PM Lee Hsien Loong at the Welcome Ceremony in Jerusalem on 19 April 2016

Prime Minister Netanyahu 

Distinguished members of the Israeli delegation, 

Ladies and Gentlemen, 

I thank Prime Minister for your very warm welcome and express my deep pleasure at being the first Singapore Prime Minister to visit Israel.  

We have a long and deep relationship between Singapore and Israel.  Our business to business ties are strong.  Israel is the second largest contributor of foreign direct investments in Singapore from the Middle East.  We admire your technical prowess and ecosystem.  You have the highest number of scientists, technicians, technologists and engineers per capita in the world.  You have the third highest number of patents per capita.  I know that many Singaporean firms are interested in doing business with you and investing in Israel, as some have already done.  

Our universities and research sectors have also strong collaborations, and there are many exchanges between our institutes.  But really, it all started with a defence relationship.  We are very grateful to Israel that when independence was thrust upon us in August 1965, and when Singapore’s security and survival were in doubt, you helped us, the IDF helped us to build up the Singapore Armed Forces, when other countries turned us down.

It has been a long time since I visited Israel.  The last time was in 1977, as a young army officer accompanying our Chief of General Staff, who is now our Ambassador here.  That is General Winston Choo, who has known Israel for many years.  I am very happy to be back here again after all these many years, to thank you personally and to thank Israel for your help and support over the years, and to see for myself developments in Israel which we follow closely from a distance – your economic success, your technological progress, and also developments in the Middle East, which I am sure we will be exchanging views on later.  We are concerned about security issues.  We are concerned about cybersecurity, which is an area of worry for many governments and societies.  Also for terrorism, even the attack yesterday in Jerusalem, but the more fundamental issue which threatens many societies, not with overturning civilisation, but with wreaking death and destruction and harm in a way which can do a lot of damage.
We also watch carefully from a distance the Israel-Palestine problem and the Middle East Peace Process, and the progress or lack of progress on these issues.  We are concerned about this situation, as many countries around the world are.  We wish Israel well.  We are friends with both Israel and Palestine.  We hope that you will be able to resume negotiations, and make progress towards a just and durable solution to a long-standing and complex conflict.  And we hope to see a two state solution with Israel and Palestine living side-by-side in peace and security one day.

We also hope to explore how we can do more together, whether in technology, whether in cybersecurity, whether in business, whether in people-to-people relationships.  I am very happy that yesterday I was at the Hebrew University and witnessed the signing of agreements between the Hebrew University and our National Research Foundation, as well as with our two universities in Singapore, to expand our research and development cooperation.  And I am sure that as these individual projects and enterprises grow, so too our overall ties between the two countries and peoples will grow closer.

Finally, as you gather with your families for the Passover, I would like to wish everyone a blessed time over the Passover holidays. 

Thank you very much. 

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