Good afternoon, everyone. A warm welcome to you from geneva. We are really delighted to have Prime Minister of israel Benjamin Netanyahu with us today. Welcome, Prime Minister. For this very special conversation which will be followed by an interaction with key business leaders. It is good, please. Oh, thank you. I wanted also to mention that today is Holocaust Memorial day. We especially appreciate your presence here on such a day. Has such a historical importance. Never forgetting. Mr. Prime minister, your contribution to the davos agenda today builds on your Longstanding Partnership with the forum. We have had the pleasure to have you for our annual meeting. The physical one and doubles regularly over the past for years in davos. We also had launched together a center for the for the World Economic forum in israel. You have also made a huge and very important contributions to our great dialogue series recently. Prime minister, you have now been at the helm of the government for more than a decade. Now you are also steering our country during the challenging covid19 pandemic. So, i think many of the viewers and partners of the forum would really like to know how you see the coming months in israel and the world when it comes the pandemic. When it comes to vaccination, i think you know vaccinating now vaccinated more than 70 of your people above 60 or so. I dont think anyone can show the same kind of results. Please share with us. Because youre still in a lockdown situation and the next steps. Cry minister. Prime minister Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu it is good to be with your audience. Actually, we have vaccinated 82 of our above 60. We have to vaccinate 95 , which is a big task but that is about the residual of those who really oppose vaccines, about 5 . I intend to get it up there further. You ask what is the challenge . We are in an arms race. It is a race between vaccination and mutation. We tatian is especially the latest the mutation. Especially the british mutation. There will be more mutations in the future. We have to race as fast as we can to vaccinate the first, then everyone else. In order to give immunity. Then probably expect the companies that are producing the vaccines at this point to modify their vaccines to accommodate the mutations they do not cover now as they develop. Thats going to be our life for the coming years. I dont think that we are going to evade that, but we can overcome it. What we did in israel, we purchased a lot fast. I personally got involved in it. And i said, to the bureaucrats, cut the whatever, i want to be diplomatic, so cut the nonsense he said it very candidly. Pm netanyahu well, cut the cword. Its ridiculous. Tomorrow, every will be paying 10 times that much. Number one, that. Number two, the legal people, i was on the phone with the president of a company. At 2 00 in the morning. He put his advisor on, i put my Legal Advisor on. We need personal leadership to move it. It turns out to be true. Israel could serve as a World Laboratory for herd immunity or something approaching herd immunity very quickly. Because we have an efficient distribution system. We proved that with four hmos that are at once kuwait competing and cooperating with east with each other. It is a unique system. Thats why we have the highest Life Expectancy almost in the world, with one of the lowest frequencies of diseases at the minimum cost, about a percent of gdp. 8 of gdp. It has to do with the system that combines competition and Social Security for that protects every citizen. 98 of our citizens have digital records in these hmos that go back 20 years. And we offered to share that with pfizer and with all humanity, to understand what the effects of mass inoculations are on subgroups, not individual information. Nobody gets that. But statistical information that could prove very valuable. The most the most pressing thing the most pressing thing is what, not only personal protections you get from vaccines, but what is the level of the preventative infections when you receive the inoculation . That is critical. As you want to restore life to normal. In short, i gave pfizer the argument that they could benefit from the data that we could produce. They were convinced. And then we went along and did this. And in fact, we did exactly that. We have a digitized system for distributing help. 1400 sites in a very small country of 9 million. They work it out. Again, on the distribution, i dont call them that much, five times a day. [laughter] you have been on the phone 70 times at the pfizer ceo. Pm netanyahu not 70, but 21 times. But also i speak with madonna, that heads of the other moderna, the heads of the other companies. I think you need personal leadership here. It is like checking ammunitions in a war. You have to make sure you are getting, first of all, the stock of vaccines. Then you have to make sure they are distributed. And then they have to be distributed in an optimized way. It keeps changing. But we are doing that. That basically what we have done. And i think the Employment Data is not what weve done for israel, but the fact that israel can serve as truly a global test case. Not for dangerous experiments but to understand the safe experiment we are carrying out, what is the best way, what is the efficacy of using this inoculation to move the economies, to open at the economies. What risks are we taking . What is the inflection rate . And so on. That is basically what we are doing. I think a lot of countries will profit by it. Thank you for that and thank you for your leadership. One short followup question on something you said. We are all concerned about now, the mutation. We have the u. K. , we have also seen it in brazil and south africa. It seems like the current vaccines, at least pfizer, works ok with the u. K. Variant. But dont know yet on the others. This also shows, as you were alluding to, that we in the future will see different mutations, and then we also have to adjust the vaccines. Do you foresee that when this covid19 is around, it will be like the flu, every volume have to take an updated flu vaccine . Do you think is going to stay around . And are you prepared for adjusting the vaccines, and are you worried the new strains the vaccines will not be working on the new strains . Like you have gone varies very meticulously into the subject. Pm netanyahu answer to your first question is yes, i expect we will have to inoculate ourselves at least annually. That is my guess. Im not completely sure. But if i had to guess, yes. Im stocking israels shelves, so to speak, with the vaccines, with that assumption. Of course, i want to sign contracts for future purchases based on the idea that the vaccines will alternate. For example. They are not testing for children. By the way, i think they should test with reduced doses and not do a serial testing system. Ive spoken about that to both areas because i think you can cut a lot of time. There is a lot of bureaucracy in this stuff. And where you can cut time, you should. As we proceed with other new vaccines or modified vaccines for mutation, and modified the vaccines for teenagers and children, then i think we should stock them and deliver them, and i expect this to be more so than the flu. That is the first thing. In the second question was . Also related to the effect how effective the vaccines can and are on the new strains from south africa. Pm netanyahu i think it is a question of time. That you cant get. Right now, the vaccines, these two vaccines, moderna and pfizer, are overcome with various strains that have appeared. But if you ask me, statistically, it is problem is stick. It is a question of time. Im not sure a lot of time, i dont pretend to be an expert on vaccines. But i think from what i can ascertain from talking to the people who are experts, it is a question of time before we hit a strain that the current vaccines are not susceptible to. And because of that, we know that that will happen, i shut down commercial flights. I was the first country to completely shut down commercial flights. And im shutting the land borders too. Im just shutting it down. Whats the point . All the mutations you see today, the south african, the british, the brazilian, and so on, you are two weeks too late. And the new ones you dont even know about for another several weeks or whatever. So ive shut down the borders because i can do something that other countries i think would like to do too, and they might be able to do it. And that is to inoculate millions of people in the time that i close the country and try to win the race between mutation and vaccination. Thank you so much, Prime Minister. We know we have limited time. So i wanted to go first to stephan, of the executive board and ceo of mark. Stephan, are you with us . I think you are ready for your question for the Prime Minister. Thank you. Thank you very much, Prime Minister. Israel has such a vibrant innovation, ecosystem. I wanted to ask you a question that goes beyond. My company, mark, has been in israel for more than 50 years. We work closely with many institutions. Our friends at the Wiseman Institute are like family members. And we have r d centers in different businesses in bio pharma, life science, and electronic materials. There is such a vibrancy. You have more phds per capita than anywhere else. You have this incredible innovation network. You have high ranking government officials rolling out a very clear policy, and we have so many things to tackle through science and technology within this pandemic and beyond the pandemic. I had a chance to discuss these topics with you together with chancellor merkel. Could you tell us what has been your advice to other nations . How can we use science and technology to tackle these problems and do the right thing for our countries . What can we learn from israel . Pm netanyahu percival, thank you first of all, thank you for your leadership and being involved with israel because we appreciate these cooperations enormously. I think the key is two things. Most people think it is education, and it is. That is the level of education, especially higher education, is critical. We have had that all along. That is a necessary but insufficient condition. For the emergence of innovative economy. The most important one, and i would even put it before education, is free markets. You cannot really innovate and markets. You have to give free markets, and you have to take certain risks. Because some of that innovation in our case, especially from the military. That is where we have our stock of innovations. We invest a huge amount of our National Resources on obtaining effective intelligence. It is a small country, but it has a giant head. Giant. I mean, its collection agencies are probably number two in absolute size. Is not the nsa, but it is not the nsa, but that is an investment that goes annually grows annually all the time. It produces people with the information that works to develop algorithms, who are in all sorts of adjacent technologies. And we get our best brainpower to do that. We literally canvas the whole country and we put our finest brains in these disciplines. These and other disciplines. So that is some cost. It will not go very far, unless these people, when they leave the military or wherever, they can start their businesses. If they find a web of bureaucracy and high taxes, which is what weve had for years, they will go elsewhere. Like my brotherinlaw, he was a pilot, a very gifted guy who went to california and worked for a Small Company called intel. You know . That his son is one of the great he is a young guy, he is in israel now because the environment changed. We changed the environment. We made it very a very probusiness environment. Israeli insurance funds could not invest, make any investment in hightech. It was not possible. We changed that. So carrying the burden of bureaucracy, Growth Opportunities are bureaucracy. Everything you see in israel is fantastic growth. Holding down additional innovation, the best growth possibilities we have, and any country has, is removing that. Just by reducing these absurd things. Im telling you this because i chair a few committees. I chair a committee which is on deregulation. We were in next to last place, and in five years, we moved 18 places because every two weeks, eyes down with this regulation committee, and we just clash as much as we can. I would Say Committee regulate. Open up your economies. In addition to having education. And if you have military, make sure it is focused on brains. Brains before brown. Brawn. That is essentially the story of what israel has done. Thank you so much, Prime Minister. Fighting the red tape but i looked at the numbers, i think israel is number one in the world when it comes to allocating it to its universities and also different pm netanyahu education and free markets. It really is. Have two ceos to go. What i will suggest with your permission is we will take the two questions from the ceos and you can answer and we will be on time. The verse question is historic because it is part of the court. We have a leading co from the ua with us. So good to see you. Vice chair and cofounder of altera holdings. A year ago, i would not necessarily have seen you in this session together with Prime Minister netanyahu. Over to you. Thank you. Thank you very much for your words. If ive learned a lesson from this pandemic, when we talk about food, i think we must address very longlasting issues. Witches is water and the environment. For the sustainability of life, for humans and production. Many countries are suffering from water scarcity and shortage. Also from the pollution of its own resources, which makes portable water even scarcer. Many countries like yours have taken the initiative to develop programs and strategies aimed at reserving and developing water resources, and preventing its contamination or pollution. Do you think continued efforts on this front are sufficient, for what you need more efforts at the global level to address such challenges . How can an integrated system help and preserve and develop the environment while reducing Climate Change and pollution for millions of people affected . Thank you so much. Pm netanyahu thank you. First let me say, everyone in israel is supremely delighted with the peace we have. Is a warm peace between the emirates and israel. It is just tremendous. Now, morocco and saddam, will be it already is an economic peace. We barely signed the documents. And the tens of thousands of israelis went to dubai, in the Business People are just going bananas. They are doing fantastic deals. It is great because the emirates have proved to be as tremendously entrepreneurial, and they are guided by your visionary leader. Chairman mohammed is a visionary leader, and he understands the power of innovation, and the power to dare, to drink. He also to dare, to dream. To have this new kind of peace that is changing the relationship between israelis and arabs. I have to say, arabs and jews in israel. It is unbelievable what this is doing. Now to answer your question. I think water is going to be a huge challenge, and i think we can overcome it as many other things with technology. It is almost like, why did the great forecast not work out on the shortage of food, and humanities growth rate . It turns out it turns out, it did grow in an exponential rate. But it turns out that food grew at a greater rate because of technology. This is obviously, the same thing can happen with water. Did happen in water in the case of israel. We have a little less rainfall than we had at the founding of the state 73 years ago. Our population has grown tenfold. Our gdp per capita has multiplied. So we should have water scarcity we should have water wars and we have neither. What we have is we make our water. Or we save our water. We recycle about 90 of our wastewater, which is the first in the world. The runnerup is they with 20 , i think. Production technology of water, key. We have the worlds largest, one of the largest perhaps, something the emirates as well [indiscernible] we are using Solar Technology to be the world leader in producing solar energy. We can desalinate water without using without the necessary pollution. These things are combined. We now have more water than we need. If we need more water, we make it. Since you cant make it at nighttime, port in the winter months, you sometimes make more than you need in the summer. Reversing our supply from the sea of galilee which we used to carry water down to the parts in the south of our country. We are pushing water through the reservoir. We are pushing it in the other direction during the wintertime. These are Creative Things to prevent linkages and so on from water systems. You can use technology, you can overcome the worlds water problems. We are sharing this with countries from china to you name it. South america, africa. We share this technology gladly because corona has shown us that we are all in one boat. If we can plug the holes in the boat, we will all be better off. Borge thank you. We are glad we support more per drop. We have one more question left. I dont want to have i dont want him to not have a chance to come with his question. The floor is yours. Thank you. Prime minister, thank you for your insights. You may not remember, seven years ago, we met in dabos. You told me how israel has cyber security. Seven years later, it is now i know in the largest Cybersecurity Company in the world. We have some great people, we have been able to work with and acquire. So thank you very much for your leadership,. You alluded to some of the reasons why with stephans question of why you were able to turn israel into a powerhouse on the cyber topics. With that becoming so topical today with all the recent tax people learned about, i would love to get more collaboration on how you continue to develop that. And two, given we are one of the largest offices in tel aviv talking about the cutting bureaucracy and moving, we would love to see it continue to go up that letter so it makes life easier to be able to operate. We would love to hear insights of how cybersecurity continues to be center stage in israel. Pm netanyahu i have already acted on your behalf, although i cant tell you it was our first goal. I had immense pressure, immense pressure, after we developed basically a very robust cybersecurity industry. Which meant basically allowing all these gifted people to lead our cybersecurity units to form their companies. And partner with people like yourselves, your companys. We had immense pressure from the people whose job it is to protect our secrets to begin to regulate cyber the way you regulate arms industry. I resisted it. Because i said that cyber is different because it is going to be affecting every single thing we do, because we are digitizing the world. Its clear. As that goes up, cybersecurity requirements goes up. If we block that, we block a growth industry. So far, i want you do not, it is not easy. Ive done my part. But what weve done is basically done that, and able the finest minds we have to go out and create their companies, which they do. It is very robust. We are number two right now in the world in absolute formation of companies and Capital Investments in cyber. And we are a country of 9 million people. Other thing we do, and i think it is important, that sunk cost isis i described to you of our cybersecurity units and our information, our intelligence units, we are moving to the south of the country and allowing what you call the jargon of the echo system to develop around it, which basically says you take the economy and the businesses and you put them in. You put them within walking distance. Walking distance. In palo alto, i dont know if it is walking distance or jogging distance, what you think thats not important. It is amazingly important. To have that interaction. The fermentation takes place, allow Foreign Companies and governments to partake in this. Obviously within certain limits. But try to lower the limits, and keep your taxes low and keep your regulations low. That is basically what we are doing. That is for the industrial side. For the business side. I think cyber presents new problems, big problems. I think the biggest problem is if you have really big actors, state actors, the problem of deterrence in cyber is different than the problem of deterrence and other forms of attacks. So the defense is somewhat more complicated. We took a National Defense agency, established it, gave it authority to regulate, businesses and so on, and we really organized the question of defense. National defense, the air force, whatever. Critical facilities on the one side and businesses. This is huge. This is conceptually one of the most challenging things. And the most difficult, the most complex problem conceptually is to simplify it. Try to simple if i it and have clear foundations. But the defense against cyber attacks, especially state cyber attacks, is comp located. Is complicated. Im not sure i want to get into that, but i think that is becoming a big part, in addition to cybercrime and Everything Else that you are familiar with. Please go ahead. Tribune pace is the problem the attribution pace is the problem, isnt it . Pm netanyahu know. No. I think you know. I think you know. I think a lot of the times you do know. Then it gets into a question of mind games. I dont want to Start Playing those games. Im sort of off duty now and doing this for a living every day. So i cant get into that. But i think it is very challenging. The one thing i would say to deal with that question, is not merely to not regulate. If you have the investments already, we do, all the time. But the question is how much do you want to direct your funding, state funding im always resistant to that. I dont usually direct i worked in the consulting room. There was a case study there of actually doing a strategy for a country and i felt uneasy with that, because i think the best regulator is market forces. It really allows you lets the market work, and they usually choose better than you do. We dont have a choice, certainly in defense matters we dont have a choice. The most important investment you can make in cyber that we need for any innovation, the most important investment you can make an cyber is mathematics. A lot of mathematics. A lot of mathematics. And i say mathematics, not just computation. Mathematics is more important. And it will be more important as we move along into other disciplines. Mathematics is it. So thats it. Its like finding ourselves in that film the graduate. Remember classics . Mathematics. Borge thank you so much, Prime Minister. We could have gone on because it is fascinating to listen to you. But i remember when i was a young speechwriter in the parliament, the person i was writing the speeches for said, and before people want you to end. And here we still could have continued. People wanted you to continue but i think we ended at a good time. For you for your answers and looking forward next year to seeing you back in the real davos in the winter. Pm netanyahu thank you. This was the most diplomatic cut off ive ever heard. Congratulations. Thank you. Borge mr. Whitehouse im particularly glad to see the senior senator from new mexico presiding on what for me is a s sentimental sentimental moment because hes been such a terrific friend and colleague and advocate in
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