(Communicated by the Prime Minister's Media Adviser)
Following are Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's greetings to participants at the anti-BDS summit in Las Vegas:
"Greetings from Jerusalem. I wanted to commend all of you for participating in this weekend's summit and for all of your hard work on campus.
Delegitimization of Israel is a major challenge facing the Jewish people and the Jewish state. Just in the last week, there was an
attempt to throw Israel out of FIFA; the National Union of Students in the UK voted to support boycotting Israel; and the CEO of a French telecommunications company declared his intention to end the company's business dealings with Israel. His subsequent words of admiration for Israel don't square with his unequivocally hostile remarks in Cairo.
Delegitimization of Israel must be fought, and you are on the front lines. It's not about this or that Israeli policy. It's about our right to exist here as a free people, our right to defend ourselves, our right to determine our own future. There is no Jewish future without the Jewish state.
And I thank each and every one of you for defending Israel on campus. So young Jews will know they can stand tall and be proud of Israel, and so friends of Israel can be armed with facts to defend the truth. And so everyone will see that Israel, the most embattled democracy on earth that seeks a genuine peace while fending off the forces of barbaric terrorism, deserves their support.
The Israeli government is committed to launching assertive and innovative programs and to joining you any many others around the world to combat the lies and slander that are leveled against us.
Our most potent weapon is the truth. We must speak the truth - loudly, clearly, proudly.
I wish you all a productive summit.
Shabbat shalom."
On Thursday, 4 June 2015, in response to the remarks by Orange Telecom chairman Stephane Richard, Prime Minister Netanyahu said:
"The absurd drama in which the democracy that observes human rights - the State of Israel - and which defends itself from barrages of missiles and terrorist tunnels, and then absorbs automatic condemnations and attempted boycotts, this absurd drama will not be forgiven. I call on the French government to publicly repudiate the miserable statement and miserable action by a company that is under its partial ownership. At the same time, I call on our friends to unconditionally declare - in a loud and clear voice - that they oppose any kind of boycott of the state of the Jews."