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For 22 years no Israeli Prime Minister had visited Brussels – until this month. On December, 11th, 2017 Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu came to the European capital following an invitation of High Representative Federica Mogherini. The two of them met ahead of an informal breakfast with EU Foreign Ministers. Excerpts of the Prime Minister’s opening statement:
I thank you for this invitation, Federica, and also to the Government of Lithuania. It's a pleasure to be here. Europe and Israel are important partners in three main areas: in the area of security, in the area of prosperity, in the area of peace. In security, Israeli intelligence has prevented dozens of terrorist attacks, many of them on European soil, and I think countless lives have been saved as a result of this cooperation that is well known to the security services of many European governments. We'll continue to do so as part of our common battle against terrorism. […]
The second point is prosperity. We are in a revolution, a great revolution in the world. The future belongs to those who innovate. […] New industries are created out of thin air. Israel has now a car industry. It never had. […] We have 500 startups just in autonomous vehicles and Waze and crowdsourcing that are important, that are changing the face of transportation. I give this as one example. Digital health—another example being developed in Israel; precision agriculture, IT, cyber—Israel now has received 20% of the global private investment in cybersecurity. […] The partnership between Israel and Europe is vital; in my opinion, it's important not only for us—clearly it is, I wouldn't be here otherwise—but I think it's important for Europe. And many, many countries around the world understand that, that Israel is the partner for innovation, and innovation is the future.
We've also found gas, by the way, and we just concluded an MOU with some of the European countries: with Cyprus, Greece and Italy […]. We're actually exploring the laying of a gas pipeline from our offshore gas fields up to Italy. This would be, I think, very important for Europe's economy in this way as well. Innovation, energy and every other way, we believe we are natural partners.
Third is peace. Israel has extended its hand to peace to our Palestinian neighbors for 100 years, well before there was a State of Israel and after it was established. And for 50 years, before there was a single settlement or a single issue of territory, we were being attacked constantly.
We were attacked not because of this or that piece of territory, but of the idea of any territory, that there would be a Jewish state, a nation-state for the Jewish people in any boundary was rejected by our neighbors. […] I think we should give peace a change. I think we should see what is presented and see if we can advance this peace. But if we have to begin it, I would say it's one place: recognize the Jewish state. It's always been about the Jewish state. And it's time that the Palestinians recognize the Jewish state and also recognize the fact that it has a capital. It's called Jerusalem. I believe that even though we don't have an agreement yet, this is what will happen in the future. […]
So I thank you for this opportunity to present these views, which I'm sure will engage in hardy discussion with the foreign ministers. It's a valuable opportunity, an important one. Europe is important, that's why I'm here.
Find his full statement here
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