Sylvan Adams, a businessman and philanthropist who has named himself, "the self-appointed ambassador for Israel," joined Arutz Sheva - Israel National News to discuss his new title and the responsibilities that come with it.
''The week I immigrated to Israel, I had business cards printed with my new title," he recounted. '"My idea was that the country that I know and love is misunderstood and badly portrayed abroad, and I was to showcase the Israel that we as Israelis see every day to very large audiences abroad - literally in the hundreds of millions of television spectators."
Adams saids that the world is indeed watching: ''The biggest events are sporting events or or cultural events. This is what I've been doing since immigrating."
He denounced the recent hints at an arms embargo from the USA: "It's an incoherent policy. They're holding back on the smart technologies that actually have fewer civilian casualties. Who would have thought that we would we would face this kind of rejection for what Alan Dershowitz terms as Biden's two-state solution - Michigan and Minnesota? He's got an election to win, and I think is this is exactly the way one loses an election, by projecting weakness to the majority of people in favor of 100,000 Muslims in those two states."
Adams spoke wistfully about the support President Biden displayed when the war broke out, saying, ''We were elated, because we hadn't seen this kind of vigor from Biden and it was a very big boost in the aftermath of October the 7th. We didn't know what was going to happen next or how many fronts we were going to face. Unfortunately, he said 'Don't,' and still we faced missiles and drones from Iran. Biden again looks weak and is turning his back on his allies and is in fact becoming an apologist for for terrorists. It makes no sense and it is exactly the way one loses an election, by projecting this type of weakness and betrayal of one's friends."
Discussing the recent antisemitism on campuses, Adams said: "October the 7th revealed a latent antisemitism that we didn't really understand was there, but clearly it was. Now, there are large American universities with student bodies of tens of thousands that have fewer than a hundred protesters. It's a very small minority of people, but they're very vocal, menacing, and they are creating problems. I think they're shooting themselves in the foot, because I think reasonable, fair-minded people are seeing them take down the American flag and replace it with the Palestinian flag, and there are no Americans that are favorable to something like that. They've actually done us a bit of a favor - had they kept this as an anti-Israel thing, they would be inflicting harm on Israel's image. By widening it and turning it into a hate-fest against Jews, they've turned the majority of people off."
He commented on the Jewish response since the massacre, adding, "Hamas made a mistake. They thought that we were weak because we were having a robust democratic argument with one another. They accomplished just the opposite - October the 7th reunited Israelis and the Diaspora community that perhaps didn't feel as close to Israel. In the aftermath of October the 7th, I say that Jewish pride is back."
Adams emphasized the importance of preserving national unity: "We've seen the demonstration starting again. The people who are enjoying our demonstrations the most is Hamas - why do we want to give them a gift? It's bad enough that Joe Biden is giving them a gift. I believe that we should keep our arguments for after the war."
After the massacre, Adams made his way to southern Israel as soon as possible. He explained, "The sights are unbearable to watch and to understand, and we all feel for the hostages’ families. We fear for the fate of our hostages, but we also care about our soldiers. We've lost more than 260 of our boys fighting in Gaza, not to mention the losses on October the 7th. We've seen a resiliency here in Israel, and I've never been more proud to be Israeli."
He reviewed his own efforts to help the victims: "If we're going to repopulate our south, we need to tell Hamas and the entire world that we are here to stay. I did the largest donation of my life, $100 million, to Ben-Gurion University. I didn't earmark it - usually, you have a specific project in mind when you're giving large donations, but these are funds that go right into the general operations of the of the University to further their goals as being the economic engine of the south. I believe this is a strategically important investment to tell the entire world that we're not going anywhere."
Adams has also led a cycling initiative: "We organized a worldwide ride with yellow ribbons where we had tens of thousands of of cyclists from all over the world in over forty different cities on six continents - everywhere except Antarctica. The center of the operation was at Tel Aviv, and we had hostages’ families riding in a procession with the yellow ribbons and leading this worldwide ride marking 100 days of captivity for our hostages. It's an unspeakable cruelty, and these antisemitic demonstrations disregard the fact that Hamas is playing on our heartstrings, rejecting any deal that we've tried. Israel has extended itself to try to make a reasonable deal to secure the freedom of some or all of our hostages, and they're just playing with us. They're not serious and the world is forgetting and ignoring."
Israel, he insists, has to present the issue better: "Israel doesn't do itself any favors in the communications front. I saw a spokesman for the country suggest that ‘there are gaps in the Hamas proposal.’ Foreign audiences are now thinking that Israel is the problem, not Hamas. Hamas is playing with us, and Biden has made it easy for them."
"We can do so much better. For example, the casualty figures report that Israel killed 36,400. Where are our numbers? We haven't given any numbers. I'm very disappointed to see that we allow them to get away with blatant lies and we don't counter it with anything else. They imply that only civilians, only women and children have been killed. We know this to be to be false. At least half of those killed have been terrorists and we're not we're not getting the message out."
Adams also recounted his experience as one of the honorees at last year's Yom Ha'atzmaut torch-lighting ceremony, recalling, "It was one of the proudest moments of my life to have been selected because of my activities in promoting the virtuousness of Israel as a pluralistic, open, tolerant, fiercely democratic, and safe country - which was important at the time, although it is no longer our image. I moved from Canada, I wouldn't have moved to a country that had any less of those qualities than my native Canada. It seems like a lifetime ago because of the events of October the 7th, but at the time it was one of the truly proud moments of my life."