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Netanyahu: 'Good News' from Davos

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JERUSALEM, Israel -- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu postponed the start of Sunday's weekly cabinet meeting to return from the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

Netanyahu brought an upbeat report to his ministers.  "The good news is that Israel is very much in demand," he said.

His meetings with leaders in the hi-tech and cyber defense world should generate new business opportunities for Israeli companies.

In Davos, Netanyahu met with representatives from Google, Yahoo, Cisco, Microsoft and a number of cyber companies.

He also sat with world leaders including U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbot, Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto and Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan.  He addressed the status of talks with the Palestinian Authority, saying he wants to see negotiations succeed and hopes the P.A. does too.

Regarding Iran, Netanyahu said there was a good deal of discussion in Davos about its president's "assault of pleasantness."  He said he noticed a "greater sharpness and greater clarity regarding the contradictory and mendacious messages that came in [President Hassan] Rouhani's speech."

He said the world community must take Iranian Foreign Minister Zarif's remarks seriously.  Zarif spoke of the Islamic Republic's desire to see a different world order, words reminiscent of former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's talk that mayhem would usher in the coming of Islam's messiah, called the third imam.

"There is a regime here that, under cover of an assault of smiles, is trying to arm itself with nuclear weapons, to reach the status of a threshold state that could achieve nuclear weapons very quickly, and a country that has not changed its true ideology at all," he said.

Meanwhile, recent polls indicate that Netanyahu has the backing of the majority of Israelis.  Despite what some view as concerted efforts by liberal media, both within Israel and abroad, to besmirch him, most Israelis like him.  They seem to appreciate his clarity, balance and candid approach to the realities in which the Jewish state lives day to day.

In a word, Netanyahu pretty much tells it like it is and people seem to like that.

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About The Author

Tzippe
Barrow

From her perch high atop the mountains surrounding Jerusalem, Tzippe Barrow tries to provide a bird’s eye view of events unfolding in her country. Tzippe’s parents were born to Russian Jewish immigrants, who fled the czar’s pogroms to make a new life in America. As a teenager, Tzippe wanted to spend a summer in Israel, but her parents, sensing the very real possibility that she might want to live there, sent her and her sister to Switzerland instead. Twenty years later, the Lord opened the door to visit the ancient homeland of her people.