CABINET COMMUNIQUE
(Communicated by the Cabinet Secretariat)

At the weekly Cabinet meeting today (Sunday), 22.1.12:

1. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made the following remarks:

"This week we will mark International Holocaust Remembrance
Day.
The UN decided to mark this day at the initiative of the Israeli government
and then Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom, and it was an important decision.
It created an international framework for discussion of the Holocaust,
certainly in several countries – not in Europe – for which it is important
to do so.

I was in the Netherlands last week and I was impressed that while this issue
is being dealt with, it must be dealt with on a deeper level. Israel has
decided to mark during the same week, the struggle against anti-Semitism, a
struggle which is being led by [Public Diplomacy and Diaspora Affairs]
Minister Yuli Edelstein, in new, creative and important ways.

Yad Vashem Council Chairman Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau and Yad Vashem
Directorate Chairman Avner Shalev are here today. Their work is making
waves around the world, as is the assistance in the overall struggle given
by the Jewish Agency led by our friend Natan Sharansky.

We are also marking 70 years since the Wansee
Conference.
Seventy years ago at a luxurious villa on the shores of a pastoral lake in
one of the suburbs of Berlin, ten senior officials of the German Third Reich
met and, over breakfast, decided to annihilate the Jewish People. They also
decided on the ways to how they would do this.

Our friend Yossi Peled – a Holocaust survivor, former GOC Northern Command
in the IDF and now a minister in the Israeli Government – attended the
ceremony this week.

Seventy years ago, the Jewish People were helpless. It had no ability –
neither political, nor military nor diplomatic – to organize its defense,
and one-third of our people were annihilated. The difference between 1942
and 2012 is not the absence of enemies, that same desire to destroy the
Jewish People and the State that has arisen, this desire exists and has not
changed. The difference is our ability to defend ourselves and to do so
with determination.

The Jewish People and the Government of Israel have the obligation and the
right to prevent another annihilation of the Jewish People or attack on its
state."

2. The Cabinet marked International Holocaust Remembrance Day and Struggle
against Anti-Semitism Day.

Public Diplomacy and Diaspora Affairs Minister Edelstein, Vice Prime
Minister Silvan Shalom, Deputy Minister for Senior Citizen Affairs Leah
Nass, Jewish Agency Chairman Sharansky and Yad Vashem Directorate Chairman
Shalev spoke.

All speakers discussed actions being taken to deepen the younger
generation's knowledge of the Holocaust, both in Israel and around the
world.

All speakers also discussed the struggle against anti-Semitism, displays of
anti-Semitism in 2011 and new trends in anti-Semitism, including the upsurge
in anti-Israel discourse, the de-legitimization of Israel and the use of
ant-Semitic motifs in the framework of the events of the Arab Spring.

3. The Cabinet approved the following appointments:

A.

Eldad Koblenz as Director of Educational Television, pursuant to Article 23
of the 1959 State Service Law (Appointments);

B.

* Yaakov Hadas as Ambassador to Germany;
* Chaim Koren as non-resident Ambassador to South Sudan.

C.

Pursuant to Article 7 of the 1959 State Service Law (Appointments), Prime
Minister's Office Director-General Harel Locker and Justice Ministry
Director-General Guy Rotkopf as members of the State Service Committee.

4. The Cabinet extended the validity of the 2003 Citizenship and Entry into
Israel Law (Temporary
Provision),
pursuant to Article 5 thereof, by one year, to 31.1.13.

Pursuant to the aforesaid Law and on the basis of the opinion of the
authorized security officials, the Cabinet determined that the Gaza Strip is
still an area in which activity is carried out that is liable to endanger
the security of the State of Israel and its citizens; therefore, the Cabinet
instructs Interior Minister Eli Yishai to continue not granting permits to
reside and/or stay in Israel to those registered in the Population Registry
as residents of the Gaza Strip and to those who reside in the Gaza Strip
even though they are not registered as such in the Population Registry.

5. Prime Minister Netanyahu briefed ministers on the compromise agreement
that has been proposed to the residents of
Migron
regarding the evacuation of the outpost.

6. Prime Minister's Office Authority for the Economic Development of the
Arab, Druze and Circassian
Sectors
Director Iman Saif briefed ministers on the Authority's activities and
plans. Click
here
for further details, including a (Hebrew) PowerPoint display.

7. Prime Minister Netanyahu briefed ministers on his recent visit
(18-20.1.12) to the Netherlands. Click
here,
here,
here
and
here
for details.