WATCH: Netanyahu in Singapore Calls for 'World of Tolerance'

CNBC reports: In the first visit to Singapore by an Israeli head of state in 30 years, Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday issued a call for greater diversity and tolerance.

Netanyahu gave a roughly 10-minute speech to Jewish community members gathered at the tightly guarded Maghain Aboth Synagogue, built in Singapore in the late 1800s. Netanyahu spoke of his recent visits to Muslim-majority countries Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan, noting that he visited a synagogue in the latter.

“Jewish children in Kazakhstan were singing Hebrew songs as they sang here, in a Muslim state and that reflects the kind of world we like to see: a world of tolerance, a world of diversity as opposed to the world that is being challenged today by the forces of barbarism and intolerance,” he said. “This is a battle for the future of humanity.”