Sivan, thank you for that generous introduction. Chairman Zinger, Governor Yaron, and Itai, I am honored to stand alongside each of you this morning and to bring greetings from Washington. Before I share a few reflections, I should like to begin by noting that this marks my first visit to Israel, and that I have been struck both by the beauty of your culture and the strength of your people. Thank you all for the warmth with which you have welcomed me.
Today, we commemorate a new trading week whose benefits, I believe, could be transformative. By moving to Monday through Friday trading, the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange has brought Israel’s capital markets into closer alignment with those of its global counterparts. And that alignment, I suspect, will enhance liquidity, encourage greater investment, and send a clear signal to the world that Israel is open for business. Yet even as you take this step to further conform with international markets, I encourage you to preserve the spirit that distinguishes your own. A spirit that has astonishingly produced GDP growth in the middle of a war.
Since its establishment, the State of Israel has punched far above its weight in ways that defy easy explanation. A country with fewer residents than my native state of North Carolina, Israel is short on natural resources, surrounded by uncertainty, yet remarkably rich in resilience and resolve. Home to more startups per capita than anywhere around the world. Second globally in venture capital raised per capita. Among the most companies listed on Nasdaq after the United States. Birthplace of breakthroughs like the USB and drip irrigation. Yours is a nation that has never waited for ideal conditions to pursue prosperity.
Which of course brings us to the broader context in which we assemble today. In recent years especially, Israelis have lived with a level of strain that few societies are asked to endure. While children learned to adapt to the wail of sirens; while reservists fled their desks at work and dinner tables at home; while each of you bore the weight of Israel’s longest war, your spirit did not dim. You did not close your markets, permit innovation to pause, nor investment to retreat. In short, you did not allow fear to dictate your future. Instead, Israeli indices soared to new highs. The shekel strengthened against major global currencies. Growth rebounded with force. And projections point to continued investment over the coming year. Crisis seems only to have catalyzed the very progress that it could have constrained.
Of course, this kind of resilience has a name: Hatikvah. Hope. After all, it is hope that has helped to make a barren desert bloom. To turn an ancient land into a hub of high-tech. To bend adversity toward prosperity. It is precisely this ethos that has also made our partnership so strong, for the United States and Israel have long shared more than diplomatic ties and billions in bilateral trade. We are bound by a deep and abiding belief in free enterprise; by the conviction that fair and efficient markets are a force for human flourishing. I am confident that cooperation between our two countries will only deepen in the years ahead because the partnership between our markets and our people only makes both stronger.
So thank you for welcoming me so warmly on my first visit to Israel. Thank you for your leadership, your friendship, and resolve. And congratulations once again on attaining this important milestone. As Israel aligns more closely with the world, may you continue to transform it.
Thank you.
