iF October DIGITAL September-October 2020 | Page 34

people policy
iF Talks with Hon. Gilad
Katz, Consul General of
Israel, about the Peace
Agreement with the UAE
By: Heidi Poweii-Prera, iF Magazine Global Journalist
The Honorable Gilad Katz received us in his offices.
From the moment we entered the office, he was
warm and friendly. In our conversation, he spoke
about life in Israel with a Pandemic as well as the
significance of the Israel-UAE Peace Agreement.
Heidi PP: Hello, so good to see
you. How long has it been?
Hon. Gilad Katz: It has been
quite a while since the last event we
attended together.
Heidi PP: How have you been?
Hon. Gilad Katz: Everything has
been upside down because of the
pandemic, but we will overcome.
At the beginning of this month, my
time here in Houston was extended
for another year. I hope that at least
half of that year will be after the pandemic,
that is I hope that by January
there will be a vaccine, and that we
can begin to come to the end of this.
Heidi PP: Are there travel restrictions
in place in Israel right now?
34 iF Magazine |September-October 2020
Hon. Gilad Katz: Yes many, only
today we are in the second wave, so
only Israelis or spouses of Israelis are
allowed to enter Israel. Even when
they are allowed to enter, they have
to go through a two week quarantine.
It’s not like here where you are
simply asked to self quarantine; it is
a much stricter process. They police
your details about where you plan to
quarantine and do random check ups.
You will be fined $1000 if you are
caught not following the protocol.
Israel is so small, it is actually 33 times
smaller than Texas. So we have to be
very cautious about social distancing
and quarantining. Even so, the situation
in Israel today is far from being
good. On a daily basis there are
more than a thousand new cases and
the numbers are growing. Everyday
more people are passing away, we
are at around 900 already. We had
an enforced curfew in Israel about
three months ago, and the number
dropped. It’s like putting a lid on it.
When you put the lid on, the numbers
drop. When you take the lid off,
the cases increase. The other issue is
when you impose a curfew, the economy
suffers badly. So that is another
aspect of this pandemic. Now we are
headed into the Jewish high holidays
at the end of this month and the government
is thinking about enforcing
a curfew since the high holidays is
a time when families will want to
get together. The last time they had
a curfew was Passover and it helped
greatly. They will decide as we get
closer to the high holiday. Regardless
of your policy, the situation is
bad. The population understands it;
but when it gets to your own house
into your household, then you want
a solution. It is not an easy task as you
can see. It’s easy to say we are closing
the sky with no flights in or out of