Ofir Akunis served in the Israeli Knesset from 2009, holding roles including Minister of Science and Technology – during which he signed 30 international cooperation agreements – and Minister for Regional Cooperation, under whose watch Israel signed the Abraham Accords with the UAE, Bahrain, Sudan, Morocco, and Kosovo. Since 2024, he has served as Israel’s Consul General in New York. Rabbi Aron White spoke with him about the Abraham Accords, the shifting political landscape in New York, and his vision for the Jewish future.

Can you tell us about your personal and political background?

Everyone absorbs values from their home. My father’s family came from Greece and settled in south Tel Aviv in the 1930s; my mother’s family immigrated from Poland in the 1950s and settled in Nahariya, at the northern end of the country. They brought with them a real diversity of cultures – and, frankly, a diversity of political views as well.

To a large extent, my political outlook was shaped by my father’s side of the family, which was deeply influenced by Jabotinsky’s teachings and the ideas of Revisionist Zionism. My grandfather served as the chief cantor of a synagogue in the southern Shapira neighborhood of Tel Aviv, and in that atmosphere I also absorbed Jewish tradition.

You served as Minister for Regional Cooperation during the period of the Abraham Accords. What did you witness from the inside – what made that moment so significant?

Let me say this clearly: the Jewish people seek peace. At our core, we want to live in peace with our neighbors. But sadly, many of our neighbors – especially the Palestinians, and others throughout the region – have not always shared that desire.

In the Middle East, peace is achieved through strength. You must demonstrate that you are strong, that you will not bow your head, that you possess economic power, military capability, and the unity of a determined people. Strength is like an iron wall – it does not bend. Only then does peace become possible.

This is the principle Jabotinsky taught: first build the iron wall of strength, and then peace becomes achievable. When your neighbors understand that you cannot be defeated, they seek accommodation. We have seen this over fifty years with Egypt and Jordan, and more recently with the Abraham Accords – the normalization agreements with the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Morocco. These agreements came about because they served the interests of all parties: trade, cooperation, and regional stability benefit everyone.

Our door remains open. We are ready for peace. But there is one fundamental condition: recognition of Israel as the state of the Jewish people. In this region, weakness invites attack; strength earns respect. You cannot expect an adversary to become a partner because you show softness. If Lebanon were to remove Hezbollah from its south, there would be no reason it could not join this expanding circle of peace. As for Saudi Arabia – there is no territorial dispute between us, and the potential for normalization is very real. Strength first, then peace.

You arrived in New York in 2024, and in 2025 Zohran Mamdani – an explicitly anti-Israel candidate – won the mayoral race. How do you make sense of his rise to power?

Let’s begin with the larger picture. Since the early 1990s, Western democracies have undergone a transformation. We see it most clearly in Western Europe – Britain, Belgium, the Netherlands, France – where there has been a steady rise in elected officials who, unfortunately, express support, direct or indirect, for Iran, Hamas, and Hezbollah. Alongside this political shift, we see growing demonstrations that legitimize or defend terrorist organizations. This must be said openly. It is a political process, and it has consequences.

This process is no longer limited to Europe. It has come to the United States as well. The most visible example is New York City. The number of Jewish residents and Muslim residents is now nearly equal – roughly one million each. Demographic change brings political change, and we have seen that reflected in the rise of leaders like Mamdani, accompanied by aggressive and dishonest propaganda – including covering for rhetoric such as “global intifada,” even after attempts to walk back or deny those words.

A person cannot say, “I am not antisemitic, I am only against the Jewish state.” If you oppose the homeland of the Jewish people, what exactly are you saying? For the first time in New York City’s history – the largest Jewish community outside Israel – a mayor does not recognize Israel as the state of the Jewish people. Criticism is legitimate; disagreement is part of democracy. But denying Israel’s right to exist is something entirely different.

When definitions of antisemitism are weakened and legal protections are removed, Jewish communities feel it immediately. We have seen rising attacks in the subway, assaults on rabbis in Queens, vandalism and violence. People feel less safe – because words create a spirit, and a hostile spirit puts everyone at risk.

In your role as Consul General, you meet regularly with Jewish community leaders across the spectrum. What are you hearing from them?

I spend a lot of my time meeting with leaders from every stream of Jewish life – Orthodox, ultra-Orthodox, Religious Zionist, Conservative, Reform, progressive. I meet with rabbis, community leaders, elected officials, and the next generation of young Jews. My message to all of them is the same: stand up and set the record straight. Confront the lies.

The so-called “Gaza starvation” campaign is a modern blood libel – no different in spirit from the accusations leveled against Jews in Europe a century ago. Israel delivered humanitarian aid even while fighting a bitter war against Hamas – a terrorist organization that must be dismantled. What they did on October 7th was inhuman. They burned children alive, murdered entire families. And yet – where are the international human rights organizations? Where is the outrage? The silence is deafening.

If the anti-Israel movement is driven by hatred rather than honest disagreement, is there any point in engaging with facts and arguments?

That’s an important question. The hardcore agitators? You probably won’t move them. But how many are they, really – a few dozen? And if they weren’t funded by Qatar and others, would their numbers be even smaller? When the money dries up, do the protests continue at the same scale? Ultimately, we are talking about a loud minority.

I’m not trying to convince them. I’m speaking to the average American. There are 350 million Americans. You won’t persuade every single one, but you can speak to the majority – and the majority is reachable. Most New Yorkers, even most Manhattanites, were not at those protests. The people burning Israeli and American flags outside this consulate, chanting Iranian slogans, do not represent America.

What does it mean to shout “Death to America” on American soil? What does it say when people rally in support of regimes that strip women of rights, impose dress codes, and crush dissent? This is, at its root, a failure of education. Perhaps my generation failed to teach the next one clearly enough about freedom, democracy, and the values that underpin Western civilization. If young Americans can march in support of terrorist organizations and chant against their own country, something went badly wrong in how we raised them.

What specifically do you think your generation got wrong in educating the next?

One clear example is Qatari influence on Western education. We did not recognize it in time – and I say this with real pain, even about the United States, a country I have admired since I was a child. America did not adequately recognize the quiet, strategic flow of Qatari money into university faculties, academic departments, and even public schools. This has been happening for years.

Now you see 18- and 19-year-olds marching at Columbia and elsewhere. They are students at prestigious institutions. But what did they actually learn? If the curriculum is shaped by foreign funding with a clear ideological agenda, the outcome should not surprise us. Qatar has waged a sophisticated, multi-front campaign to promote anti-Israel and antisemitic narratives – through funding, media, social networks, and coordinated online activity.

And Qatar plays a double game. On one hand, it presents itself as a mediator, as constructive and civilized. On the other hand, it has funded Hamas for years. With that money, tunnels were built in Gaza; the infrastructure of terror was constructed. One hand speaks diplomacy while the other feeds extremism. Israel simply does not have the resources to match this kind of sustained influence operation. What can Israel do? Invite journalists and influencers for a week, show them the reality on the ground, and send them home. Meanwhile, others fund permanent propaganda.

This is a genuine struggle, and in such a struggle we need unity. The Jewish people have always had internal arguments – this goes back to Sinai. But in moments of existential threat, we must stand as one. Our enemies do not distinguish between left and right, religious and secular, Tel Aviv and Judea and Samaria. On October 7th, they did not ask anyone how they voted. They murdered Jews because they were Jews.

“Never again” must mean something. The State of Israel is the greatest miracle in modern history: a dispersed people from North Africa, Poland, England, India, Ethiopia – reviving a dormant language and rebuilding a homeland after two thousand years. Show me another people in history who did that.

And I say to the West, especially Europe: Israel is the front line. Look at Europe in the 1980s and compare it to today. The transformation is dramatic. Israel stands as a barrier against forces that threaten not only us, but Western civilization itself.

When all is said and done, are you pessimistic or optimistic about the Jewish future?

First and foremost, I am a Jew – and a Jew cannot afford to be a pessimist. With everything our people have endured across millennia, if we gave in to pessimism we would never have survived. I have children, grandchildren; we are one link in a long chain of generations. Our responsibility is to ensure the journey continues. The eternal people are not afraid of a long road.

Look at our history. Pharaoh ordered every Jewish male child thrown into the Nile. Haman sought to destroy us entirely. The Greeks, the Romans, every empire that rose – all tried, and all failed. In modern times, Nazi Germany industrialized murder. Who spoke for the Jews then? Almost no one. The world knew by 1942 what was happening, and silence prevailed. One leader stood firm – Winston Churchill. Had he not stood against the Nazis, who knows how history would have unfolded?

I believe Donald Trump’s election was a great blessing for the Jewish people – not for narrow political reasons, but because he has shown genuine support for Israel. In his first term, he moved the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem, recognized Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, and affirmed that Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria are not inherently illegal under international law. These were historic steps.

Today, after two years of war, Israel stands strong. The economy remains resilient. New immigrants continue arriving from North America and beyond. Communities along the Gaza border, in the Galilee, in Sderot are rebuilding. Consider the Golan Heights – imagine if we had given it up decades ago. When Syria descended into civil war, the fighting came dangerously close. What if hostile forces had stood on the shores of the Sea of Galilee?

I am optimistic about the future of the State of Israel. It is the safest place in the world for Jews. It is home. And I believe Israel’s strength is also the path to regional peace. These past two years have shown our enemies – Nasrallah, Sinwar, the ayatollahs, the Houthis – that Israel is not to be tested lightly. We do not seek conflict. But we will defend ourselves. That strength ensures not only our survival, but the continuation of our ancient journey.

Thank you for speaking with us.