Rodica Radian-Gordon: "If you slice by age, in Israel, we have almost 90% of the population over 50 years old vaccinated"

Israel's ambassador to Spain, Rodica Radian-Gordon, last night appeared on Capital Radio's Atalayar, the radio programme broadcast every Monday from 22:05 to 23:00, to talk about the miracle that the Israeli country has achieved, a vaccination in record time, and how the negotiations with the pharmaceutical companies have gone. He also took the opportunity to talk about the elections being held in Israel today, with the latest polls showing a great deal of equality between the country's left-wing and right-wing blocs; the option of a fifth round of elections is a scenario that should not be ruled out. On the other hand, Radian-Gordon spoke of the changed scenario in the region following the Abraham Accords, a legacy of the administration of former US President Donald Trump.

Rodica Radian-Gordon, Israel's ambassador to Spain, an expert in diplomatic life, is a biologist with a PhD in biochemistry from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. She also holds a Master's degree in National Security Studies from the University of Haifa (2001). From 2016-2019, she was the Director of European Affairs at the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs. She has served as Israel's ambassador to Mexico and Romania. Notably, she has been first secretary of the Israeli mission to the European Communities and second secretary of the Israeli Embassy in Warsaw.

I would like to go to the small, which is also the big, and that is the students. The Spaniards of the future and the Israelis of the future as well. This Wednesday afternoon the Israeli Embassy in Madrid has an educational project: 'The muses and the stars', because it is being carried out at the Las Musas Institute in the Spanish capital. It consists of the construction of a nanosatellite that is going to be launched into space. How is this possible? What does the Embassy contribute?

It is a project that was born before my arrival in Spain and which has been very successful in Israel. When I was preparing my mission in Spain, I met a large number of very talented women scientists. Some of them have developed programmes to encourage more girls to study science and technology. Two of them, who are astrophysicists, have programmes with proven success in Israel. Dr. Ana Eller has had two editions of these programmes with students in 2005. With them, she has already built twelve nanosatellites, two of which are still transmitting results, so the students can continue their research on the data they have. This is one programme, the other is called 'Chispazo'. It is a pioneering programme, focused exclusively on women in high school, in which research is done within the school year. They analyse images from a national satellite and carry out studies on the environment. Chispazo' has become an international programme and this year, for the first time, Spain will participate. The great success here in Spain has been to find institutes that want to take part in this project. The first was the Instituto Las Musas here in Madrid, but we hope that in a few months other schools from Bilbao and Granada will join in.

I'm sure there will be many who will be interested in the initiative, no doubt. You have to bear in mind that a satellite is going to come out of the Las Musas Institute in Madrid thanks to this wonderful initiative.

The students are very enthusiastic and I am sure they will be a great success. The most important thing is to design the experiments that this nanosatellite will carry out. This project is all about innovation and the creativity of the children. You have to keep in mind that they are going to do the whole process from start to finish.

The vaccination campaign that you have launched and are developing in your country is a great miracle for a country of small size compared to Spain. At the moment, what percentage of the population is already vaccinated?

In Israel we have almost 50% of the population vaccinated with both doses. About 65% of the population has already had at least one dose. If you slice by age, I think we have almost 90% of the population over 50 years old vaccinated. We have started with people over 60 years old and then we have gone down by age. Today, people over 16 years old can be vaccinated, we are in the middle of a campaign to get young people vaccinated. It is very important to say that after about two months we have started to feel the difference that administering the vaccine makes. During the first two months, when we didn't have a very high percentage of the population vaccinated, the number of infections was quite high. In other words, we had a lot of infections and now it's really spectacular, the numbers are dropping dramatically every day. It is also noticeable in the number of people in ICUs, which is dropping very fast, and with the number of deaths. 

Of course, all the statistics are going down, so they are positive, how do you explain Israel's miracle with vaccination? What are the different circumstances that you have put in place in your country compared to the rest of the world or because you are closer to Europe?

I think there are some elements that have been key elements. Perhaps the first was that the population in Israel is much younger than the population in Europe. In Israel we have 30% of people under the age of 18, age has been a factor that has led to fewer deaths in Israel. The government started negotiating with the pharmaceutical companies months ago to secure a quantity of vaccines to cover the vaccination of five million people, which was roughly the number of vaccines needed to ensure the vaccination of the population. Negotiations started before the vaccine was approved and discussions were held with Moderna, Pfizer, and AstraZeneca to secure the vaccines. In addition, we have a health system based on four mutual insurance companies that are very efficient and cover the whole population.  We have also achieved full digitalisation of the health system in Israel, which means that the mutuals have the contact details of each of the insured and can reach them quickly. All this in addition to the fact that we have had a very, very effective campaign to encourage people to get vaccinated, that the mutuals have contacted people in a coordinated and correct way; first of all the most vulnerable people, over 60 years old, and so on. It also has to be said that Israel is a country that is used to acting in emergency situations. So all this has been put in place very quickly and since 20 December, when the first vaccines arrived, we started vaccinating 50 or 100 thousand people per day. In this way we have vaccinated 50% of the population.

The ambassador does not say it, but I want to say it, Europe haggled over the price and Israel did not, and that has had a very positive influence. There is another issue that is also on the table, although there are elections, all political parties agreed that it had to be done in this way, and not because Prime Minister candidate Netanyahu wanted to gain some electoral advantage, but it was a matter of all parties.

Without any doubt, it was also a project of the Israeli Ministry of Health, not only of the Prime Minister, but I would like to add that Israel, being a country of nine million people, does not have the same bargaining power as the European Union with 400 million people, of course. So we cannot think that Israel was paying the same as the European Union. If you take into account the damage it can have on the Israeli economy or the price to be paid for vaccines, I think it is very clear that people have to be vaccinated.

Regarding the situation in Israel, ambassador, the elections will clarify governance a little because there is already talk that in the summer there could be a fifth election in two years. There are fourteen parties running for seats, one hundred and thirty-five, which is the absolute majority. Because Israel, I think, has got used to living beyond political issues; in this respect, has Israel become Spanishised?

Yes, well, yes. I think the Spanish population can understand very well what is happening now in Israel. The truth is that nobody knows how or what the results will be tomorrow. It's a big unknown. The polls are two, three days old, but we have already seen in other elections that the situation can change in one or two days.

The latest polls show that there is a balance between the right-wing bloc and the left-wing bloc, and the truth is that there is maybe 1 or 2 seats missing on each side to be able to govern. The scenario of having a fifth round of elections is unfortunately not an unrealistic one. Although I am sure that nobody in the political system wants this to happen, because it is obviously a big damage for everybody, for the system, for democracy and for Israel's economy. Imagine the situation, since two years we don't have a budget so it is very difficult to look forward. It would be good to have a decisive result in order to form a stable government in Israel.

There are times when voting a lot is not the best thing to do, but voting a little..., because we have the Palestinians who, after 15 years, are finally going to hold elections. It would have been desirable if they had done so a long time ago, above all to clarify political representation and to have one interlocutor, not two. To what extent can these elections in Palestine clarify the partner and allow negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians to be resumed?

Well, first we have to see what will happen. The Palestinians have until 31 March to form their groups and be sure that they will go to the elections. I think it is an open question until 31 March next. As far as negotiations with Israel are concerned, the important thing for the Palestinians is to decide that they want to negotiate with Israel. We are now in a very different situation from what we had until the US elections. There is a new administration in the United States. In the last year some very dramatic things have also changed in the Middle East. I mean, we have the Abraham Accords and they have created, I would say, a dramatic change in the sense that, for the first time, we have very regular and important relations with Arab countries and relations are developing very rapidly. In the space of half a year we have signed a whole host of economic, tourism, science and technology agreements and so on. There is also a flow of people, of tourists, and now we are going to open corridors for vaccinated people between these countries and Israel and vice versa. These agreements have already created another atmosphere in the Middle East, a much more positive atmosphere and a positive influence for the Palestinians to come together. The Palestinians want everything to be according to their demands, but in negotiations it doesn't work like that. You have to show willingness and show interest. If you go to international institutions with accusations, with demands, and you don't negotiate directly with the other party and you don't show willingness to create an atmosphere of trust, it is very difficult to move forward. So I hope that after the elections a Palestinian government will be formed that will change its ideas and attitude, that will be interested in gaining confidence and negotiating, and we will see that in a few weeks' time.

What is undeniable is that the scenario has changed, logically, thanks to the agreements. By the way, it was the previous US president, Donald Trump, who helped bring them about. What do you expect from the Biden Administration in all this movement that has taken place in recent months, and what do you make of Israel's agreements with some Arab countries?

I am sure that President Biden's administration will continue to support these agreements. In the coming months we will also have other countries that want to join these agreements. In addition, there is a lot of interest in the United States remaining a very important partner for the countries of the Middle East and that they will continue to support us, to negotiate further. That is the view of the Gulf countries, it is the view of Morocco, for example, and other countries. The United States has always played and continues to play a very important role.

The Biden Administration, Ambassador, must be firm with Iran, there is an option to return the agreements on its nuclear programme, but we must remain firm and, above all, intensify control so that this nuclear programme does not lead to Iran having a nuclear weapon.

Well, there is no doubt that we have to stand firm with Iran. That said, it's not just the Biden Administration, it's Europe as well. It is very important to give the message that Iran is a destabilising force in the region, in many ways. One of them is through forces that intervene in many of the countries in the region whether it is within Syria or Lebanon, Iraq or Yemen. These forces weaken the security of other countries in the region, all of this together with the aspirations to have a nuclear power together with missiles which are very important to stop the Iranian project, all of this is very disturbing when you talk about going back to negotiations, you have to take all these elements into account. You can't just look at the nuclear aspect, you have to take the whole picture, the missile issue, the issue of the regional role that Iran is trying to gain.

Iranian bases on Syrian soil, support for Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza or the Houthis in Yemen.... You mentioned Europe, should it regain a greater role in the Middle East, and could Spain play a more active role?

As far as Spain is concerned, personally, I am very happy with how our relations are developing. We now have an open and good dialogue at Foreign Ministry level. In recent years we have not had a foreign minister and this dialogue has been at other levels. In the last year and a half, in which we do have a foreign minister, the talks between González Laya and Gabi Ashkenazi are an open and fruitful dialogue, which helps to bring us closer together. Israel is balancing bilateral relations with relations at EU level. Today, bilateral relations help to improve both the relationship and the dialogue with Europe, in the last decade we have not had the best level of dialogue. In my view one of the most important things is the role of confidence building, support and interaction between the parties that Europe can play. Now, after the Abraham Accords, we can expect more support from the European Union to bring about a change in the current atmosphere, to achieve more dialogue, closer treatment and fruitful negotiations. 

Because it is Russia that is increasing its influence there, especially after the war in Syria, Russia is trying to have a greater presence in the region.

Since 2015 Russia has had a strong presence in the region; Russia is also a player that has to be taken into account, Israel has a mechanism with them to eliminate the basis for conflict in order to be able to act in the region. Israel has decided to stay out of the conflict in Syria and the truth is that the whole region has held up quite well despite the ten years of civil war in the Syrian country.

Within geopolitics, security and political movements, cooperation between societies, for example, between Israeli and Murcian companies in the area of water treatment is something fundamental for the survival of the countries. How in this research, in this fundamental part of the life of the countries, are Israel and Murcian experts collaborating when it comes to crops, agriculture, etc.? Because there is the same problem of scarcity of this resource and we have to squeeze every last drop out of it.

We have a cooperation that includes many issues. We approach the water issue from an innovation perspective. How to make the most efficient use of the resources we have, whether it is water or other things. There is great interest from Israeli companies in Spain and Spanish companies in Israel. In recent years we have more areas of cooperation in everything that has to do with innovation and development. Now we are working on the issue of 'Smarts Cities'. In the end, what we have is that our economies are compatible and there are niches in which Israeli companies can take charge of covering those needs that exist. There are also a large number of Israeli companies in Spain and vice versa, and in recent months the issue of health has also been highlighted as a very interesting area for collaboration, and we continue to discover more fields or areas in which we can collaborate.