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Vice Prime Minister Yaalon’s address to the members of the evangelist community, Philadelphia, USA

June 2010
Strategic Situation
For 62 years, Israel has been struggling for its existence. Yet for 62 years, while fighting wars and defending our citizens from endless terror, we absorbed millions of immigrants from every continent in the world, and managed miraculously to prosper and flourish. I want to emphasize this point right from the beginning because whenever we speak of the strategic challenges Israel faces people start being really gloomy and worried, so I have to remind you that the Jewish people in general and the state of Israel in particular have been in dire straits quite often but always managed to overcome. We did so thanks to our capability to come up with creative ideas and endless courage and commitment to our state and thanks to the support we get from so many supporters we have around the world - Jewish and Christians alike. That’s why I want to express right here my appreciation and gratitude to your unwavering support and affection.
Today, once again, Israel faces a wide-ranging set of threats and challenges. These threats are often viewed through a micro-lens and we always focus our attention on the last event like the Turkish Moslem Brotherhood provocative flotilla; however, I believe that we need to look at the bigger picture.
In essence, I see four principle strategic challenges, which are interwoven and interrelated:
The first of these challenges is the growing strength of the radical Islamist camp that is determined to change the world order and put political Islam at the leading position. This camp is made of two groups. The first - led by Iran, includes its Shia proxy Hezbollah, as well as notorious Palestinian Sunni Islamist terror groups such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad and it is intensively supported by Syria. This group regards the struggle against Israel as the main tool for promoting its strategic goals of gaining regional and global power. The members of this group are accumulating unprecedented capabilities to hit Israeli civilians with short, medium and long range rockets and missiles. There are already more than forty thousand rockets and missiles in the hands of Hezbollah alone - many of them provided by the Syrian destabilizing regime, and several thousand rockets in the hands of the Palestinian terror organizations in the Gaza strip. These rockets have longer ranges, heavier payloads and better accuracy compared with the rockets these terror organizations had in 2006 and 2008, when they last forced us to take decisive action against them in a way that deters them until now from putting our readiness to engage them again to a test. This radical Islamic group has also strengthen its regional influence, by gaining power in Iraq, Sudan and elsewhere, while defying the international community, so far with only limited repercussions. The decision of Turkey to come closer to this camp is a clear reflection of the growing strength of this radical camp as well as a manifestation of the political identity of the Turkish leadership. Anyhow, if Iran will succeed in obtaining the ability to become a military nuclear power, in spite of the free world efforts to stop her, this growth of the power of radical Islam will get a tremendous boost.
The second group of radical Islam is made of Al-Qaeda, the Taliban and their affiliates, who prefer to focus directly on the US and its presence in the Middle East. This group continues, despite the difficulties it is facing, to constitute a painful threat to the free world.
The success of the radical camp is to a large extent a result of the asymmetry of modern warfare. While the free world has to adopt a strategy that leads to victory in the most comprehensive meaning of it, a very demanding and at times frustrating mission, that requires a whole of government approach and a lot of patience, the radical groups follow a “don’t lose” strategy that is much easier to succeed in. This success can be seen through the growing interest of the West to minimize its presence and influence in the Middle East, to engage the radical Islamists while avoiding even calling them by name, instead of confronting the radical Islam. With this in mind regional radical or radicalized powers like Iran and Turkey are already busy feeling the void that will be created as the West pulls out, taking advantage of the weakness of most Arab states.
The Radical Islam strategic threat is clearly one that threatens the very core of our liberal existence and our common basic values; the basic rights of man, the rights of women, religious freedoms. This is an ideology that disregards the great mass of civil liberties we all take for granted.
The second challenge is the ongoing efforts to de legitimize Israel and dehumanize the Israelis in the international arena in order to isolate Israel, weaken it and deprive it from the ability to defend itself. This is self-evident in the diplomatic world, certain elements of the media and the Academia, and endemic amongst NGOs who control the Human rights discourse and abuse it in order to bash Israel. The biased and flawed Goldstone Report as well as the reaction to the provocative flotilla are perfect examples of the double-standard Israel is held to. This assault on Israel’s legitimacy is moving from the margins of the political discourse to its center, thanks to an unholy alliance between radical Islam, radical Arab nationalists and radical and naïve liberals in the western world. The rapid condemnation of Israel by international entities including European ministers, long before the real picture of what actually happened on the Mavi Marmara ship was clear to the Israeli authorities themselves, let alone to those who hurried to condemn us, gives all those who believe in justice and fairness a lot of food for thought. When there is a totally false and unbelievable attempt to draw a line that connects the fate of the black population in south Africa in the apartheid time with that of the Palestinians by people who are committed to Israel’s security and when this kind of people speak about the terrible humanitarian situation in Gaza in spite of the fact that there is no shortage of consumer goods or medical needs in Gaza it reflects how successful the lies of the de legitimizers are in shaping the way important groups of people in the West think about Israel and the Middle East. The world talks about Israel’s right to self-defense, however, I pose the question: What is a right if one cannot exercise that right? As the former Chief of Staff of the IDF, I assure you, that the Israeli forces operate in strict accordance with a code of conduct whose values are based on the principle of sanctity of life. This code of conduct demands that our soldiers refrain from harming civilians, risking their own lives in the process. And all this while our enemies deliberately cower behind their own civilian population, using children as human shields, as well as converting mosques and schools into launch pads for their indiscriminate rockets that target civilians. Any military move we make to defend our citizens is being turned into a “war crime” and misconstrued in a concerted effort to undermine the very legitimacy of the State of Israel. This campaign is undermining the efforts of each and every freedom loving democracy in their battle against radical Islamic terrorism, whether it is in Gaza, Afghanistan or Iraq.

This delegitimization campaign leads me to the third challenge, which is to a large extent based on some of the lies of the de legitimizers and this is the fact that the Palestinian export narrative has dominated the international approach to the Palestinian Israeli conflict. According to this narrative the conflict is about territory and therefore it can be easily solved. The only reason it is not solved is Israeli settlements and stubbornness. The Israelis should therefore be forced to make concessions and withdraw to more or less the ‘67 lines or else the ‘two state solution’ will vanish. Since, according to this narrative, the Israeli Palestinian conflict is the core reason why the Moslems don’t like the West, the Israeli policy is the reason why the long awaited great reconciliation between East and West is postponed. As a matter of fact all of these elements are misconceptions and adopting them is precisely why we are stuck in a dead end.
Let me briefly explain why these are misconceptions. First of all we have to realize that the Israeli Palestinian conflict is not the core for instability in the region. It is one of many conflicts in the region and not the dominating one. The dominating conflicts in the region today are: Islamic- Jihadism against the West; the Shia- Sunni conflict; the Persian- Arab conflict; the internal conflict between nationalists and Jihadists, or generally speaking, the conflict between Middle Easterns who believe that happiness is achievable in this world and those who preach for happiness in ‘the next world’, to be achieved by martyrdom (‘Istish’had’), and the killing of infidels (non- Moslems). The real core of instability is the Iranian regime whose ideology is turbulent in nature and cannot accept the idea of stability that it considers as a ploy to prevent it from changing dramatically the prevailing world order.

Then there is a myth that the core of the Israeli- Palestinian conflict is ‘occupation’. In the West, the term usually means the territories Israel conquered in the Six-day War in 1967, but many Palestinians- from all the groups (Fatah, Hamas, PIJ, PFLP, DFLP, etc.)- and even some Israeli Arabs use ‘occupation’ to refer to all Israel (”from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River”). They consider Tel Aviv, Haifa, Ashdod, Sderot, Beersheba or any other Israeli city, kibbutz or village as a settlement in occupied territory and to all the Israelis as colonialists. We should remind ourselves that the PLO was established and launched terror attacks against Israelis before 1967.
Fatah and Hamas charters deny the right of Israel to exist as a Jewish independent state. This denial is demonstrated in Palestinian leaders’ rhetoric (to include Mahmoud Abbas), in the Palestinian educational curriculum, in their media, and of course, in the Palestinian strategy and policy. For example, in the preparations to Annapolis, the Palestinians refused to include in the declaration statement about “two states to two peoples”, they were ready only to say “two states”- meaning they do not recognize Jewish people’s right to an independent state, right affirmed again and again in the international arena. This refusal has not changed since then.
I claim that if the solution is a territorial compromise within the land of Israel (west to the Jordan River), a final settlement would have been achieved long ago. But the Palestinian leaders, since the dawn of Zionism till now, rejected any partition plan proposal and reacted violently to any political initiative calling to this kind of settlement. (1937, 1947, 2000).
So, the core of the conflict is not ‘occupation’, but the refusal of the Palestinian leadership to recognize Israel’s right to exist as a nation state of the Jewish people.
Professor Bernard Lewis put it right and articulately in his article published in the Wall Street Journal on November 26, 2007 (one day before Annapolis Conference): “‘What is the conflict about?’ There are basically two possibilities: that it is about the size of Israel, or about its existence. …If… the issue is the existence of Israel, then clearly it is insoluble by negotiation. There is no compromise position between existing and not existing, and no conceivable government of Israel is going to negotiate on whether that country should or should not exist.” I believe that we are a conceivable government.
The next misconception is about economy. Many Westerns believe that the key is in economy. They believe, as the founders of ‘Oslo’ believed, that prosperous economy can neutralize extreme nationalism and religious fanaticism, thus clearing the way toward peace and than toward a better security situation. I do agree that economy should be an important part of any strategy, but you cannot force the Palestinians to abandon their refusal to recognize Israel’s right to exist as the nation state of the Jewish people or to admit that the Jews have rights and were linked throughout history with the land of Israel just because they enjoy a better economy and wellbeing.
Israel wants peace. Israel yearns for peace. And Israel has been willing to make concessions for peace. However, the real Palestinian narrative, the one used for domestic consumption, consists as you can see, of rejection of Israel’s right to live peacefully as the democratic and free nation-state of the Jewish people and of continuing the struggle against Israel in forms that change from time to time according to the circumstances. As long as there is no real focus, nor real pressure, on the Palestinians to end their incitement towards Israel and the Jews, their continuous glorification of terrorists and complete reluctance to educate their people for peace there is no reason to believe that a solution can be easily found.

The fourth challenge involves our relations with the US. Israel and America share a history of close - and to use President Obama’s words - “unbreakable” ties. We have the same peace-loving ideals. We stand shoulder to shoulder against the tide of militant/ radical/ Jihadist Islam, and when it comes to the fight against radicalism, we share more than ideals.

Cooperation in the intelligence and military spheres saves American lives as well as Israelis on a daily basis. Prime Minister Netanyahu often poignantly notes that radical Islam does not hate the West because of Israel. It hates Israel because of the West, because we are a democratic haven, a beacon of freedom, in a neighborhood which is not so open to such ideas! Therefore the fourth challenge is to maintain this close and special relationship, and to close the gaps that may have temporarily opened between us. This is crucial. Divided, we are weak, and our enemies will continue to take advantage of this. Only through unity can we defeat the forces of radical Islam, and only through unity can we succeed in empowering the moderate elements in Palestinian society, so crucial for obtaining peace.
In the coming months we are going to see decisive moments in each of these areas. On the Palestinian track, the Palestinian Authority will try to use the proximity talks in order to spend the time until September portraying Israel as the obstacle to peace and then blame it for destroying the chances for peace in the future by resuming the construction in the settlements as the freeze period comes to an end. They will try to promote the idea of a forced solution in the frame of a Security Council resolution that will establish a Palestinian state along the ‘67 lines without them recognizing Israel’s right to exist as the nation state of the Jewish people and taking the necessary steps to provide security and fight terror.
In the context of the assault against Israel’s legitimacy we are going to see more attempts - in the form of more flotillas and in other forms - to provoke friction and deprive Israel from its right of self defense. The facts, as I mentioned, are that there is no humanitarian crisis and no shortage in consumer goods in Gaza, that our strict control over incoming products is caused by the extreme and violent nature of the inhumane Hamas regime that refuses to accept the quartet conditions for dialog, denies for four years any visits to our kidnapped soldier Gilad Shalit and threaten our civilians, that the naval blockade is legal and that the flotilla was led by radical Muslim elements eager to embarrass Israel through the deliberate sophisticated use of violence. But these facts don’t suffice for convincing the free world to understand the real nature of the recent event and to fully support the state of Israel, and under this background the de legitimization effort gains momentum.
Regarding the radical camp - as the sanctions against Iran are implemented we shall know whether they will bear the wished for results or not. If not, and this is the much more probable scenario - we shall have to understand what does the international community mean by saying that “a military nuclear Iran is totally unacceptable”.

What is our policy on these issues? As I said we want peace more than anybody else, since we are living right in the middle of that volatile area and serve as the target of much of the violence. But we realize that obtaining a lasting and stable peace, a real peace, is not easy. It has never been easy, and it never will be easy. We therefore understand that in this case, just as in many others, the longer way is the shorter one.
From day one of this government Prime Minister Netanyahu has made it clear that we have no interest in ruling over the Palestinians. It is in neither our national interest, nor theirs. In his Bar Ilan speech PM Netanyahu recognized the principles of two states for two peoples while calling for direct negotiations. Hundreds of road-blocks, check-points and barriers have been removed - not a small matter from a security/military perspective, I can assure you. This government also implemented an “unprecedented” - to use Secretary of State Clinton’s language - ten month settlement freeze in Judea and Samaria. What did we receive in return from the Palestinians? We received their standard and predictable answer. We received the answer which we have received so many times in our short history. The answer for 15 months was a categorical “no”, as they piled on preconditions that had never existed in 17 years of prior negotiations. In addition to this rejectionism, the incitement against Israel and Jews continued, terror is still glorified; and the Palestinian education system is still shocking in its content. Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, in his recent visit to Washington was trying to please a Jewish audience by saying that he admits that there was a presence of Jews in the Middle East in the ancient days as this presence is mentioned in the Koran, but he rapidly denied a press report by the Israeli daily, Haaretz, that he acknowledged that the Jews have a right in the land of Israel.
The lesson we have to draw from this is that parallel to a ‘top down’ process, that by itself cannot produce a real peace, we must build the peace from the ‘bottom up’. It is about time that the Palestinian Authority began educating for peace, building a culture of peace, ending the incitement once and for all, as well as establishing functioning institutions that will enable real governance and economic development and real sustained effort to fight terror against Israel. We see some progress in this direction but it is focused on domestic law and order. The time has come that instead of glorifying suicide bombers and educating children to hate, the Palestinian people will be educated and prepared for peace. The Palestinian entity that will border the Jewish state must be secure and flourishing. Likewise, Israel has the right to demand that its security concerns are met. Following the withdrawals from Southern Lebanon in 2000, and Gaza in 2005, instead of receiving peace for land, Israel received rockets; tens of thousands of them. We will not make the same mistake again. Any Palestinian entity must be demilitarized and accompanied by an Israeli military presence on its Eastern borders. Israel will not allow porous borders and the unfettered influx of military material into its Eastern neighbors. We have to confront in this context another myth and this is that the 242 resolution calls for Israeli withdrawal to the ‘67 lines. The truth is that the resolutions deliberately calls for withdrawal from territories and not from all the territories occupied in the Six Day War and this withdrawal should be to secured and recognized boundaries and not to the ‘67 lines that were unsecured and reflected a certain situation on the ground in the end of the independence war.
Let me remind you in this context what our late Prime Minister Rabin said in his speech before the Knesset on October 5, 1995 (”Ratification of the Israel-Palestinian Interim Agreement”) - a month before he was assassinated - he stated: “We would like this to be an entity which is less than a state, and which will independently run the lives of the Palestinians under its authority. The borders of the State of Israel, during the permanent solution, will be beyond the lines which existed before the Six Day War. We will not return to the 4th of June 1967 line.” In the same speech Rabin also emphasized that Jerusalem would remain Israel’s united capital.
Our government is committed to keep Jerusalem opened to all the religions united as the capital of the state of Israel.

Our government is readopting the notion that Israel’s vital security requirements- defensible borders, a demilitarized Palestinian entity, control of a unified airspace over Judea and Samaria , electro magnetic security, and international security guarantees - is the only path to a viable and durable peace with our Palestinian neighbors. In fact, ensuring a security first approach is the only avenue to a real peace.

The Palestinians must understand and internalize that just as we recognize the Palestinian national right to a nation state, so must they recognize ours. Any peace treaty must be accompanied by an end of claims by both sides. This means categorically renouncing the option of return for 1948 refugees into Israel, and recognizing the right of the Jewish people to live in peace and security in their nation-state. We are ready for peace. The question is: Are they?
Anyhow, bearing in mind the rift between Fatah and Hamas and the de facto separation between Gaza and the territory controlled by the PA, we are ready to move forward on the peace process with Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, while we seek an arrangement that will complete our disengagement from Gaza with minimal security risks.

While we continue to pursue our efforts for peace, Iran continues to pursue nuclear weapons. The Iranian regime have deceived the international community, dragged their feet, and sold nations false hopes of a diplomatic compromise. By persistently defying the international community, Iran is mocking the West. For Ahmadinejad, this is the name of the game - demonstrating that the forces of radical Islam are stronger than the West, in order to make Iran the new hegemonic power in the region and a world power.
Indeed it is the nuclear weapons program that has become the symbol of the regime, the symbol of radical Islamic defiance in the face of an international community that has finally awoken to this threat by adopting sanctions in the Security Council and on a bilateral basis.

Iran accumulates 4 kilograms of low enriched Uranium everyday. It already has 17 kilograms of Uranium enriched to 20% and more than 2.5 tons of low enriched Uranium. Iran may be only a year to three years away from a nuclear bomb, according to secretary of defense Robert Gates. Time is of the essence in dealing with this danger.
What are the implications of Iran that can acquire nuclear weapons? First and foremost, this is a very severe threat to Israel. Rafsanjani said that it would take one bomb to destroy the Zionist entity. Ahmadinejad has repeatedly called for the genocidal destruction of our country: “to wipe Israel of the map of the Earth”. The question is: Would the free world allow a state that is calling for the destruction of another state to obtain nuclear weapons?
This threat becomes even more pertinent when we remember the numerous Iranian shipments of arms to Hezbollah and Hamas and its meddling in the internal affairs of so many countries in the Middle East. It is unthinkable that Iran would be allowed to obtain nuclear weapons, thereby gaining the potential to transfer ‘dirty bombs’ to its proxies Hezbollah and Hamas, on our Northern and Southern borders or elsewhere to Europe or to the US.
A powerful, nuclear Iran would extend its sphere of influence with relative ease across the Middle East. Any American hopes of attracting Syria, Lebanon and Turkey away from Iran would affectively be dead as Iran’s regional hegemony would prove magnetic. Likewise, the moderate states would probably try to improve their relations with Iran to avoid threats to their stability, and at the same time, with the realization of a nuclear Iran, the ensuing process of proliferation will become inevitable. Can the unstable regimes of the Middle East handle nuclear weapons? How will it be possible to stop nuclear weapons from falling into terrorists’ hands, when nuclear programs appear across the Middle East?
Let’s be clear. The Iranian regime is looking for a new world order where radical Islam is the dominant force. Since a change from within in Iran seems to be remote, partially because of the free world cautious approach towards “the freedom movement”, We must stand united as strong, free democracies, in the face of this threat. The international community cannot afford to allow this despicable regime to obtain the ability to develop such weapons. Mr. Ahmadinejad and his regime must face the dilemma - the bomb or survival. This can be achieved through a combination of real isolation of the regime, painful crippling sanctions, moral support of the freedom movement and a credible military option. I’m quite convinced that when it faces this dilemma it is going to choose survival. To stand fast and hold onto this nuclear program would be unsustainable, isolating and potentially suicidal.
There is a need for a clear strategy based on moral clarity.
Jose Maria Aznar, the former PM of Spain, articulated in his article published recently in the Times. He stated: “What binds us, however, is our unyielding support for Israel’s right to exist and to defend itself. For Western countries to side with those who question Israel’s legitimacy, for them to play games in international bodies with Israel’s vital security issues, for them to appease those who oppose Western values rather than robustly to stand up in defense of those values, is not only a grave moral mistake, but a strategic error of the first magnitude.”
PM Aznar went on saying that: “Israel is a fundamental part of the West and that the West is what it is thanks to its Judeo-Christian roots. If the Jewish element of those roots is upturned and Israel is lost, then we are lost too. Whether we like it or not, our fate is inextricably intertwined.”

From an Israeli point of view, in spite of the magnitude of the challenges we face, I’m rather optimistic. I believe that Israel and the Jewish people, together with our allies, and primarily the United States, can stand up to these challenges. For that to happen we have to make the intensive dialog between Israel and the US deeper and based more on empathy on both sides. Both of them have to show more readiness to listen to the other and understand and respect the concerns and the logic of the other. There is room to believe that the coming meeting between President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu will send this message of closing the gaps.
My confidence stems also from the inspiration I get from the people of my country and especially our soldiers. What this young democracy has accomplished in 62 years in the realms of security, science, medicine, agriculture, and the arts, is nothing short of a miracle.
I gain my confidence also from the slow awakening of the free world to understanding the scope and the nature of the threats we all face. It is too slow, but it happens.
And I gain my confidence from your spirit and your relentless support to Israel. Let me convey to you our message from Jerusalem, our eternal united capital. It’s not only thank you but it’s a message that says that we have a lot of work to do now as Israel is facing the assault on its legitimacy. We would like you to help us in this war. We would like you to fight on our side. Unlike the war against terror or the war against the armies of radical enemies, in this war between truth and lies you can be very effective warriors and we need you to show up and speak out in favor of the truth.
We in Israel may be small but we are a great nation, as the Lord blessed Abram when he told him to leave his house and led him to the promised land of Israel and promised to bless those who will assist his people. We are right and our strength and resilience are based on our conviction that we are right. I’m convinced that our ideals, values and principles will prevail. I am certain that the free democratic regimes will overcome the challenge of tyrannical radical Islam. It is our freedoms, our liberties, and our democracies that strengthen us. It is our economic and academic freedoms that have given us the competitive edge; the creative energy to flourish. This is our faith that shows us the right way.

Now more than ever, I believe that the free countries of the world must stand together. We have a just and worthy cause to defend. Israel may be on the front line, but the scope and global nature of the threat we face is becoming apparent to all. We must face these challenges, together.
I would like to conclude with a prayer:

“ה’ עוז לעמו ייתן ה’ יברך את עמו בשלום”.

“The Lord will give strength onto his people; The Lord will bless his people with peace”.

G-d bless you all!

Speaker of the Knesset, Reuven Rivlin - congratulations again, my friend,
Honorable Outgoing Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert - thank you for your words,
Members of the Outgoing Government,
Members of the Incoming Government,
Former Members of Knesset,
State Comptroller, Micha Lindenstrauss,
Mrs. Aviva Shalit,
Mrs. Karnit Goldwasser,
Mrs. Esther Waxman,
Members of Knesset,
Distinguished Guests,

As the poet in Psalms wrote: “Lord, my heart was not proud, and my eyes were not haughty, nor did I pursue matters too great and too wondrous for me.”

Members of Knesset,

It is not with the elation of the victorious that I stand before you today, but rather with a feeling of heavy responsibility. However, these are not ordinary days. I ask for your trust at a time of global crises, the likes of which have not been seen in years. I speak out of a feeling of concern, but also of hope and faith, and mostly in recognition of the seriousness of this challenging hour. For Israel faces two enormous challenges: the economic challenge and the security challenge. These result from dramatic international developments; huge thunderstorms are raging around us. It is not our actions or failures of the past that are the root of these crises, but our actions and decisions in the near future that will determine if we will prevail. On this day I would like to express my full confidence that the people of Israel will be able to successfully deal with the challenges we face. The State of Israel was established during its most difficult hour, an hour during which the words of the Declaration of Independence echoed in our ears: “The Land of Israel was the birthplace of the Jewish people. Here their spiritual, religious and political identity was shaped. Here they first attained statehood, created cultural values of national and universal significance and gave to the world the eternal Book of Books. After being forcibly exiled from their land, the people kept faith with it throughout their Dispersion and never ceased to pray and hope for their return to its land and for the restoration in it of their political freedom.”

Members of Knesset,

There is no more wondrous a journey in history than that of the Jewish people. There is no struggle more just than its struggle to return to its homeland and build a life here as a free and sovereign nation. There is no question mark, not about the right, not about the justice and not about the existence of the people of Israel and its country. There is no question mark, and we will not allow anyone or any country to raise a question mark over our existence. The 20th century proved that the future of the Jewish people is dependent on the future of the State of Israel, and therefore it is our duty to do all that is necessary to ensure the security, strength and prosperity of our country. It is within our power to do so and overcome any obstacle or impediment as long as our will is steadfast and as long as we are united, and it was my sincere and stated aspiration to establish a government at this difficult time that would unite all the centrist forces among our people. I saw this as the order of the day and invested ongoing and consistent efforts to achieving this goal. I am pleased that the Labor Party, a movement with deep roots and of great contributions to the history of Zionism and settlement, eventually made the responsible decision for the good of the country to join hands with the Likud Movement and our other partners.

I wish to express appreciation to the members of this house who understood the enormous responsibility we are facing, and took the decision, not without hesitation, to extend a hand and provide support for the unity government.

Members of Knesset,

The security crisis we are facing originates from the rise and spread of radical Islam in our region and in other parts of the world. The greatest threat to humanity, and to the State of Israel, stems from the possibility that a radical regime will be armed with nuclear weapons or that nuclear weapons will find a home in a radical regime. I wish to distinguish fundamentalist Islam from the overall Muslim and Arab world, which is also threatened by the extremists. The Islamic culture is a great, rich culture, with many connections to the history of our people as well, and we have known periods of cooperation; of Jews and Arabs living together and creating together. Today, more than ever, Israel strives to achieve full peace with all the Arab and Muslim world. Today, this ambition is also backed by a shared interest of Israel and the Arab world that are facing a wave of fanaticism which threatens us all. While we may not be the only ones threatened by radical Islam, we are first and foremost threatened by it. It is true that it strives to eradicate all the Arab regimes and bring all Muslims in the world under an autocratic, narrow-minded, reactionary regime. It is also true that it threatens governments in the West and in the East with terrorism and deadly missiles. However, all its different manifestations share one common objective - to wipe the State of Israel off the face of the earth.

It is a mark of disgrace for humanity that several decades after the Holocaust the world’s response to the calls by Iran’s leader to destroy the State of Israel is weak, there is no firm condemnation and decisive measures - almost as if dismissed as routine. However, the Jewish people have learnt their lesson. We cannot afford to take lightly megalomaniac tyrants who threaten to annihilate us. Contrary to the terrible trauma we experienced during the last century when we stood helpless and stateless, today we are not defenseless. We have a state, and we know how to defend it. It was the concern for our national security that was the first and main reason that my friends and I strove to achieve national unity at this time. Terrorists from radical Islam now threaten us from both the North and the South. We are determined to curb terrorism from all directions and fight against it with all our might. Those who want peace must fight terror. However, in order for there to be peace, the Palestinian partner must also fight terror, educate its children towards peace and prepare its people for recognizing Israel as the national homeland of the Jewish people. Over the past two decades, six Israeli prime ministers failed to achieve peace, and through no fault of their own. To the leaders of the Palestinian Authority, I say: if you truly want peace, peace can be obtained.

My Government will act vis-à-vis the Palestinian Authority to achieve peace on three parallel tracks: economic, security and political. We strive to assist with the accelerated development of the Palestinian economy and in developing its economic ties with Israel. We will support a Palestinian security mechanism that will fight terror, and we will conduct ongoing peace negotiations with the PA, with the aim of reaching a final status arrangement. We have no desire to control another people; we have no wish to rule over the Palestinians. In the final status arrangement, the Palestinians will have all the authority needed to govern themselves, except those which threaten the existence and security of the State of Israel. This track - combining the economic, security and political - is the right way to achieve peace. All previous attempts to make shortcuts have achieved the opposite outcome and resulted in increased terror and greater bloodshed. We choose a realistic path, positive in approach and with a genuine desire to bring an end to the conflict between us and our neighbors.

With regard to the global economic crisis, it is indeed of an unprecedented scope. It affects each and every one of us and it threatens the livelihood of thousands of Israelis. We do not yet know how and when it will end, but I am convinced of one thing: the Israeli economy has clear advantages that enable it to confront the crisis better than other economies. Our primary advantages are entrepreneurship and innovation, coupled with the ability to adjust rapidly. In this case, the fact that we are a small state is an advantage that will enable us to extricate ourselves quickly from the crisis. It is the reverse of having a quantitative advantage. The Israeli economy can be likened to a small racing boat sailing among large ships. It is easier to change the direction of a quick racing boat than that of a large ship. I intend to personally lead this change of direction. I will be the one to navigate Israel’s economic strategy. My Government assumes the responsibility of protecting - to the best of our ability - employment, solving the credit crisis and maintaining a responsible macro-economic policy. These are not three contradictory objectives, although there is some measure of friction between them. The three of them can be obtained through cooperation and dialogue between all the central economic forces - the Government, the Labor Federation, the employers and social organizations - the driving force behind all of us being the good of the country. Now, more than ever, we will open our hearts to the unemployed, the elderly and the weak. We must see before us the worker who was laid off on the eve of Passover, whose livelihood is destroyed, and the thought of how he will support his family torments him. The need to address the economic and social crisis is the second reason that prompted me and my friends to strive to achieve national unity.

There are additional challenges that our government will place at the top of its list of priorities. It is time to carry out a real revolution in education. We are the People of the Book. From the “Heder” students to Nobel Prize laureates, no nation has contributed more, relative to its size, to human knowledge and civilization. We cannot accept that our children will not be amongst the world’s leading students. Therefore, the goal we are setting today is to bring the children of Israel back to the world’s ten leading countries in international tests, within a decade.

Alongside with excellence, we will also bring Zionism back. We will teach our children the eternal values of the people of Israel, and forge values of Jewish and Israeli culture in our country’s spiritual kaleidoscope.

We will also generate a fundamental change in public safety. It was the Jewish people who bequeathed to the world the Commandments: thou shalt not steal, and thou shalt not kill. Even when we were scattered in exile, we maintained a high level of morality between man and man and between an individual and the community. It is therefore inconceivable that when we returned to being a free, sovereign nation in our homeland, crime organizations and criminal syndicates are emerging among us, dealing in theft, murder and trafficking in women, and fighting against each other with guns in the streets of our cities. It is intolerable that parents in Israel should be afraid to send their children to school or to the beach. We must put a stop to this. We will stiffen the penalties against criminals, advance important reforms in the police force and strengthen the Israel Police in its battle against crime.

At the beginning of my speech, I mentioned the opening section of the Declaration of Independence. I am committed to the Declaration as a whole, including the promise for complete equality between all the citizens of the State, regardless of religion, race or gender. Our concern will be for all the citizens of Israel: Jews, Arabs, Druze, Muslims, Christians and Circassians.

To the Arab citizens of Israel I wish to say: you will find in me a loyal partner to your integration into Israel’s society and economy. I believe in this aim, and I will act in this direction.

This is a time of crisis. Our government system is unsuitable to meet the challenges of today. The large size of the Government presented to you today reflects the necessity for national unity at this time, but it also reflects a certain deficiency in the existing government system - a deficiency that can be corrected, and will be corrected.

At the same time, the Government that will be leading Israel in the years to come, is expecting neither pleasures nor luxury. On our shoulders rests an enormous, overwhelming responsibility, and a duty to make decisions, with clarity of mind and purpose, on those issues that will determine the fate of Israel.

I would like to thank the outgoing Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, for his service to the nation. When you were only just elected, Ehud, I told you that very soon you would discover what difficulties and responsibilities were placed on your shoulders. Indeed, you discovered them. At numerous important crossroads of which the public are still not fully aware, you worked to strengthen Israel’s security and made brave decisions. Ehud: thank you.

Members of Knesset,

We are on the eve of the Passover holiday and the Seder. At our national table, there is an empty chair: that of Gilad Shalit. I will do everything in my power to quickly return him healthy to the bosom of his family, and will act to return all our missing soldiers.

Citizens of Israel, I asked myself how best to express the depth of my feelings at this event, on the eve of Passover 2009. I chose to read an excerpt from one of the final letters written by my late brother, Yoni, approximately one year before he fell during the operation to rescue the hostages in Entebbe: “Tomorrow is Passover,” wrote Yoni. “I always saw it as our most wonderful holiday; it is an age-old holiday celebrating freedom. As I sail backwards on the wings of history, I travel through long years of suffering, of oppression, of slaughter, of ghettos, of ostracism, of humiliation; many years that, from an historic perspective, do not contain one ray of light; but that is not the case because of the fact that the core remained, hope existed, the idea of freedom continued to burn through the fulfillment of the tradition of the ancient holiday. This, in my opinion, is a testament to the eternalness of the aspiration for freedom in Israel, the continuity of the idea of freedom. The Passover holiday,” he wrote, “awakens in me an emotional affinity, also because of the Seder which, like it does for all of us, reminds me of forgotten moments from our personal pasts, my past. I clearly remember the Seder we held in Talpiot, Jerusalem when I was six. Among the participants were a number of elders like Rabbi Binyamin and Professor Klausner, and my father was also there. There was a large table and there was light. I find myself in my past, but I do not only mean my own personal past, but also the way I see myself as an inseparable link in the chain of our existence and independence in Israel.”

Citizens of Israel, at this difficult time, let us all see ourselves as an inseparable link in the chain of our existence and independence in Israel. From this podium in Jerusalem, our eternal capital, I pray to G-d Almighty that our work will be blessed, and that the unity with which we begin our journey will be a good omen and the promise for our future.

Happy holiday of freedom.

Translated by: Eitan Behar

From this stage, I would like to send my warm greetings to the President of Egypt, Hosni Mubarak, and to the Egyptian people.
The peace between Israel and Egypt changed history and proved that the swords can indeed be beaten into plowshares.
The peace agreement with the most important country in the Arab world changed the face of the Middle East and created the basic partnership between those who seek peace in the region.
“Mr. President, we are seeking a full peace, a true one, that will combine an absolute reconciliation between the Jewish and the Arab people.” So said Menachem Begin, late Prime Minister of Israel, to Anwar Sadat, President of Egyptian President, on the Knesset podium.
Thirty years have passed, one generation has passed and a new one has arrived, and these words are as true today as they were the day they first were spoken.
The courage and vision of those two gentlemen, Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat, made the impossible possible, 30 years ago.
Sadat’s call for “No more war” touched Israeli hearts.  That call fostered a situation in which Israeli citizens became willing to make generous concessions and to go far for the sake of peace.
As a matter of fact, Israel takes this stand whenever an Arab leader shows he is truly committed to peace, whether it is President Sadat of Egypt, whether it is King Hussein of Jordan, whether it is a Likud government under Menachem Begin or a Labor government under Yitzhak Rabin.
The people of Israel strive for peace, dream for peace, long for peace.
The great aspiration to peace, and the willingness to act, with a true heart, for it, has always existed.  And, make no mistake, this same aspiration is valid and it exists in all its strength, even today.
Only those who have tasted the bitter taste of war and suffered the terrible grief of bereavement, may understand and value the importance of peace.
The government that I am about to form will do everything necessary to achieve a just and lasting peace with all our neighbors as well as the entire Arab world.
Any of our neighbors who would truly be willing to walk toward peace will find our hands open.
Thirty years ago, Anwar Sadat proved his true commitment to peace.  He permanently abandoned violence and chose true peace.  He did not speak peace while secretly preparing for war.  He did not negotiate with Israel while providing shelter for terrorist organizations.
He spoke about the hope for a new and better future for both Egypt and Israel, and the concern for the wealth and lives of Jews and Arabs, as one.  And, he meant everything he said, word for word.
But, in the end, peace is not to be examined by the beauty of declarations and fancy speeches.  The test of peace is its durability, and the peace with Egypt has proven its strength and stability without doubt.
The peace between us has lasted more than a generation.  Facing all storms of time, our peace has not weakened during regional wars, it has lasted through waves of terrorism and stood strong as the world and governments have changed.
The agreement that so many expected to be short lived has proven itself to be permanent, solid and irreversible.
What is the secret of the Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty?
The answer is clear: the existence of peace serves the deepest interests of both countries.  It promises the future of our children and the future generations of both people.
We certainly hope the roots of the peace with Egypt will deepen, and that it will sprout branches of blessing, that the political ties between us will become even stronger and that the peace will spread to the horizons.
True, we would be happier if our relationship would grow closer, most importantly in the arena of economics, and I believe there is a lot we can do in this field.
In 1956, we had to tape our windows because of bombing.  In the beginning of June 1967, I landed in Lod airport, into absolute darkness, and I recall the flashes of the light bombs and the sound of cannons on the banks of the Suez Canal.  I remember my fellow soldiers who fell and the grief of their families who lost their most precious loved ones.
It happened in Israel.  It happened in Egypt, too.
But, today we mark three decades with no war, no bloodshed, and for this historic change, we should be grateful.
Let us mark this moment by traveling back in our minds, to that landmark meeting that took place over this podium, between the president of Egypt and the prime minister of Israel.
May it be that we, too, will be blessed with the spirit of those distinguished leaders, and take it upon ourselves to strive indefatigably to see their exalted vision of peace be fulfilled in many more fronts.