PM Netanyahu Addresses Prime Minister's Office Employees
(Communicated by the Prime Minister's Media Adviser)

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, today (Monday, 15 September 2014), at the
traditional toast ahead of Rosh Hashanah, spoke to Prime Minister's Office
employees:

"We must constantly defend our security. This was and remains our first and
highest goal because everything else is made possible thanks to security.
Any responsible leader, in the face of the increasing threats around us,
would demand and make possible a significant increase in the defense budget
given the reality and the growing security challenges around us and this is
what we will do, a significant increase of many billions.

I would like to thank all of you for your daily work, especially in recent
months. We went through a difficult campaign and we did so successfully. I
would like to thank you for your expedited and dedicated around-the-clock
efforts over 51 days and nights. I would like to thank you for assisting me
and the entire government during Operation Protective Edge.

Today it is possible to compare the blow that we delivered to Hamas and the
terrorist organizations in Gaza to the challenge facing the international
community – dozens of countries are confronting a body that is more or less
the size of Hamas.

You certainly see that the Middle East is changing very rapidly. The area
around us, both near and far, is changing at a dizzying pace. States are
breaking up and out of the ground and the sand are rising extremist Shiite
and Sunni organizations that are competing with each other and fighting each
other and amongst themselves. But they all have one position – that we don't
need to be here.

We know that we have been engaged in the struggle for our existence since
the dawn of Zionism, both before and after the establishment of the state.
We have withstood our enemies time and again, in campaign after campaign,
and, at the same time, have continued to build our state. One of the great
things that we are doing, between campaigns, while extending our hand to
those of our neighbors who want peace, is to build up our state."