Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak sought to defend his past relationship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and push back against accusations of racist remarks in a wide-ranging television interview with Israel’s Channel 12.

“I am responsible for all of my own actions, and there is definitely room to ask if I should have exercised more thorough judgment,” he said. “I can certainly say that I regret the moment I met him in 2003,” Barak added.

At the same time, the former prime minister said he never witnessed behavior that would have alerted him to Epstein’s crimes.

“I never, in all the 15 years that I knew [Epstein], never saw any unreasonable occurrence, or any unreasonable behavior,” he said. “I did not know that manner of his crimes until 2019, and you probably didn’t know it either.”

The interview addressed photographs showing Barak entering Epstein’s Manhattan residence in 2016 with his face partially covered by a neck warmer, an image that has fueled speculation online. Barak said the covering was due to cold weather and denied any attempt to conceal his identity. He noted that he was photographed leaving the same building later that day without his face covered, saying this showed he “was not trying to hide anything.”

Barak also defended his and his wife’s repeated stays at an apartment owned by Epstein between 2015 and 2019, describing the arrangement as practical during visits to New York.

“It was useful,” he said, adding that he could leave personal belongings there.

He stressed that there was “nothing illegal” about staying at the apartment and invoked “the right of every citizen” to use property belonging to someone they know. Barak emphasized that he was no longer serving as prime minister during that period.

Beyond his ties to Epstein, Barak was also pressed about remarks captured in a recently unclassified 2014 recording in which he referred to girls coming from Russia to Israel.

He described the comments as an error in phrasing.

“They were an unsuccessful choice of words, with associations to unreasonable stereotypes,” Barak said.

The interview then turned to broader remarks in the same recording concerning immigration and demographics. In the conversation, Barak suggested that encouraging Russian immigration could help Israel “control the quality” of its population more effectively.

Barak said his words had been misrepresented.

“The media created a distorted depiction,” he said, arguing that the discussion centered on Israel’s long-term demographic challenges.

When the interviewer responded, “It’s a recording of you,” Barak defended his position.

“I raised the thought or idea, that by combining the easing of conversion processes on one hand, and the creation of the possibility of voluntary immigration to Israel, we can solve this challenge,” he said. “There is no racism there. I am describing a fact.”

As the interviewer argued that the comments were offensive to Mizrachi Jewish migrants, Barak denied the charge and said Israel’s founders were obligated to “rescue” all Jews regardless of background.

He added that in Israel’s current status as a developed country, any effort to encourage voluntary immigration would require selectivity.

“If you want voluntary migration,” Barak said, it would be necessary to bring in “better quality” people, “regardless of where they are from.”

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