​(Communicated by the Prime Minister's Media Adviser)

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, this morning (Sunday, 17 December 2017), at the start of the weekly Cabinet meeting, made the following remarks:
 
"This week we will warmly welcome US Vice President Mike Pence. He is a great friend of Israel; he is a great friend of Jerusalem. Once again I would like to express special appreciation for the determined leadership of President Trump and his administration in defending the truth of Israel, for vigorously rejecting the attempts to use the UN as a platform against Israel and for [their] general support. We will warmly welcome him here and at the Knesset.
 
This week I will meet – along with the Finance Minister and the Economy Minister – with the CEO of Teva. I spoke with him last week and I told him that our first goal is to minimize the blow to workers. This is the first thing. The second thing, of course, is to do everything possible to prevent the closure of plants in Jerusalem. The third thing is to ensure that Teva remains in the State of Israel. It employs thousands of workers. It started as an Israeli company and we want it to remain as an Israeli company. We will use various means at our disposal to try and achieve these goals.
 
The third item regards cyber. Today the Cabinet will make a very significant decision, as per my recommendation, to unite two authorities into one main agency that will oversee cyber defense. Soon I will submit my candidate to head this united agency. Several years ago I set a vision that Israel would be one of the five great cyber powers in the world. And indeed we are meeting this goal. Whoever has visited the cyber authority in Be'er Sheva – not every civilian can do so – gains the impression that we are among the leaders, if not the leaders, in the world in defending our citizens, their bank accounts, our electricity grid and all of our other existential infrastructures against cyberattack. This is not to say that there are no cyberattacks; there are, all the time. But Israel is developing pioneering technology and methods of organizing in the world in order to defend against these assaults. Today's decision will advance us in this direction."