Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife, Sara, attended a cornerstone-laying ceremony on Wednesday for a monument to Arabic-speaking Christian fallen IDF soldiers. The ceremony was held in the Lavi Forest near the Golani Junction in northern Israel.
In his address at the ceremony, Netanyahu addressed global criticism against Israel, stating: "We are under a global attack on the State of Israel and the Israel Defense Forces. This attack presents the State of Israel and Israeli soldiers not only as war criminals, which is the most absurd thing that can be said about the most moral military in the world, but also presents Israel as a persecutor of minorities."
The Prime Minister presented Israel as a regional outlier when it comes to treatment of minorities: "In the heart of this giant region, which has no mercy, no acceptance, with so much hostility, so much extremism, so much persecution and elimination of the other, the State of Israel is like an island; an island of progress, an island of tolerance, an island of security."
Netanyahu added that this applies to all sects, and also mentioned the Druze in Syria: "I say this about all the sects, but only recently did we fight in Suweida to save our Druze brothers from total slaughter, and we protect them now as well."
He later focused on the Christian community in Israel, stating: "Regarding the Christian community, this is the only place, the State of Israel, where the Christian community is flourishing and growing. The only one in the Middle East. Everywhere else they are persecuted, emigrate, or are slaughtered. Only here have they found a place, a shared home for us all."
According to Netanyahu, the reality which he described does not receive enough attention on the international stage: "You know this, but the world is being swept away by a big lie. And if you repeat a big lie enough again and again, the lie becomes truth."
The Prime Minister linked his remarks to the cornerstone-laying ceremony for the memorial: “That is why we came here today to shatter this lie, and we are shattering it through this very ceremony, through the fact that we not only protect Christians - I am referring specifically to the latest lie - Christians protect us! All of us together."