(Communicated by the Prime Minister's Media Adviser)
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife Sara, this afternoon (Tuesday, 27 November 2018), at the Prime Minister's Residence in Jerusalem, hosted lunch for Czech President Milos Zeman and his wife Ivana Zemanova, who signed the guestbook.
During the meal, Prime Minister Netanyahu welcomed Czech President Zeman to Israel. Later today, the two will dedicate 'Czech House' in Jerusalem, which will include Czech government representatives as a first stage ahead of moving the embassy to the capital. The Prime Minister also thanked the Czech President for the latter's important speech to the Knesset yesterday.
Prime Minister Netanyahu:
"It’s a wonderful opportunity to welcome the president and the first lady – Milos and Ivana – to our home. It’s an extraordinary friendship. You gave it a powerful expression yesterday.
From here, we’ll go to opening the Czech House, which is a very important decision en route to another one, as you said yesterday in your speech.
Since the visit of Tomáš Masaryk here almost 100 years ago, there has not been this expression of sympathy, empathy and friendship. We can go higher, but we’re standing on the shoulders of giants – Herzl and Masaryk.
We say 'Next year in Jerusalem'. So, next year we hope to see an embassy in Jerusalem, but next year in Prague, we have a G2G meeting."