"Late last Wednesday night, a bomb was planted that lightly wounded Israel Prize laureate Prof. Ze'ev Sternhall, one of Israel's foremost scientists, with an international reputation.  Over the years, Prof. Sternhall has been known for his statements in which he takes a well-defined, sharp and uncompromising political line, in which he believes, and there are many others in the State of Israel who support this line.  Whoever planted the bomb in order to injure Prof. Sternhall did so in order, perhaps, to kill him.
 
It is impossible not to see a direct line between the murder of Emil Grunzweig, the awful murder of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and the attack on Prof. Sternhall, which happily left him alive, albeit lightly wounded.  It is impossible not to see a link between these events which have occurred over the years.
 
An evil wind of extremism, of hatred, of malice, of violence, of running amok, of breaking the law, of contempt for the institutions of the state is blowing through certain sections of the Israeli public and threatens Israeli democracy, the ability of those entrusted by the State of Israel to make decisions and the ability to freely express one's views without fear of being attacked by wild, violent law-breakers, who disregard all frameworks of proper, democratic life.  The security services have been instructed to deal with this instance, to investigate it, and to act with the greatest possible speed in order to bring those responsible – for what seems like another underground – to justice, so that they might be punished for this awful thing that they have done.  On behalf of the Government, I send wishes for a quick recovery to Prof. Ze’ev Sternhall and wish him long life with his family, friends and the entire Jewish People in the New Year.  He should not fear to express his views and his positions which he believes in, whether people agree with him or not.
 
This will be our last meeting of the current year.  Tomorrow evening marks the start of the New Year.  I would like to inform you that the population of the State of Israel numbers approximately 7,337,000 citizens, of which 5,542,000 are Jews.  A majority of the rest is Arabs and the remainder is Druze and Circassians.  Ours is a very young population, one of the youngest in the world.  28.4% of Israelis are 14 and under, in comparison to an average of 17% in other western countries.  9.8% of Israelis are 65 and over, as compared to almost 15% in other countries.  The number of children in Israel continued to increase in 2007 and now numbers 3.8 million.
 
151,679 children were born in the State of Israel in 2007, a 2.4% increase over 2006.  18,129 immigrants came to Israel in 2007.  Central Bureau of Chief Statistics Chief Statistician Prof. Shlomo Yitzhaki will submit these and other data to the Cabinet, in the wake of the publication of the 2007 Statistical Abstract for Israel, which I received from him last week.
 
One item in the Abstract, is that half of the Jewish population is concentrated in only 27.8% of the country, a very high population concentration.  The vision of this Government, and – I am convinced of the next one, as well – is that of population dispersion, dealing with the peripheral areas and populating the Negev with hundreds of thousands of Israelis in order to exhaust the great potential for development and prosperity which the State of Israel may expect from such a step.
 
The Abstract’s bottom line is that the State of Israel is flourishing.  The State of Israel is stable and has a strong economy that is meeting very tough challenges in an inspiring fashion that is almost without peer among other countries.  While other countries suffer from insecurity and uncertainty over the economic crisis, the State of Israel continues on the path of stability, confidence and calm not from a lack of awareness of the risks expected as a result of the global crisis but due to the confidence that it can deal with these risks and maintain social cohesion and prosperity, which are a condition for our strength and security in the coming years.
 
In this spirit of confidence in our strengths, of prosperity, of increased national security and of personal security, I would like to wish the Government a happy New Year, and the entire Government wishes the nation a good year, a year of security, strength, peace and calm; a good year for all.”