After warning of isolation, Netanyahu defends strength of Israeli economy

After coming under fire for saying earlier today that Israel is facing increasing economic isolation as the war in Gaza drags on, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu takes a second stab at damage control.

“To all the doom-and-gloom forecasters in economics, in the end the Israeli stock market is the strongest in the world,” he says in a statement.

“The shekel has strengthened, the deficit has shrunk, despite the war, and foreign investment in R&D is the highest in the world, after the United States. Investing in Israel is the smart thing to do.”

He says that his government will continue to “increase investments in weapons production so as not to be dependent on weak Western European leaders who give in to the extreme Muslim minorities in their countries — and that is exactly what we are doing.”

His office also shares a graph showing that Israel ranks second in the world in R&D investment.