Michael Driquez’s job description changed October 7 when Hamas invaded southern Israel, killing more than 1,400 citizens and kidnapping 241.
Driquez is the deputy counsel general of Israel for Florida, Missouri, Kansas and Puerto Rico. The consulate is based in Miami.
His job description was to strengthen the political, economic and cultural ties between Israel and the areas the consulate represents.
Now, Driquez says he is working with little sleep. His days are filled with briefings and updates from Israel through texts, emails and video apps.
The seven-hour time difference makes it difficult to find time to sleep.
When he’s not getting briefed from Israel, he’s on the front lines telling why Israel has the right to defend itself. He said he knows Israel has many issues in the PR world.
“It’s part of the war and we will do everything we can on the PR scene, and in the media and around politicians and around communities, Jewish and non-Jewish to make the people understand that it is not Hamas versus Israel, if nothing else this is good versus evil.”
He said he can’t count the number of presentations he has made to Jewish and non-Jewish groups since October 7.
“All our efforts right now, and the fact that I came to Naples and Fort Myers is to show the world that we are right now on the verge of a change of the history of mankind,” he said.
Driquez made four stops on Tuesday and Wednesday in Southwest Florida before heading back to the East Coast where he had more meetings.
Driquez, 44, has been a diplomat for six years. He’s been working in the U.S. for two. He and his wife were diplomats in Costa Rica before moving to the U.S.
He was born and grew up in France where he said he learned about antisemitism firsthand.
“I had to fight every day during the first years of my life because of being a Jew,” he said.
It was an incident when he was 15 that made him decide he wanted to live in Israel. He said he was beaten after saving his younger sister from being attacked.
“I decided that I wanted a feeling of belonging to something, and I found it in Israel,” he said.
He served in the Israeli Defense Force’s National Rescue Unit, which two years ago came to the U.S. to help search for survivors of the Surfside condo collapse.
Driquez received degrees in computer and electrical engineering and found a home in Israel’s tech industry. He and wife worked for tech companies before changing careers.
“We decided to switch our careers to make the world a better place,” he said. “So, we used diplomacy for the wellness of the world.”
Driquez, his wife and three children lived in Beersheba, a city known in Israel as the “Capital of the Negev.” The city of about 200,000 was not part of Hamas’ attack.
His sister, however, wasn’t as lucky. She lives in Ashkelon, a city on the Mediterrean Sea. The city survived 1,300 missiles attacks on October 7, he said.
Driquez doesn’t use his phone on the Friday night sabbath, but it was round 11 p.m. when his wife began receiving thousands of text messages.
They turned on the television and started watching what was happening “in real time.” He compared it to watching the World Trade Center attacks on September 11.
“I remember the first numbers they were talking about were 22 murders, then after one hour it was 150, then 250 then 300 until the number we have today, 1,400 murdered, 240 kidnapped.
“The numbers were staggering. It was unfathomable. We couldn’t imagine these kinds of atrocities. And even when we were looking at it on the television and I was receiving all the briefings from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs we couldn’t believe it.”
Driquez relives the nightmare daily. Part of his presentation includes videos showing Hamas’ attack.
Some of the footage from GoPro cameras the attackers wore show them shooting civilians as fled their homes. Other videos shows blood-stained floors, bodies of burned babies and beheaded soldiers.
“Every time I see it, I want to vomit,” he said. “I have this disturbed feeling in my soul, in my body, in my gut.”
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