🔹️🇮🇱 Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Meeting with Children who have Experienced Ostracism: "You are different because you have immense strength to fight wickedness"
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife Sara, today (Sunday, 24 May 2026), at the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem, met with children who have experienced social ostracism. They were joined by Education Minister Yoav Kisch and the Chair of the Committee for Children's Rights, MK Kati Sheetrit.
The children shared, with the Prime Minister and his wife, their experiences of social ostracism and exclusion within educational frameworks, as well as their personal coping mechanisms and how they overcame these immense difficulties.
(All remarks translated from Hebrew.)
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu:
"It starts with you, the children. It starts with you, because what I see here is that you are different, that is completely clear, but you don't realize how you are different: You possess immense strength. Because if you manage to live the way you live, to draw strength from within yourselves, to fight this wickedness and evil, and to constantly keep trying to move forward, you have special powers. It is not a given that other children have this. It is clear that you do. Despite all the hardships, despite all the suffering, recognize this: You have something special that is immense. I see each and every one of you; it is something amazing. And I hear you, I listen to you, my heart opens up to you; you have immense strength."
The Prime Minister's Wife, Mrs. Sara Netanyahu:
"The issue of boycotts and social ostracism is a very ancient one. It is not a new issue, nor is it related to any specific culture. It is an international issue. That is to say, it happens among children, and among adults as well, people being people. It is not unique to the State of Israel. I encountered this when meeting with other psychological services around the world, including in the United States, and they always talk about it.
This thing is, first of all, a phenomenon of the human inclination. Just like many other things. It is very ancient, long-standing, and people deal with it. Sometimes less successfully, sometimes more, but they deal with it, and it is also international. So it does not belong to one society or another, religious, secular, this or that nation, it belongs to everyone. What is new is social media, and the issue of cyberbullying and online boycotts.
There is no scenario where a child should not receive a response from their teacher, counselor, or psychologist, it is a must. But violence on social media, which is also very severe, is what is being studied now, it is the new element, and people are learning how to cope with it. Even when I experience such things with children I work with in professional settings, I always say – turn to your parents. Because even in these cases, a large part of the tragedies that occurred happened because the children did not turn to their parents. And the parents only found out after, G-d forbid, a tragedy had already occurred."
