 Thank you very much for sitting down with I24 News. The first question that I wanted to ask you was about your personal encounters with the Queen, if you have any memories to share, maybe not just with the Queen but the royal family as well. So I was very lucky. Yes, I met the Queen a few times both in private and in public and she was lovely. She had a fantastic sense of humour but also an amazing amount of experience. She visited 120 countries. She became Queen when Israel was only five years old so just her depth of experience, her political knowledge was really impressive and yes I've been lucky enough to have Prince Charles when he came to Israel in 2020 and he spent time in this house and with President Herzog I visited him at his house in the UK just last November. So yes, I've been very lucky indeed. Queen Elizabeth II really maintained friendly relations with both the Jewish community in and out of Britain as well as Israeli dignitaries having hosted a few of them when they travelled to London but she never made a visit to Israel. Why is that? So there was definitely no ban on her ever visiting Israel as it has been suggested and as I said the royal family actually visited Israel a lot recently so Prince William came here in 2019. Prince Charles just two years ago but in recent years the Queen hasn't travelled so much so Prince Charles, Prince William were very much travelling and representing her and there are really warm relations between Israel and the royal family. The King's grandmother is buried on the Mount of Olives. She's a Princess Alice. She's a righteous amongst the nations and I've talked to Prince Charles, now the King and there's real respect and affection and interest in Israel. We had a correspondence that was actually outside the British Embassy, not necessarily your residence on the day that the Queen passed and it was relatively empty. Is that maybe just showing more or less how the Israeli public maybe feels towards the royal family that disconnects? So we had the condonance book as you said here at the residence rather than at the embassy and we had lots of people coming so we had everybody there. The President who in fact is the first name in the condonance book but the Prime Minister Netanyahu all came but also what was really lovely for us was how many normal Israelis came, neighbors, people who met the royal family when they visited here and people from all different communities and parts of Israel from the Kharedi community, the Arab community, a small girl who bought her Paddington bear which was very lovely British nationals so just that sort of real depth of affection in Israel for the Queen personally and for the royal family. We found really touching and really moving and we're really grateful for it. Israel is in the midst of a new election season, the fifth in what will be just over three years. Did you notice perhaps any of the politicians coming here that seemed to be genuinely giving their respect for the Queen or were seen as more of a kind of political entanglement or necessity that they felt that they needed to be here? So I felt it was genuine, genuine affection so President Herzog, so his father visited the Queen when he was president as a state visit. He has met Prince Charles both at this house and in the UK so there's a very strong personal relationship but also Netanyahu who talked about when he met members of the royal family no so felt real yes a sense of personal connection and affection for the royal family which we really liked and of course the recognition as you said of the really close relationship between the UK and Israel. Is there supposed to be a connection? The monarch is more of a ceremonial role the same way that in Israel so is our presidency and the Prime Minister exactly like the UK is the one that's conducting official politics and business. Are we likely to see ties maybe strengthening or is that sort of separate that there's the monarch and its relationship with Israel and then there's the UK and its relationship with Israel? So the monarch's relationship with Israel the fact that it's so strong is partly also at the request of the the British government because we the monarch tends to visit at the request of the government but yeah we also have a new Prime Minister she visited Israel just last year and she's extremely interested in and positive about Israel so yes I think the relationship is going to be even closer just this week we formally launched a free trade agreement negotiations with the government of Israel so we really hope to to push the the official relationship along as well as the the people-to-people relationship of which the the royal family is clearly a really big part. Do you have a message for the Israeli public about wanting to strengthen those ties or just how important perhaps the monarchy is and why they should have a stronger relationship with them? So I think I think Israelis do feel that strong relationship I think about 200 000 Israelis go to Britain every year for holiday Israelis go and choose to study in the UK so I think those those links are really strong and I think people do come back and they've seen Buckingham Palace they've seen the changing of the guard but also just yeah talk to British people watch the crown and get a sense of how unusual and how special the relationship is between the British people and the royal family and the part that they they play in our lives and again I hope that watching the funeral on Monday a broadcast like this will help people understand why the by British people feel so proud of and so much affection for our our amazing royal family. Everybody knows the queen's sense of service and duty but the big thing is that we are not probably in our lifetimes going to see another female queen monarch in the United Kingdom it's now going to be sort of a line of of men would likely still be stability even though it is now King Charles and obviously once that passes to Prince William. So I think she's been an amazing role model including for women in the UK so almost every woman has grown up in the UK with our head of state as the queen and the seen this as a constant example and but of course we're now on our third female prime minister so we have lots of other role models as well and again our system is designed so that the when the queen dies and the king is now in place but that transfer of of loyalty and authority will go straight to him so even though it's a huge change our banknotes will change our coins will change our stamps will change but still there's the symbol of the royal family remains hugely important to people and that has been through much bigger changes than this and I'm sure will carry on for a long time. Let's hope that those ties do carry on a long time not just with the British monarchy but also between Israel and the United Kingdom Ambassador thank you very very much for sitting down with us today on 924 News. Thank you very much indeed.