Paul Calvert spoke with Michael Oren, a member of the Knesset, and Deputy Minister for Diplomacy in Israel.

Paul: Do you think he will move the American Embassy to Jerusalem?

Michael: I don't know. There is a report circulating today that he won't, but I haven't been able to confirm that. My hope was that he would. I can't tell whether that hope is going to be fulfilled of not.

Paul: Over the past year we have seen knife and car ramming attacks on the streets in Israel. How difficult is it to deal with lone wolf attackers?

Michael: It is very difficult, but not impossible. The number of these attacks has declined dramatically, because with each attack we learn. One of the things you learn for example, is that lone wolf attackers will often advertise their intentions on the internet and on the media. We have to be much more vigilant and cast our web longer and deeper, to identify those people who look like they may attempt a lone wolf attack, and to pre-empt the attack.

Paul: Can Europe learn something from Israel? It's on the streets of Europe now.

Michael: Europe has so much to learn from Israel, that it would probably exceed the amount of time I have for this interview. I hosted a number of visiting Parliamentary delegations from Europe and a recent delegation from a country that I won't name, expressed a surprise that they don't see troops on our streets. In their own country there is a tremendous amount of armed soldiers patrolling the streets. They said, how do you manage to grapple with terror without having a large military presence in public? And my response was that if you have soldiers on the street with guns and helmets, that's a sign already that you have failed, because terror has to be stopped five steps before the soldiers are on the street. With the soldier on the street, there is only one thing the soldier can do and that is shoot, or in the case of certain terror attacks, don't shoot and it's too late.

Terror is stopped first and foremost on the level of intelligence, but it also involves activities like community relations and person to person relations. There are many ways that you can combat terror, not by shooting. I think Europe has an immense amount to learn from Israel and coping with terror.

Paul: Palestinian prisoners have gone on hunger strike, demanding better conditions. Is this a lose lose situation for Israel and should Israel give in to terrorist demands? And if they don't give in, are they creating martyrs if a Palestinian prisoner dies?

Michael: Firstly you have to understand, what is the nature of the strike? The nature of the strike is actually nothing to do with the conditions of the prison. It has to do with the power struggle within al-Fatah, the main organisation in the PLO and the Palestinian Authority.

Marwan Barghouti claims that he has been side-lined by Mahmoud Abbas, the President of the Palestinian Authority. Marwan Barghouti is serving five consecutive life sentences for murder in Israeli prisons and that is not our business. The Palestinians have to work out their own succession issues.

Everyone assumes Mahmoud Abbas, who is now in his 80's and not in very good health, will not be the President of the Palestinian Authority for much longer. There is already a power struggle with about nine different contenders. Sometimes there have been outbreaks of violence between Palestinian factions, which Israeli forces ironically had to intercede and separate them, or the Palestinians will kill one another. That is not our business.

The conditions in Israeli jails have been judged by an objective source in the MSNBC, which is often quite critical of Israel, as being some of the best prison conditions anywhere in the world. We have an arrangement with the Red Cross where Palestinians who have been sent to prison for terrorism from the West Bank receive regular family visits. It's untrue that they don't receive regular family visits. They can get advance degrees in various fields. I was involved in the Gilad Shalit deal; if you remember Israel exchanged almost 2000 prisoners for Gilad Shalit, an Israeli corporal who had been taken captive by Hamas. We had one security prisoner who refused to be released until he had completed his MA.

Paul: UNESCO passed a resolution ignoring Jewish connections to the Temple Mount. Is UNESCO anti-Semitic?

Michael: As the former President of Harvard, Larry Summers, once said, there are actions that are anti-Semitic in effect, if not intent. When the UN singles out Israel more frequently than any other country in the world, or all countries in the world combined, for human rights violations, that is in effect anti-Semitic. What is the definition of anti-Semitism? It's the singling out of Jews for condemnation. So it's anti-Semitic. By denying the historical connection between the Jewish people and the city of Jerusalem, this is a connection that is three thousand years old, Jerusalem is mentioned no less than 683 times in the Bible, it is a city which is holy to the three monotheistic religions, but only in Judaism is Jerusalem the holiest city. Denying that connection in a strange way is actually more than anti-Semitic, it is insane.