Netanyahu at cabinet meeting
Netanyahu at cabinet meetingFlash 90

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday afternoon at the start of the Likud faction meeting that Israel is moving up the global economic ladder.

"We received data from the International Monetary Fund yesterday," Netanyahu said. "According to these figures, our per-capita GDP has surpassed Japan's and is higher than the average country in the European Union. We are very close to Britain and France. Unemployment is at an all time low using the system of measurement we have used for the last 40 years. And the average income is at an all-time high. A very big change has taken place here."

"Our members in the opposition say: Yes, but the rich get richer and the poor get poorer," Netanyahu said. "That's also not true because we also have the data of inequality in the Israeli economy, which show that [inequality] is steadily declining in a systematic and dramatic manner. This is the result of the long-standing economic policy I have been leading in recent years with our colleague [Finance Minister] Moshe Kahlon. I think that we will continue to do so for many years for the benefit of the State of Israel, for the benefit of the citizens of Israel, for the benefit of the Israeli economy," he added.

Netanyahu expressed his appreciation to the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee after "it acted on my request to actually fine the Palestinian Authority in order to compensate our farmers for the fires [caused by the incendiary kites]."

He also expressed his hopes that the talks between US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un would prove successful. "We wish President Trump and the United States maximum success in their effort to prevent a nuclear danger in the world, and this is precisely the same effort we are doing here, which I discussed with European leaders last week - to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, and we will do so in the same way as we do in the end to remove Iran from all of Syria."