 Recommended
Speech of
Ehud Olmert
Prime Minister of the State of Israel
Please note: This speech was circulated in an email
and was the idea of Ben Caspit, a writer for Ma'ariv Newspaper. It was
written as a suggested speech for Ehud Olmert. It is, in fact, NOT an
Olmert speech. See
the documentation... Still, it echos most of our sentiments, thus
it remains here.
“Ladies and gentlemen, leaders of the world, I, the Prime
Minister of Israel, am speaking to you from Jerusalem in the face of the terrible pictures from Kfar Kana. Any
human heart, wherever it is, must sicken and recoil at the sight of such pictures. There are no words of
comfort that can mitigate the enormity of this tragedy. Still, I am looking you straight in the eye and telling you
that the State of Israel will continue its military campaign in Lebanon.
The Israel Defense Forces will continue to attack targets from
which missiles and Katyusha rockets are fired at hospitals, old age homes and kindergartens in Israel. I
have instructed the security forces and the IDF to continue to hunt for the Katyusha stockpiles and launch
sites from which these savages are bombarding the State of Israel. We will not hesitate, we will not
apologize and we will not back off. If they continue to launch missiles into Israel from Kfar Kana, we will
continue to bomb Kfar Kana. Today, tomorrow and the day after tomorrow. Here, there and
everywhere.
The children of Kfar Kana could now be sleeping peacefully in
their homes, unmolested, had the agents of the devil not taken over their land and turned the lives of our
children into hell. Ladies and gentlemen, it's time you understood: the Jewish state will no longer be
trampled upon. We will no longer allow anyone to exploit population centers in order to bomb our citizens.
No one will be able to hide anymore behind women and children in order to kill our women and children. This
anarchy is over. You can condemn us, you can boycott us, you can stop visiting us and, if necessary, we will
stop visiting you.
Today I am serving as the voice of six million bombarded
Israeli citizens who serve as the voice of six million murdered Jews who were melted down to dust and ashes
by savages in Europe. In both cases, those responsible for these evil acts were, and are, barbarians devoid
of all humanity, who set themselves one simple goal: to wipe the Jewish people off the face of the earth, as
Adolph Hitler said, or to wipe the State of Israel off the map, as Mahmoud Ahmedinjad
proclaims.
And you - just as you did not take those words seriously then,
you are ignoring them again now. And that, ladies and gentlemen, leaders of the world, will not happen
again. Never again will we wait for bombs that never came to hit the gas chambers. Never again will we
wait for salvation that never arrives. Now we have our own air force. The Jewish people are now capable of
standing up to those who seek their destruction - those people will no longer be able to hide behind women
and children. They will no longer be able to evade their responsibility. Every place from which a Katyusha is
fired into the State of Israel will be a legitimate target for us to attack. This must be stated clearly and
publicly, once and for all. You are welcome to judge us, to ostracize us, to boycott us and to vilify us. But to
kill us? Absolutely not.
Four months ago I was elected by hundreds of thousands of
citizens to the office of Prime Minister of the government of Israel, on the basis of my plan for unilaterally
withdrawing from 90 percent of the areas of Judea and Samaria, the birth place and cradle of the Jewish
people; to end most of the occupation and to enable the Palestinian people to turn over a new leaf and to
calm things down until conditions are ripe for attaining a permanent settlement between us. The Prime
Minister who preceded me, Ariel Sharon, made a full withdrawal from the Gaza Strip back to the international
border, and gave the Palestinians there a chance to build a new reality for themselves. The Prime Minister
who preceded him, Ehud Barak, ended the lengthy Israeli presence in Lebanon and pulled the IDF back to
the international border, leaving the land of the cedars to flourish, develop and establish its democracy and
its economy.
What did the State of Israel get in exchange for all of this? Did
we win even one minute of quiet? Was our hand, outstretched in peace, met with a handshake of
encouragement? Ehud Barak's peace initiative at Camp David let loose on us a wave of suicide bombers
who smashed and blew to pieces over 1,000 citizens, men, women and children. I don't remember you
being so enraged then. Maybe that happened because we did not allow TV close-ups of the dismembered
body parts of the Israeli youngsters at the
Dolphinarium? Or of the shattered lives of the people butchered
while celebrating the Passover seder at the Park Hotel in
Netanya?
What can you do - that's the way we are. We don't wave body
parts at the camera. We grieve quietly. We do not dance on the roofs at the sight of the bodies of our
enemy's children - we express genuine sorrow and regret. That is the monstrous behavior of our enemies.
Now they have risen up against us. Tomorrow they will rise up against you. You are already familiar with the
murderous taste of this terror. And you will taste more.
And Ariel Sharon's withdrawal from Gaza -- what did it get us?
A barrage of Kassem missiles fired at peaceful settlements and the kidnapping of soldiers. Then too, I don't
recall you reacting with such alarm. And for six years, the withdrawal from Lebanon has drawn the
vituperation and crimes of a dangerous, extremist Iranian agent, who took over an entire country in the name
of religious fanaticism, and is trying to take Israel hostage on his way to Jerusalem - and from there to Paris
and London. An enormous terrorist infrastructure has been established by Iran on our border, threatening our
citizens, growing stronger before our very eyes, awaiting the moment when the land of the Ayatollahs
becomes a nuclear power in order to bring us to our knees. And make no mistake - we won't go down
alone. You, the leaders of the free and enlightened world, will go down along with
us.
So today, here and now, I am putting an end to this parade of
hypocrisy. I don't recall such a wave of reaction in the face of the 100 citizens killed every single day in Iraq.
Sunnis kill Shiites who kill Sunnis, and all of them kill Americans - and the world remains silent. And I am
hard pressed to recall a similar reaction when the Russians destroyed entire villages and burned down large
cities in order to repress the revolt in Chechnya. And when NATO bombed Kosovo for almost three months
and crushed the civilian population - then you also kept silent.
What is it about us, the Jews, the minority, the persecuted, that
arouses this cosmic sense of justice in you? What do we have that all the others don't? In a loud clear voice,
looking you straight in the eye, I stand before you openly and I will not apologize. I will not capitulate. I will not
whine. This is a battle for our freedom. For our humanity. For the right to lead normal lives within our
recognized, legitimate borders. It is also your battle. I pray and I believe that now you will understand that.
Because if you don't, you may regret it later, when it's too late.” |
