Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife Sara attended the cornerstone-laying ceremony for a memorial dedicated to fallen members of the Arabic-speaking Christian community, in the Lavi Forest near the Golani Junction. Prime Minister Netanyahu: "We are facing a global attack against the State of Israel and the Israel Defense Forces. In this attack, the State of Israel and Israeli soldiers are portrayed not only as perpetrators of war crimes, which is the most absurd thing imaginable to say about the most moral army in the world, but they are also portrayed as persecuting minorities. At the heart of this vast region, where there is no compassion and no acceptance, where there is so much hostility, so much extremism, so much persecution and destruction of those who are different, the State of Israel is like an island: an island of progress, an island of tolerance and an island of security. I say this regarding all communities, but just recently we fought in Sweida to save our Druze brothers from total slaughter, and we protect them to this day. And regarding the Christian community, the State of Israel is the only place in the Middle East where the Christian community flourishes and grows, the only one. Everywhere else, they are persecuted, they emigrate, or they are slaughtered. Only here do they find their place, a home we all share. You know this, but the world is being swept along by the big lie. If the big lie is repeated again and again and again, that lie becomes accepted as truth. That is why we came here today, to shatter that lie. We are shattering it through this very ceremony and through the very fact that we do not merely protect Christians, and I am referring specifically to the latest lie, Christians protect us! All of us, together.”