השגריר האקבי חושף את סוד ההצלחה הלא ידוע של ישראל!

Ladies and gentlemen, it is again my great honor to introduce introduce tonight's guest of honor and keynote speaker, the United States Ambassador to Israel, Ambassador Mike Huckabee. Throughout his public life, I should say your public life, Ambassador. Ambassador Huckabee has been a steadfast friend of Israel and a strong advocate for the values that unite our nations, freedom, individual initiative, faith in human potential, and the belief that innovation and courage can shape a better future. Tonight's audience includes founders, entrepreneurs, scientists, investors, innovators, and young students just learning. People building technologies and companies that are transforming industries and improving lives around the world. I believe there is a deep meaning in having the Ambassador of the United States with us this evening at a gathering dedicated to Israeli entrepreneurship and the power of free minds to create value and to improve human flourishing. At the time when the partnership between Israel and the United States is more important than ever, we are honored by your presence here tonight. Please welcome me uh please join me in welcome the United States Ambassador to Israel, Ambassador Mike Huckabee. >> Thank you, Michael. Thank you, Michael. Thank you very much. Thank you. >> Michael, thank you very much.

First of all, I want to just uh express to you that I've heard a lot of wonderful speeches in my lifetime. I don't know when I've ever heard anything as powerful as Rawan. Thank you. Bless you. What an honor to meet you. I've been to a lot of award ceremonies and I've watched many on television, as have you, the Oscars, the Grammys, the Emmys, the Tonys, all of these awards. And people come up and they're given a statue that looks very much like that. But I've never seen anyone receive an award an award that was more deserved, more appropriate, and more significant and more significant than watching Rouwaida get this reward tonight for her extraordinary courage. Thank you. Thank you. As soon as I finish speaking here tonight, tonight, I have to leave and head to the airport, fly to Washington, D.C. for the next 3 days. We're going to be dealing with the people both of Israel and Lebanon

and trying to see what kind of future could be built. And Rouwaida, I realize you need to come with me because honestly, I know of no one on the planet who has a more vital, important, and personal message that could change the atmosphere that we're working on. I look forward to introducing you to many of the people that I'm going to be working with over the course of the next few days because I honestly believe that your perspective is one of a kind. It's the one that we need to hear much more of. It is not a story of animosity, and bitterness, and hate. It is a story of reconciliation. But more importantly, it's reconciliation that is based on truth, and fact, and reality. Right now across the world, there are people who blame Israel for pretty much everything. Something goes wrong, Something goes wrong, must be those Jews. I can say say I'm not a Jew. But I don't blame the Jews for what's wrong with the world. I certainly don't blame Israel. I blame the people who have believed a lie. A lie that is destroying entire nations, dividing families, dividing families, and causing the death of many people for no valid reason other than they were just in the way of the hatred that some people have decided to live by.

When I think about these incredible young entrepreneurs, and as I walked through tonight and met many of them, had pictures made with them, had them share with me their projects, I got to realizing I'm meeting some of the future billionaires of Israel. of Israel. Some of these young people, maybe they're 15, 16, 17 now, but give them just probably a very short period of time, and in their 20s, we'll all be wanting to borrow money from some of them. So I want to go ahead and get their names and phone numbers now.

Great things happen because people don't look at don't look at what is, what is, they look at what could be. The great hockey player Wayne Gretzky was once asked, "Why are you so much better than all the other hockey players? How do you know where to where to be on the the ice in order to get the shot that wins the game?" He said, "Well, I never skate to where the hockey puck is. I skate to where I think it's going to be." When I see these young entrepreneurs, I'm not looking at people who are looking at the world that they have and say, "That's it." "That's it." I'm looking at young people who see the world they have and say, "We can make this better." The world we live in is better because people didn't quit. Many people don't know that Thomas

Edison, who is credited with creating the light bulb and the phonograph and so many wonderful inventions that we take for granted and upon which became the foundation for some of the greatest technological advances in the history of the world. What people don't realize is that before Thomas Edison created the light bulb, he failed at creating the light bulb over 1,000 times. He was being interviewed and a reporter said, "Mr. Edison, "Mr. Edison, do you feel like a failure for having failed over a thousand times trying to create a light that comes from electricity?" Edison looked at the reporter and said, "Oh, I haven't failed. You don't understand. I've already succeeded in showing a thousand different ways that it won't work." His persistence paid off and tonight we have light in this room. Not because of his success, but because he didn't quit due to his failures. How easy it would be for us to look at the world in which we live and say peace can never come between Israel and Lebanon. and Lebanon. Israel and Syria. Israel and Syria. Israel and Iran. Israel and Iran. But rather than say it cannot be done, tonight, Ruwana, I'm encouraged by you in realizing all we got to do is just skate to where the puck is going to be. And look for the ways to see that people can come together and ideas can change the world.

I wonder if everyone in Lebanon understands that understands that if there were no Israel, they wouldn't have a cell phone. I wonder if they understand that every time they use a USB, every time they use car navigation, that every time they eat a cherry tomato or have a delicious bite of seedless watermelon, instead of saying, "I can't talk to those people." They should step across the border, shake the hands, and say, "Thank you. Thank you for helping create some things that have made my life better and easier." My first visit to Israel was in 1973, before pretty much anyone in this room was born. I think I I see one person back there who might have been born since I'd just gotten out of high school. Two people. Okay. Nobody else wants to admit it cuz that means you're old, like me.

1973, I came here. I was right out of high school. high school. That's when I fell in love with this country, its people, its resilience, its extraordinary potential. But, I want you to understand in 1973, this was not the startup nation. This looked like the finished-up nation. It was almost third world. There weren't problems with traffic cuz there were not roads of any consequence. Two-lane roads here and there. There weren't that many cars. People couldn't afford them. The economy was struggling. People sold a few Jaffa oranges and tried to bring some tourists over from America so they could look at the sites. People struggled. There was not vast forest groves, vineyards, and farms that produced magnificent vegetation fruits and all kinds of vegetables that the people could enjoy. My wife and I grew up in the deep south. And in the deep south, let's just say that the normal eating habits include a lot of fried foods. Not known to be the healthiest thing in the world. Taste good. Taste good. And we were sitting at the residence after having been here a couple of months after my appointment and after I'd gotten settled into the job of being the US ambassador. We were sitting and we were talking about how different the food was in Israel because it is so healthy. All these fruits and vegetables, all fresh. And I looked at my wife and I said, you know, this healthy eating is going to kill us. But it isn't. Between 1973 and 1981, I couldn't wait to someday come back to Israel. In 1981, I started bringing groups of people here. And over the years, I brought tens of thousands of people to come and see this land for themselves. I'd been to Israel over a hundred times before I got that phone call from President Trump. He called and he said, By the way, to to understand President Trump, he doesn't ask you. He tells you.

And it's one of those things, I get the phone call out of the clear blue. Never had the conversation with him. Wasn't looking for a federal job. Honestly, I was living in the private sector, living a wonderful good life. The last thing I thought about, needed, or wanted was to take on some job and move halfway around the world. I loved coming to Israel, but I like to do it 2 weeks at a time and bring people in and then take them home. Had never thought about living here permanently. He calls. He doesn't say, "Would you or could you or would you think about?" No, he calls and he says, "My Donald Trump, you're going to be my ambassador, ambassador to Israel. You're going to go, you're going to be ambassador there. You're going to be great. You'll be great." There was no way I was going to say no to him. to him. Number one, you don't say no to President Trump. Number two, Number two, if he'd asked me to do anything else, be a cabinet secretary, it didn't matter what it was. I would have said, "No, sir, thank you very much. I love my life and I'm enjoying it and I don't need a federal job." But when he said, "You're going to be ambassador to Israel," I realized I realized that it truly was,

as said in the book of Esther, "For such a time as this." And I felt it was for me an Isaiah moment. Here am I, Lord. Send me. I came because I came because I believe that there is an opportunity to see something that was not even visible in 1973, 53 years ago when I first arrived here. Because it was not the startup nation. It was anything but. It struggled. And its people did not look like, if you just looked around, that they had a terrific future. Nobody would have imagined that in the economy, facing war on every side of them, they would have an economy that actually had growth in the GDP. I want you to understand, nobody does that. It doesn't happen. Since October the

7th, the stock market, here we are in the Tel Aviv stock market, the stock market has grown over 100% in Israel since October the 7th. That simply does not happen. Some of the greatest inventions, technological advances, and entrepreneurs live right here. And they provide and produce the things that change the world. And most people in the world don't even realize that it was here in the land that so many people want to point their fingers at and hate that their lives have been made better through better medicine, better agriculture, better technology, better defense mechanisms, better ways of living safely, better automobiles, all sorts of ways.

An Israeli bought a farm bought a farm down in the Negev. And it was back years ago. It was nothing but rock and dust and it was absolutely barren and worthless. But he believed in Israel. And he believed that God had brought him here to make aliyah, to do something special. He put in drip irrigation on this little farm that he bought. And within just a short period of time, that desert began to bloom, just like it says in the Bible. And what was nothing but rock and dirt became a lush farm on which he was producing beautiful and delicious vegetables and fruit. One day his rabbi came out to see him. And the rabbi said, "Oh, my son, what you and God have done with this farm." And the farmer wiped the sweat from his brow and looked at the rabbi and said, "Yeah, rabbi, well, you should have seen it when God had it all by himself." that yes, this is the land God gave to the Jewish people 3,800 years ago. He gave them a place a place and a purpose. and a purpose. And today we see it fulfilled every single day in front of us. And it is something to behold. But I also want you to know

that while God, without a doubt, has his hand on this land and I see miracles every single day here, I also know I also know that he didn't do it without the sweat and the extraordinary heavy lifting done by the people of Israel. I hope that people like Rouwaida and I will be able to join hand in hand with our Israeli friends and say, "We want to help you build a better world where if you're born in Syria and grow up in Lebanon, one day you wave the flag of Israel and you say to the people of Israel, 'Thank you.'" And a kid like me who grew up dirt poor

in South Arkansas in a family where no male above me, not one, had ever even graduated high school, to be able to live the American dream, travel the world in one day, serve as an ambassador to a country that I fell in love with 53 years ago. This is a remarkable place. And tonight we honor those who will make it even more remarkable with the discoveries, the extraordinary dedication and hard work to build a better Israel and a better world. And I'm honored to be with you tonight. God bless you and thank you for letting me be here. Thank you.