Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said at a cornerstone-laying ceremony for a memorial to fallen members of the Christian community that "there is a global false and absurd attack to portray Israel and the IDF, the most moral army in the world, as committing war crimes and persecuting minorities." He added that "the State of Israel is the only place in the Middle East where the Christian community flourishes and grows. Everywhere else they are emigrating, persecuted or slaughtered." According to him, "at the heart of this enormous space, which has no measure of compassion, no measure of acceptance but so much hostility, the State of Israel is like an island of progress, tolerance and security."