George Deek is Israel's first special envoy to the Christian world, former Israeli Ambassador to Azerbaijan, and an Arab Christian from Jaffa whose family fled in 1948 and came back.

No other country has created the position he holds. Deek fills it as a man who has spent his life outside the categories other people use to understand the Middle East: Arab, Christian, Israeli, and unwilling to surrender any of the three.

In this conversation with Avi Jorisch, recorded live in Jerusalem at the IEF Global Summit, Deek traces the decision that put him in a diplomat's chair rather than a refugee camp, his grandfather's choice to walk back from Lebanon into the country his family had just fled. He describes the conversation with his father the night he was accepted into the foreign ministry, why he believes living between identities is where creativity comes from, and what Rabbi Jonathan Sacks changed in how he understands Israel's story.

He also gets specific about the present. The Christian population of Israel has grown from 34,000 in 1950 to roughly 189,000 today, against collapse almost everywhere else in the region. Deek explains what he hears from church leaders behind closed doors that they will not say on camera, and why he thinks the story of Israel is the story of the last hope of the region's minorities.

The conversation closes with a lightning round, including where he would take Jesus first if he came back.

Statecraft with Avi Jorisch is a production of the Israel Economic Forum. Conversations with the people shaping the destiny of Israel and the Jewish people.

Conversations with the people shaping the destiny of Israel and the Jewish people.

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Dr. Einat Wilf served in Israeli military intelligence, advised Shimon Peres, and sat in the Knesset. She built her political identity inside Israel’s peace camp—then became one of its most formidable critics. After October 7, she decided writing and speaking were no longer enough and founded a political party.

For twenty years, Wilf searched for Palestinians willing to say publicly that their future lies next to a Jewish state rather than in place of one. What she found challenged much of what she once believed.

Avi Jorisch sat with Wilf at her home in Tel Aviv to talk about the Jerusalem childhood that pointed her toward the United Nations, the weekend that began to dismantle her worldview, and the handwritten note that arrived years later from someone she barely knew—with a single word on it. They also discuss what concerns her about holding real power. And Avi asks her directly: Does she want to be prime minister?

Statecraft with Avi Jorisch is a production of IEF—conversations with the people shaping the destiny of Israel and the Jewish people.

For more episodes, visit statecraftwithAviJorisch.com