"Israel helped us cope with the cyberattack from Iran"/ Rama: For Jews, Albania is home

2026-05-12 12:57:00, Politikë CNA

"Israel helped us cope with the cyberattack from Iran"/ Rama: For

Prime Minister Edi Rama delivered his speech at the Albania-Israel summit, which brought together 40 innovative Israeli companies to ensure cybersecurity and strengthen the economy of Albania and the region through cutting-edge technology.

Rama began his speech with the relationship between Albania and Israel, which according to him dates back to World War II, when Jews took refuge in our country.

He further praised Israel's assistance during the cyberattack on online services by Iranian hackers. This attack, according to the head of government, came after Albania sheltered thousands of Iranians who were in the opposition.

Rama stressed that Albania survived this attack thanks to the help of Israel and added that our country will always be a home for Jews. He stressed that there is no anti-Semitism in Albania.

"Thank you for coming and bringing your will and your knowledge to help us move forward on a path that we have paved, trusting in new technology, trusting in the digitalization of our infrastructure, and trusting in the blessing that is new technology for countries like ours, countries that are behind, but that through technology can take a leap forward and can do things that sometimes large countries, much more developed, more successful in the old ways, find difficult to do."

Israel is the most extraordinary example of what a difference can be made based on knowledge and not resources. We believe strongly in this relationship and we have reason for this. Not only because of our history, which is a history of a bond forged in the darkest times for the Jewish people, when Albania emerged from World War II as the only country in Europe that had more Jews than before the war. This is, first of all, thanks to the Muslims of Albania, who took every Jew as a brother and sister and put their lives at risk to protect the Jews. The government and I are trying to do as much as possible to tell this story to the new generation. When we talk about cybersecurity, which it must be said that we discovered the hard way. We opened the door to several thousand Iranians who are in the opposition and we did not do it for politics, we did it because their lives were in danger. However, this came with a vengeance from the Iranian regime and attacked what we had built for years.

We became a country that offers 95% of its services online, both inside and outside the country. And this is what the Iranians aimed to destroy in order to take us back to the dark ages. We were very pleased when we saw that Israel offered us help and thanks to this and our dear friends, we survived this attack. We learned that we must survive. In the meantime, we severed all relations with Iran and declared it the terrorist state that it is. Today I can say that we have a completely different level of cyber defense thanks to Israel and Israeli talents. I believe that this relationship that I want to strengthen with your country and people and through it we can avoid some mistakes. For Jews, Albania is home and will continue to be so. There is no anti-Semitism in Albania and Jews are always welcome ", said Rama. / C NA