's very simple, two elements. One is about authenticity. Be true. Be a real person. Sometimes it's gets you in trouble, but be a real person. People want to have real relationships with people, not this kind-- you get these jobs, and you're like, you're Mr. Ambassador or Mr. diplomat or Mr. whatever or even-- listen, I'm the vice chairman of Blackstone's, a big fancy company. I have a CEO. OK, that's all really interesting. But it's all for naught. 

I mean, the reality is, have real relationships with people, One of the things, as you know, one of the things I pride myself in is having deep relationships with people. One of the problems both in business and in government, people think they need to collect people. They've got to build their contact list. How many friends do you have on LinkedIn? 

It's fine, but it's a bunch of BS. What you need to do in business and in life is you need to have a core group of people that you are deeply friendly with and have a long, creative relationship with. That's true in diplomacy and in business. 

And I think in a world of connectivity and the world of Instagram, and the connectivity of, How am I going to get ahead? and I need more contacts, I need more relationships, I need more mentors, I think it's really, really, really important that you are very much focused on the relationships you have, and make sure you build those. 

So when I go to Israel, I see the same people I saw when I was ambassador, again, not just the famous people. Yeah, of course, I know famous people, but so do we all. But the friends I have had in Israel, they will continue to be my friends forever. And I think that's what makes you not only a good diplomat, a good businessperson-- and quite frankly, just a decent human being. 

You just need to be a decent human being. And I think people forget that in the worlds in which we swirl around. You have the same issue. You've been in all these big, fancy jobs, and everyone wants to take you out to dinner and do this and that. And if every day you just collectively have another group of people you meet, you're like, oh, you're a mile wide and an inch deep. And that's just not the right way to go through either business or in politics. 

[IDO AHARONI] And you lead by example. I've said to people that I'm always amazed by your ability to respond. And you never drop the ball, which is, I think, another-- 

[THOMAS NIDES] I'm not sure. You ask my wife. She thinks I drop the ball plenty [INAUDIBLE]. 

[IDO AHARONI] Well, with me, at least, you've always-- and we saw each other recently in Israel after 10/7. You were deeply involved with the various initiatives. So let's go back to your diplomatic/public career. So tell us a little bit about the main milestones in that career until the point you were appointed as ambassador to Israel. 

[THOMAS NIDES] Say that again. 

[IDO AHARONI] Share with us, what were the main milestones of that? 

[THOMAS NIDES] Before I became ambassador? 

[IDO AHARONI] Yes. 

[THOMAS NIDES] I don't know. Listen, I've been looking. Again, it's not that important. I mean, I've had a-- listen, a great gig. Again, I'm the youngest of eight kids. I should be working at Dairy Queen. I'm not. I've had the opportunity to be at the highest level of business and government. I'm really lucky. And by the way, it's fine. But a lot of this has to be luck. A lot of this has to do with having friends that would believe in you, and all that. 

So again, I spent a lot of my career-- I was at Morgan Stanley three separate times. And one thing I remind all of your students who watch this. Please, how you leave a job is as important as you get the job. 

So one of the things I've done a pretty good job of, when I leave, people generally don't hate me. Although, I did leave Morgan Stanley three times. I thought I was coming back for a fourth time, but obviously, I did a little bit of a head fake. But I think that's really important. 

And I think for me, personally and professionally, I've been able to go in and out of government. It's a really cool thing. And as you know, it's not simple to pull that off, because it's hard. It's complicated. But I've been really lucky to do that. 

[IDO AHARONI] And so when you arrive in Israel, and you said that your intention from the very beginning was to approach every segment in Israeli society-- and one of your predecessors, the late Martin Indyk, when he left the job, he gave an interview. And he was asked, what's the one most striking feature that you find about life in Israel? And he said something very profound. 

He said, I think that the Israelis don't take the time to truly and fully and deeply process what's happening to them. And life is so intense in Israel, and things are moving so quickly that I have a feeling, he said-- Martin Indyk-- that they don't have the time to process. Did you have the same feeling? Because as an Israeli, I can tell you that I share that profound insight by Martin Indyk. 

[THOMAS NIDES] I don't know. Listen, I love Israel, OK? I love the whole complications of the place, OK? And what makes Israel. Israel is, first of all, people don't understand about Israel. There's 9 million people, almost 10 million people, now in Israel. 7 million. are Jews, and 2.5 million are not Jews. And people don't understand this. 

There's Arabs. There's Jews. It's a melting pot. People have this fundamental misunderstanding about what Israel is and it isn't. And one thing I learned very quickly, the importance of the Arab community, and the Druze community, and the multiple facets of the country, the country is a melting pot, number one. 

Number two, it is a living, breathing democracy in the best of sense. When I was ambassador, we had this big fight over judicial reform. And I remember that, 400,000 Israelis would show up every Saturday to protest. No one was arrested. No one was killed. It was really cool. It upset Netanyahu, but it was really cool. 

And I think that the fact of that this happened in this country, this is what binds these two countries together, America and Israel, this basic value proposition that you can stand up and protest and say things that may not be particularly comfortable. You can do this. You add that to the element the country has and continues to be surrounded by people that want to destroy it. 

I like to remind all my liberal friends-- and I have many liberal friends because I'm a liberal guy myself. It would be like living in the District of Columbia, which I live in. I live in New York and Washington, and that the people in Virginia and Maryland want to destroy you. That's not a very good feeling. That is not a very good feeling because you're in a little place like District of Columbia, and you're surrounded by people who would prefer not having you around. 

This is how Israel has become Israel. Because what Israel has, which very few countries have, because of democracy and the IDF-- the mandatory service is what defines Israel. Because I don't care if you're a rich Jew or a poor Jew or a middle class Jew, you're going to serve in the IDF. And not only that, you're not playing soldier. You are a soldier. 

And the reality is that that makes people grow up. It brings the country together as a single entity. Yes, there's plenty of divisions. But that is the one-- even during, as you know, during the judicial reform, the guys who were running the judicial reform were friends of mine. They'd come to see me. And that whole judicial reform went completely silent once October 7th happened. 

All the anger, all the frustrations, all the stuff around [INAUDIBLE] and all the stuff around judicial reform, everyone picked up where they left off, which is defend the state of Israel. Could that happen in America? No. Because we don't have a military service like Israel has. The country is even divided. So this is the beauty of the place. 

So I love, obviously-- Martin sadly passed away. I love Martin. But what I was in awe of, of just the beauty, the diversification of the place, so yeah, I do. I think people don't appreciate it sometimes. I just think that the spirit of the place, the entrepreneurship of the place, and the innovation of the place is remarkable. 

And if you haven't been to Israel-- I mean, obviously, most people on this call, obviously. But if you listen to this, and you say, I've got to go to Israel because I've got to see it for myself-- it ain't perfect, by the way. But they've got to go see it. 

[IDO AHARONI] Yeah, I always tell people that the first thing they should know about Israel, it's not a perfect place. Because sometimes, people are very critical of Israel, judgmental of Israel, because they judge Israel by its imperfections, not necessarily by its attempts to fix them. So as an observer-- and you just gave us a wonderful insight about Israel as an observer-- how do you see the keys for Israel's emergence from 10/7, which was a trauma of national and historic proportions, and of course, its aftermath? 

[THOMAS NIDES] So we had to put this in pieces. First of all, everyone, I think, generally recognizes how we got here. You can debate how the execution of the war. But one thing was for sure. In every school, every university I speak at, I start by saying very simply, Hamas started this war. Hamas killed 1,200 Jews on the day of October 7th. They would have killed more if they could have. 

They took 250 innocent individuals who, by the way, were just partying at a festival. The people that were showing up at that festival were a bunch of liberal Jews. I mean, it's ironic that the people who live in Gaza aren't a bunch of right wing lunatics. In fact, arguably, they're the most liberal of the Jews because they want to prove it was safe to live there. 

In the kibbutzim and in the concert, they showed up. And so people need to understand, Hamas knew what they were doing. Because Hamas doesn't care about innocent Gazans. So no one should make any misunderstanding. Their view is very simple, and they would admit this. The more Gazans that died was better for Hamas because, because, they wanted to turn the world against Israel. 

First, they want to have a regional war. That didn't happen. They want to turn the world against Israel. Under that measurement, they've been pretty successful, because if you don't care about innocent people dying-- OK, so put that aside here. 

We as Jews need to understand we have a problem. And we can say we didn't start the war. I totally get all that. But we as Jews, as Zionists, we need to recognize that we have a lot of work to do to recover from October 7. You have [INAUDIBLE] of work in Israel because society has been divided, for a whole variety of reasons. 

But we as people who care desperately about Zionism and the importance of Israel and certainly, fighting anti-Semitism, we've got work to do. We've got to express to people what this beautiful country called Israel is. We've got to recognize that we made some mistakes-- again, not the fact that how this war started, not who started the war, who could have ended the war. They kept our hostage, all that to be true. 

That is 100% certain, but we made mistakes, too. We made mistakes, as well, as far as I'm concerned. And I think part of the mistakes are driven by some of the members of Prime Minister Netanyahu's party. Ben Gvir and Smotrich in particular, I think has pushed this prime minister way more to the right. I think the issues around humanitarian efforts, I think, could have done a much better job. 

We have a problem. And one of the ways as Jews and as supporters of Israel, the way you begin to fix a problem is to admit that you have some issues. People say, we have no issues. We did everything perfectly. There's no issues, no. They don't know what they're talking about. 

And as someone who cares deeply about being a Zionist in Israel, we need to begin this process. And it's going to take many, many, many years to get people back to where they need to be, which is bipartisan support for Israel. That has always been the issue. 

Joe Biden went to Israel. When I was there on his 10th visit, he stood up and looked at the camera. Joe Biden looked at the camera and said, you do not need to be a Jew to be a Zionist. I totally support Donald Trump's efforts to get the hostages back. I think he's done a very good job of supporting the state of Israel in its most important need. 

I supported the attack on Fordow and Iran. I praised Jared Kushner multiple times in the press for the work he did to get the hostages release. Israel is a bipartisan issue. It needs to be a bipartisan issue. You can have differences of opinion, but the importance of having Israel as a democratic Jewish state is fundamental in the core. And that's what we need to support. 

[IDO AHARONI] By the way, I couldn't agree with you more about the mistakes that Israel made communicating its position. It's one thing to say, like General Sherman said, war is hell. And of course, there's going to be collateral damage, but we have to minimize it. That's an entirely different thing to say, let's initiate it. 

[THOMAS NIDES] Well, I mean-- and you know this because you're a diplo-- I mean, listen, I want to make sure everyone understands, all your listener understands. This war happened because Hamas wanted it to happen. Hamas knew the reaction that would happen from Israel. They knew exactly. 

Now, they were way more successful on October 7 than they ever dreamed to be. It's just the reality this is. But that's for another conversation. But they knew exactly, having given the history-- I was there when Hamas had shot rockets off in Israel, and Israel would bombard them. They knew that the reaction-- it's like the little kid in the playground. He comes up to the big bully in the playground and smacks him in the face because he feels really good at the moment. 

And he realizes he's going to get the shit kicked out of him by the big bully. I'm not suggesting Israel is a big bully, I'm just making the point is, Hamas knew that, and they wanted that reaction. They wanted that reaction. They wanted this massive reaction. That's why Hamas puts innocent Gazans in places that they know Israel is going to attack. 

Again, forget your ideology. Put it to be clear. It breaks my heart that innocent Gazans died during this war. It's sickening. The people who always get hurt the worst in these military conflicts are the people who cannot defend themselves. And most Gazans are not sitting around and saying, let's destroy Israel. 

Now, people will disagree with me. The reality is, I don't believe that in my heart. I'm a Jew. I don't fundamentally believe that that's what the people want. They want the same thing that most of us want. There's plenty of people who are extremists. But the people want basically, to live in peace, have the opportunity, a job, some money, get the kids some education. So, a long-winded say is that we have a lot of work to do. 

[IDO AHARONI] Yes, and I agree with you. And that work, essentially, is, especially when we're talking about the younger generation, let's say for the sake of the Mamdani voters, we have to reintroduce Israel to them and basically, start from scratch. Do you have any tips for Israel and people who care about Israel, how this can be done? 

And by the way, we see the same thing also happening on the conservative right, where we have to reintroduce Israel to a whole new audience. And it's mostly a generational thing. Younger people tend to disassociate from Israel, really don't understand all the fundamentals that you shared with us. 

[THOMAS NIDES] Yeah, well, I mean, the first thing, obviously you have to believe you have an issue. I was in Israel a little bit ago. I spent some time with some relatively conservative Israeli officials. I think they understand they've got an issue. I mean, maybe not Ben Gurion Smotrich. But the [INAUDIBLE], even the Likud guys who come to see me all the time here, I think they understand. 

At the end of the day, the strength of Israel is a derivative not only of the military strength, but the support of the diaspora community. And I think they realize there's a huge fundamental problem with the diaspora. So I think, one, is to recognize you've got some problems. Because you can't begin to fix it without understanding. That's number one. 

Number two, I'm not putting my thumb on the scale here, but you probably have elections in Israel next year. I fundamentally believe-- again, it's no disrespect to the current government. I think the country always operated better with coalitions. They aren't perfect, but I do believe the country needs a coalition government. Listen, the country is center right. It's not going left. But the country is center right. 

I think, quite frankly, depending on what happens in these upcoming elections. I think it would be really helpful, I think, for Israel's standing to have a coalition government. Regardless if Netanyahu's in it or not in it, I think there needs to be a coalition government. And then I think you've got to fundamentally go to where the kids are and communicate on college campuses about the importance of Israel, the importance of what happened, how it happened, what we're doing about it, all the things that lead into this, and remind people what makes Israel Israel, and keep reminding people. 

Because I think you're 100% right. I people have gotten a very, very unfortunate view of Israel over the last 2 and 1/2 years. Listen, again, like in any battle, you've got this big, complicated Israel, this big, bad mis-strength of military, and what you're doing to a bunch of innocent people. The perception of it as is is not great. 

Now, when you remind people that this innocent people are terrorists, and they don't really care about the life of the people in Gaza-- they treated the people in Gaza even before the war in a terrible, repressed way, and they put all these people's innocent lives in harm's way for the sole purpose of winning an ideological war. I like to remind people, who made Hamas God? Who made Hamas God to basically decide that people are going to live or die, that they're going to decide what innocent Gazans are going to be put in harm's way? Who did that? 

I mean, I don't think most Gazans said, OK, whatever Hamas wants, I'm in. Sure, there's plenty of martyrs out there. But I think the vast majority of Gazans-- listen, I talked to my friend who runs the Bank of Palestine. We have conversations all the time about this. I talk to Mansour Abbas all the time. Listen, there's a lot of anger, too, among what Hamas has done to destroy much of what's happened there. But that's for a larger conversation. 

[IDO AHARONI] Now, you pointed to a very interesting phenomenon, which I see, also, in the region. So while younger people on campuses in Western countries like the United States, Canada, England, France, and so on, or even Australia, are identifying and supporting a terrorist organization like Hamas, what we see in the region is the Arab leadership, in the case of Saudi Arabia and Jordan, actually actively participating, defending Israel against Iran. 

But they're still talking about normalization. Saudi Arabia is still in play. So what is, in your assessment, the main reason or several reasons why it's still happening? There's a lot of anger in the Arab street regarding Israel's reaction to 10/7, yet the leadership is still interested in exploring. 

[THOMAS NIDES] Yeah, it's a really good question. And you probably can answer the question as well as I can. I think there's two things, two dynamics going on. As you know, during the Biden administration, we were an inch away from getting the signed normalization deal done. Because ultimately, the Saudis wanted a security agreement with the United States. 

And for those of you who are listening, to understand this, what they really wanted was a NATO-like agreement, which would take 67 votes in the Senate. And we were going to be able to as Democrats, I think we were able to produce that, given that we wanted them to normalize with Israel. I think the Saudi leadership, MBS in particular, was quite anxious to do that, given his needs. 

You're also right that the street, especially in places like Jordan and other-- if you look at the rest of the region, had an enormous amount of anger of what happened on October 7. And the leaders of those countries needed to react to that. Given all that, it's shocking to me that the Abraham Accords basically, withstood all that. Bahrain and Morocco and the UAE stood by Israel and didn't pull out the Abraham Accords, which shows you how good a job I think that the Trump administration did originally on that. 

So I think that the reality of this is that these Arab countries, they want calm. Your enemy of your enemy is your friend. The reality of this is they were very happy for us to attack Fordow. They're very happy to see Hezbollah weakened. They're very happy to see the Houthis, in some respects, dismantle to some extent. 

So I think these Arab countries want calm. They want calm. They don't find it particularly interesting to have their refineries blown up by terrorist organizations. So they're no different than the Israelis. They want to keep moving forward. They don't want to be moving back. 

So some of this is self-motivating. Some of it's like, can I get some money from the United States to normalize with Israel? Some is they just want to make sure that their economies keep growing. And anytime you have a military confrontation, it screws you up economically. So they don't want that to happen. 

Most of these countries don't have military operations good enough to basically, protect themselves. They need us. If it's Kuwait, if it's Qatar, Qatar's got our military base there. It's Saudi Arabia. It's the Emirates. They need our help. So, part of this is what they can get from us to get that done. And also, the normalization is a big piece of that. 

[IDO AHARONI] Let's assume that the results of the elections in November 2025 are any indication to midterm elections, which means that the Democrats are going to have a very positive and strong showing, possibly regaining control of the House. How do you see, given that, let's assume that's happening. How do you see the remaining years of the Trump administration handling the ties with Israel and trying to introduce a resolution to the entire problem of instability in the Middle East, including Iran? 

[THOMAS NIDES] It's a good question. First of all, I think the vast majority of Democrats-- what you're trying to ask me, I think, is, are the Democrats going to be really crappy in Israel? I mean, you didn't say it that way. But I think what you're trying to say is we've read all this. 

And first of all, I just want to make sure everyone separates these two issues. There's the issue of the war, which it was unbelievably painful for Israel and for those of us who care about the state of Israel. There are issues around how people believed Israel conducted the attacks on Gaza. You can debate that. Obviously, I know how we got there. So we can debate that. 

I think the idea of the support of the state of Israel as a democratic Jewish state is rock solid. We have some issues. There's no question. We have issues across the board. And we're going to have to work not only-- I think you said at the beginning of this podcast, not only the liberal Democrats or the moderate Democrats, but the right wing Republicans, the MAGA base, is having all sorts of anxiety around the support. They're having the Tucker Carlson debate among their own base. 

So we as people who care about Israel, those of us who consider themselves Zionists and care about a democratic Jewish state, we have to recognize we have a problem. We can say it's fair, unfair, wrong, BS, da-da-da, The New York Times, we hate The New York Times. We hate the BBC. That's all great. And you can wine about it and crack about it. That is what we have to deal with. 

So we're smart. We are Jews. We are smart. We can manage this. We have a problem. We're going to deal with the problem. It's going to be step by step by step. As you know, when they started all these exchange programs, the birthright programs, we understood 25 years ago needing to take non-Jews and Jews to Israel to introduce them to Israel. 

We're going to have to have basically, birthright on steroids. It may not be called birthright. It may not be this. We need to have a Marshall Plan to reeducate people, to convince people. Part of that starts with these elections coming up. Part of this starts with people doing podcasts. Part of this is communicating on social media. Part of it is recognizing we're not perfect. 

I know people think most Jews are perfect, at least Jews do. We're not perfect. We've got to recognize that. And if we do, we'll begin the process of healing. You've already seen it going on in college campuses. The temperature is down in many college campuses around the country. It's off the front pages of the newspaper. 

But we have work to do. And we can get this done. And we'll figure it out. It's going to take some time. And by the way, Israel is and will continue to be a bipartisan issue. 

[IDO AHARONI] I hope so. And you're, as they say, from your mouth to God's ears, one of the things that I do as a volunteer, I took the chairmanship of the America-Israel Friendship League on the Israeli side, along with our mutual friend Eric Gertler, who's doing it on the American side. And this is an organization. 

[THOMAS NIDES] I had lunch with them last week, or this week, I think. 

[IDO AHARONI] Yeah. And so that's what the League is all about, sending delegations to Israel to highlight the shared values foundation since the 1970s, early 1970s. We have to bring this to a conclusion, but before we do that, let me ask you one last question. Because your insights are so profound and also, very practical. And that that's your business acumen here. 

Anti-Semitism, so there's no question we see a rise in hate crimes, in general, not against Jews only, but hate crimes, in general. But what concerns us as Israelis and Jews is, of course, the dramatic rise and the mainstreaming of anti-Semitic tropes and ideas. So again, in your assessment, what is the most effective way to handle that? I know that Jewish organizations are pouring tons of money. I'm not sure that we see effective results on the ground. 

[THOMAS NIDES] Well, I mean, I talk to Jonathan Greenblatt all the time. And I talked with him a couple weeks ago. We've got to crush it. And those who spew hate and disgusting, be it on the right or on the left, we have to basically crush it. 

Now, I know that there's a fine line between people protesting. I'm a big First Amendment person. If you want to protest, they want to bitch about Israel or not, or whatever, I'm OK, fine. But you cross the line, and you're spewing hate, anti-Semitism vile, or advocating violence against Jews or anyone, we've got to crush it. 

And so this is where I think we as Jews have to be clear about this line in which you cannot cross. And people say, well, no, no, no, any protest, any Palestinian protest on college campuses, anti-Semitism, that's stupid, OK? That's stupid, and that's just going to push us farther and farther down the pike. We need to make clear there's a difference between people who want to protest because we have a First Amendment here, thank God, and people who are spewing hate and vile that we need to crush. 

And we need to either prosecute and use the courts effectively. We have to have college educators making sure there's a fine line between the two. And we as Jews and we as Zionists need to be clear about the difference between the two. 

And where we get ourselves in trouble is we put it all in the same category. And I think that's just not true. I don't think that's true. Sure, are there people who are protesting who also are anti-Semites? Sure. Are there people who are protesting who want to harm Jews? Probably. Those people, we have to basically use the system, the court system, whatever possibilities we have, to prosecute those folks. 

But I don't want to be in the situation as someone who cares deeply about the democratic values that Israel and the United States share, that we don't forget that. So this, again, I think that's a really important piece of this. So I think we have to collectively, we need to do more to educate college kids and young people, recognizing people who have differences of views and differences of opinions. But one thing is for sure, the importance of us supporting a democratic Jewish state is critical. 

[IDO AHARONI] Well, Tom, this is a very powerful message to end our little conversation here. I want to thank you for taking the time to participate in Touro Talks. I would like to thank our sponsors, Arlene and Robert Rosenberg. I'd like to thank the leadership of Touro, especially President Kadish, for facilitating this wonderful conversation. Tom Nides, thank you for enriching us and educating us and displaying such moral clarity. 

[THOMAS NIDES] Thank you, Mr. Ambassador. 

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[TEXT] Touro Talks, Touro University, touro.edu/tourotalks

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