Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday morning greeted his fellow cabinet ministers at the Bible Lands Museum, saying, “Good TOY morning. A very good morning.” The reference was, of course, to the victory only a few hours earlier of Israel’s representative to the Eurovision song competition, Netta Barzilai. The PM sounded exceptionally content when he began:
“These days Jerusalem is being blessed with many gifts. We received another one last night with Netta’s thrilling and suspenseful victory. The gift is that Eurovision will come to Jerusalem next year; we will be very proud to host it. I think that we will deal with everything involved in order to enable another major event with a large international audience to be held in our city, in our country.”
“This week we will be blessed with a truly historical event and this is the decision of the greatest major power in the world, our friend the United States, to move its embassy here,” Netanyahu continued. “President Trump promised to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel – and did so. He promised to move the American embassy – and is doing so. Of course we will all celebrate this day tomorrow, it is truly a celebration. Afterwards two additional embassies – Guatemala and Paraguay – will come here and others are on the way.
“It is not for nothing that we are marking Jerusalem Day today at the Bible Lands Museum. Jerusalem is mentioned in the Bible approximately 650 times. The reason is simple: For over 3,000 years it has been the capital of our people, and only of our people. We dreamed of returning to rebuild it, the city that is joined together – this is exactly what we are doing today. We will make a series of decisions to build up and develop Jerusalem, east and west, north and south, in all directions – to both reveal its past and build its future. I know that there will be difficulties along the way; there have been difficulties for the past 70 years. We have met them since 1949 and up to recent years. We will also meet them in the future.
“Jerusalem above and Jerusalem below, we are bound to this city. It is part of our soul, part of our experience, on both our material and spiritual sides.
“I am certain that all ministers feel as I do regarding the major events that are currently taking place. We are honoring the words of the prophet [Joel 4:20], ‘But Judah shall be inhabited forever and Jerusalem from generation to generation.'”