12 Statement by Prime Minister Begin to the National Convention of the Zionist Organization of America- 7 July 1977

Mr. President, Mr. Chairman, His Excellency the Ambassador of the United States of America, our dear friend Mr. Lewis, our dear devoted friend Senator Dole, my colleagues in the Cabinet, your Honour the Mayor of Jerusalem, ladies and gentlemen, may I be permitted to start with a few words of gratitude to Senator Dole. We thank you Senator for the heartwarming words you uttered tonight. The Jewish people with all its suffering and persecution throughout the ages forgets its enemies and the wrongs done to it by them, but the Jewish people never forgets a friend.

And now, ladies and gentlemen, I ask your permission and indulgence at this late hour to dwell and elaborate on three subjects. What is national security, what is the meaning of the preconditions for negotiating peace and the proposal for a political armistice. Ladies and gentlemen, national security may be a general concept and may be an excuse and cloak for ulterior motives. If for instance Russia claims that it must be with its army and its citizens in Eastern Prussia so I say it is a general claim of national security. Eastern Prussia was inhabited by the Slavs who were exterminated by sword and fire by the Prussian crusaders. Eastern Prussia was a corridor through which the German invading armies invaded Russian territory and in Eastern Prussia there was the general headquarters of the army led, as Churchill said, by the embodiment of all evil in mankind. But if on the other hand Russia signed with Japan in October 1956 a peace declaration which both countries proclaimed not to be a peace treaty and for 21 years Russia refuses to sign a peace treaty, because upon its signature they should return to Japanese sovereignty three small Kurile islands and mainly the two better known Shikotan and Habomai, if Russia claims that it needs those two islands for national security, it is a cloak and an excuse, claiming that they need them in order to watch the American fleet in the Paciflc Ocean. Now we have the two examples of one country - in one case it is genuine, in the other case it is an excuse. What is national security to us. I submit to you respectfully, ladies and gentlemen, that to us national security means the lives of every man and woman and child. We lived in our generation through the gravest tragedy ever noted in the annals of mankind. We lost a third of our people. It would mean 18 million Americans wiped out and amongst those who are slaughtered there were more than one million of our little children torn away from the arms of their mothers - our Sarala and Moshele never to come back to their mothers. But within the tragedy there is the most tragic event in human life. The men couldn't defend their wives and children. They looked upon the trains, they saw their little children, they saw their women, they couldn't do anything -all of them taken away. The man wept with blood in his heart and then he himself followed the families to the gas chambers.

Ladies and gentlemen, we do not live on foreign land, we live in our own homeland. We have a heroic, invincible Israeli army. The men of Israel will always defend the women and children of Israel, they are in honour and in duty bound to do so, but if they should place all the civilian population of Israel in the range of the enemies conventional Soviet supplied artillery, the range of which is 43.8 km, then there may be a moment when objectively it will be impossible for the men to defend even his own family. One Yom Kippur or one Pessah or one Channuka night from all over there may be a barrage by hundreds or perhaps thousands of guns supplied by communist Russia, our enemies, and then in a few moments an unthinkable number of casualties can be caused to us, to the civilian population. When we say national security we mean the lives of our women and children, and then we say, we lost a third of our people. Should we lose again, should we see again our own wives and our own children slaughtered by a bloodthirsty enemy. Never again should a bloodthirsty enemy raise his hand on a Jewish woman or a Jewish child. Some people say to us, but there are missiles, why do you worry about artillery. Missiles, ladies and gentlemen, in our time are produced in order not to be used. This is in the strategies of the world and this is in the tactics of our region. But it is no theoretical statement to have the experience.

During the Yom Kippur War both Syria and Egypt had hundreds of missiles, the Frog with a range of 100 kilometers and the Scud with a range of 230 kilometers. They used against us only three missiles, which, Baruch Hashem, we shot down on the way. They didn't cause any damage or casualties, they never repeated it again. They knew that there is always a response in time, in time, if missiles should be used on us. Artillery is a different story, conventional artillery - hundreds of thousands of guns and tens of thousands of aimed shells trained upon our cities and towns and moshavim and kibbutzim. Now in connection with this problem we heard again in one week twice the President of Egypt warning that if Israel should use atomic bombs, even retaliatory, then a million Egyptians would be wiped out, but he would retaliate and wipe out 2 million Israelis. The Egyptian people could live with 29 million population - what is going to happen with Israel.

May I say respectfully to President Sadat that Israel doesn't threaten anybody with atomic bombs - Israel doesn't threaten anybody with conventional arms - we wish the Egyptian people well, let us make peace and nobody will be hurt on any side with any weapons. We know the problems of the Egyptian people. Egypt is a vast country, but so are also her deserts and the Valley of the Nile, with that wonder of creation, the mighty river is narrow and now we have 38 or 39 million, but every year more than a million mouths are added to be fed and there is not enough food and there is not enough medication and there is starvation among the masses and the Arabs we wish them well, we want peace for them. I subscribe to the statement made by His Majesty the King of Morocco, and he said, that if peace reigns in the Middle East and if out of peace in God's good time comes an alliance between Israel and the Arabs, the golden age may again return to the Middle East. Sarcastically in the United States of America President Sadat asked, well Israel wants economic relations with us, what actually does Israel possess to heal us, to help us in our economy - well, we can help. We can help the Egyptian people as well, we can help them in developing agriculture, we can help them in industry, we have the skill, yes indeed - we have helped faraway people somewhere in Latin America, we can surely assist our neighbours.

Therefore I have an advice for President Sadat - Mr. President, don't spend your times on phantasmagoric thoughts and figures. A million Egyptians wiped out, 2 million Israelis killed, phantasmagoric, inhuman. To us every human being is a world to save which we expect and this includes also any Egyptian human being. We don't want Egyptian women to become widows, we don't want Egyptian children to become orphans. We want to live with them in peace and extend a helping hand to solve the real problems, the explosion of the population, so that everyone in this region can live in liberty, in security and in happiness.

What is, ladies and gentlemen, a precondition to the negotiation of peace. I will give two examples in order to be just to ourselves and to the others. President Sadat said to President Carter and to American public opinion and to Israel that if Israel wants so-called non-belligerency, nobody understands exactly what it means, perhaps it's the result of the super-knowledge of the English tongue by our former Foreign Minister Mr. Abba Eban. It's a long word, stemming from Latin. Very few people - very few international lawyers know what is means actually - it is not peace. Sadat said, for non-belligerency Israel must retreat to the lines of 4th of June, 1967, the lines preceding the Six Day War which my friend and colleague Mr. Abba Eban who is a very moderate man, terms the lines of Auschwitz and we are the generation of Auschwitz. And then have a so-called Palestinian state formed in Judea-Samaria and in the Gaza Strip, linked with a extraterritorial corridor through the Negev - in parenthesis I must add - when I said, the so-called Palestinian state, I didn't use these words for any derogatory purpose. We love and respect our own people. They have respect for any other people on earth, but it is a so-called Palestinian state, because I remember I was still a boy when at San Remo the Mandate for Britain was adopted by all civilized nations in 1922 and in its preamble it was stated, and then recognized and adopted by the United States of America - it was stated in the preamble to the effect - recognition having been given to the historical connection between the Jewish people and Palestine, every educated woman and man in those days knew that Palestine is only a foreign language translation of the land of Israel, Eretz Yisrael, and it appears for the first time in the Book of Shmuel and it was impossible to find a locksmith in Eretz Yisrael 3,000 years ago for the first time mentioned in the Bible.

It came into the languages of all the world, Palestine in English, Palestine in French and Palestino in Spanish, etc. From the days of the Emperor Adrianus who crushed the revolt of Bar Kochba and in order to crush it had to bring from Germany and Britain Roman legions. And he was not in a position to write to the Senate starting on the famous words - an all the Roman commanders and emperors - my army and I are well. He did not insert those words into his report in the Senate. Because so many casualties were caused by the few against the many, by those who undertook the fight of right against might - because the Jews resisted for four years in revolt, against the rule of the Roman all-conquering empire - decided to sever any link between the country and the people although all the Romans including Vespasianus and Titus called our country Judea, Yehuda, he Adrianus renamed it Syria Palestina and since then for 18 centuries in all the languages, our country, our land is called, renamed, misnamed, Palestine, but the historical connection is between the Jewish people and Palestine - Eretz Yisrael, the land of Israel. So when President Sadat makes his proposal that we should give away, surrender Judea and Samaria and Gaza, and then allow them to mutilate our country through the Negev, through a corridor, remember the corridors, then we have a national consensus, without any distinction of party affiliation, our Parliament, except the communists, 5 members, completely subservient to Moscow, can say that we reject such a demand because our national security would then demand of us that we admit that we cannot anymore defend our women and children, but he is entitled to bring even such a proposal to Geneva, to the table, to the peace conference.

If, however, President Sadat should say and he does say, that Israel before we all meet in Geneva should in advance give a commitment that it will retreat to the lines of June 4, 1967, otherwise he will not go to Geneva, then we shall tell him, if so, stay in Cairo. Never in the history of nations has even one nation been asked to give a commitment of retreat before the negotiations started for concluding peace treaties and I respectively submit, ladies and gentlemen, that for too long has the Jew been an exception to all the rules. Now, we have a country and a flag and a parliament and a government and an army and the rules applying to all nations will apply to the same extent to the Jewish state, to the State of Israel. This is the meaning of the word preconditions or prior conditions, - now on our side we have a consensus on Jerusalem. All the parties except the communists believe and say and proclaim and declare that Jerusalem undivided and indivisible is and forever will be the capital of the State of Israel and will be of Jewish culture and the Jewish vision, for disarmament and eternal peace - as our prophets kneeling to the Almighty proclaimed urbi et orbi - this they are going to say in Geneva as well. Indeed when we discuss in a free negotiation the claims and rights and conditions for a peace treaty between us and our neighbours, however, should we say to our neighbours before we go to Geneva, you must in advance commit yourselves to the idea that Jerusalem undivided and indivisible is the capital of Israel, that would be a prime condition or a precondition put out by us, we do not make such a prior condition. We do not put out such a precondition. The Arabs will have the right to come to Geneva and put out their claim on Jerusalem. We will put out our right to Jerusalem, as free men we shall discuss the conditions for the conclusion of peace treaties. No preconditions, no prior conditions by either side. I believe now, this term has been clarified and everyone will understand what is a precondition.

Now, ladies and gentlemen, I have a suggestion to make - I suggest to President Sadat and President Assad and King Hussein to have until we all meet as I hope in Geneva in accordance with our readiness starting from the 10th October this year at the convenience of all sides, including the two co-chairmen of the Geneva Conference, that may mean some convenience, before we meet in Geneva, let us have a political armistice. What does that term mean. From time to time from Cairo and from Damascus and from Rabat Amon there come declarations in which the rulers of those countries try to tell us what is our country, where lies our security, where should we live in the future. I suggest a political armistice, let them be silent, then we shall be silent. Everyone will be silent. We have some time and they have patience. I suppose that my colleagues and I proved that we have patience. Some patience, for 29 years and even more for 46 years - since the 17th Zionist Congress in which our master and teacher proclaimed to the world, Zeev Jabotinsky, that Zionism means a Jewish state, not as a vision for future generations, but for us, for this generation, to save our people from the danger, from the horrible danger...

Let everyone be silent, let them not tell us where is our country, what is our country, where lies our national security. We can wait another few months, why not. Everyone will prepare the papers and the proposals and then we shall all meet in Geneva around the table, put all our cards on the table, no secret diplomacy, these are their proposals, these are our proposals, as it was the case with all nations after war - after war comes peace in peace treaties you find all the essence of peace. The first article says and stipulates - termination of state of war. The second has the territorial clauses that determine the boundaries, permanent boundaries. Then come the diplomatic clauses in exchange of representatives. Then come political, economic clauses, exchange of merchandise, tourists, etc. Everything you find in the pattern of the peace treaty under international law.

However, I must say, we shall wait patiently for a month or two and we shall see what will be coming from those three capitals. However, I must say that if they will continue during this proposed political armistice to tell us what is our country and where lies our security, then an inescapable response, we shall tell them what is our country, where lies our national security and what is going to be the future of our children in this country. It is unavoidable, but for the sake of peace I suggest a political armistice over the military armistice - no more bloodshed and no more telling us in advance where and what is our homeland. We know very well where is our homeland and ladies and gentlemen, we are all assembled here, my fellow Zionists of America, members of the Cabinet, representatives of the Jewish Agency, our dear friends Senator Dole and Sam Lewis and their wives and we are all assembled here in a festive mood because we remember this is the 80th jubilee of the Zionist Organization of America, 80 years. In other words, you came into being together with the first Zionist Congress, 1897. Now we all are Zionists - let us for a while remember what was Zionism in those days when the Prince in Israel appeared, Theodor Herzl, and with him the great philosopher, Max Nordau and the other founding fathers - the Jewish people was scattered, humiliated, persecuted with great flow from eastern Europe to America of the Statue of Liberty receiving the poor, giving them a country, pursuit of happiness - what was Zionism. A dream, we didn't have an army, we didn't have diplomats, we had only ideals and we had to console ourselves time and again with the famous saying of HerzI - if you really want it, it is no legend. For many years it seemed to be a legend - now ladies and gentlemen, we have great days - we have fulfillment you are in Jerusalem - we are all in Eretz Yisrael - we have a country, a flag - we have our wonderful, serene, devoted young generation that we have never had since the days of the Maccabees and Bar Kochba - they proved their moral greatness and courage and valour. It is again a time of test, but be'ezrat Hashem, we shall all stand together and overcome the difficulties and make sure that the Jewish child from generation to generation will live in liberty in security, in peace with human dignity, in smiling happiness forever and ever - so help us God.