32 Toast by Prime Minister Begin at a dinner in honour of Secretary of State Vance- 9 August 1977

Mr. Secretary, I welcome you on behalf of the Government and the People of Israel, to our land, to its capital Jerusalem, and to the Knesset, the centre of our democracy in which recently certain topographical changes took place. It took some time and some patience too, and now we can say that democracy is a matter of geography and topography. We greet you with all our heart...

Mr. Secretary, we are grateful to you that you undertook this journey to the Middle East, that you met the Arab rulers around. You did it in the cause and in the service of peace together with your colleagues, associates and advisors. It is not easy, it's a physical and intellectual effort and therefore we thank you that you undertook this journey. After we talked earlier in the evening I can say with the full knowledge of facts that the Secretary of State can already note a very serious, indeed great, achievement in the cause of peace. We congratulate you on this achievement and we shall all continue to find any road, any avenue, any way to promote peace.

When I was in Washington at the invitation of the President we brought on behalf of our government certain proposals to feed the momentum towards the peace-making process. I think it was a positive initiative and we will continue thinking again and again how to promote the momentum towards the peace-making process, I think I speak on behalf of every citizen - of every woman and man in this country - when I say that we yearn and pray for peace. In this room, Mr. Secretary, there are men who fought for the liberation of our people, risked their lives, led armies, won victories. On behalf of all those men I am entitled and am duty bound to say that now we have one ambition: To bring peace to our land, to our people, and to the region in which we live - and we do hope that peace will come.

We had earlier in the evening a very good, very helpful discussion and may I say - I believe the Secretary will bear me out - the reality is not as dark as the press was for the last 24 hours. And I think we shall make progress. Foreign ministers will visit your great country next month, you will meet with them and the momentum will go on and, of course, we all hope that the peace conference in Geneva will be made possible with proper representation and we shall start serious negotiations between Israel and the Arab countries, our neighbors, about conclusion and signing of peace treaties.

There is one problem which I will shortly dwell on which is now of international significance and interest. It is my duty to raise it. In order to clarify our attitude I will use an allegorical story. Let us assume that in a certain corner of the globe there is now a country called Hunland, the land of the Hun, and the basic philosophy of its government is a book called "Mein Kampf" - it may happen in our time. What would we do, the Jewish State, The State of Israel? Surely we would call upon all free nations to be watchful, to have no rapport with that Hunland because we all have the experience. All mankind paid the price. All nations, because of a basic mistake made in the 1930's, made the most horrible sacrifices to get rid of that evil. Admittedly we paid the highest price. When I use the word "Tertiated" I mean to say that we do not accept the known term of "Decimation". The Jewish People were not decimated, because that term stems from an old custom in the Roman Legions, that when a breach of discipline happened every tenth legionnaire was executed. Our people, lost every third of its sons or its daughters and therefore we may use the word - it was tertiated. It is phantasmagoric - it would mean eighteen million Britons wiped out or ninety million Russians or two hundred eighty million Chinese or eighty million Americans. There are all those phantasmagoric figures worked out by scientists dealing with the megatons, but the megatons - although produced -will never be used. We have to live with such phantasmagoric figures and in our generation, and for generations to come. So we all have the experience and therefore we would call upon all free nations, "Be watchful." And then perhaps some would give us the advice "Don't take it seriously, it is not as it is written in the book." If that happens we would respectfully say to everyone in the world, "Gentlemen, forgive us, but we cannot accept that advice, we heard it forty years ago." Domestic propaganda written, they don't mean it, don't believe them and then we know what happened. Then perhaps somebody would say, "There is a certain resolution by the Security Council of the United Nations - we heard that that Hunland is ready to accept the resolution." What would be your reaction? I have no doubt we would say, again, "But we have our experience." Nobody paid attention to what was written in the book, in that infamous book, every word of it was brought into realization, and now there may be some people who learned from mistakes in history how to repeat them. Our generation with its experience should learn from mistakes in history how to avoid them.

Now, Ladies and Gentlemen, perhaps some of my honoured listeners tonight may have a suspicion that when I spoke about the imagined Hunland and "Mein Kampf" etc. I actually meant the organization known as P.L.O. I would like to reassure them - I meant it.

And now I will read to you a very short document, article one "Palestine is the homeland of the Palestinian Arab People and an integral part of the great Arab homeland." No room for the Jew. "Jews who were living permanently in Palestine until the beginning of the Zionist invasion will be considered Palestinians." (Note: The Premier is quoting article 6 of the 1968 Palestinian National Covenant). In other words, Jews who lived permanently in our land, called by foreigners Palestine, until the Balfour Declaration of 1917, will be considered Palestinians, all the others have to leave. The numbers: fifty or sixty thousand to be left - two million nine hundred and fifty thousand, circa, to go. The establishment of Israel is fundamentally null and void. Null and void. The Balfour Declaration, the Mandate document and what has been based upon them are considered null and void. The claim of the historical and spiritual tie between Jews and Palestine does not tally with its historical realities nor with the constituents of statehood in the true sense.

And I remember San Remo - 1922 - Britain was given the Mandate to make it possible to have a national home for the Jewish People to be reconstituted, and that is the the most characteristic in that document. You can re-constitute a thing which existed and then the words are used in the preamble "Recognition having been given to the historical connection between the Jewish people and Palestine." Woodrow Wilson, the great President who gave to the world the concept of national self-determination, appointed a committee for the Middle East which brought him recommendations (that) it is just that Palestine should become a Jewish State. Palestine a Jewish State. The connection between Palestine and the Jewish People.

And now, after recognition by all the civilized nations of that historical connection, we hear that the claim of a historical and spiritual tie between Jews and Palestine is nonexistent. Judaism and its character as a religion of revelation is not a nationality, now we are not even recognized as a nationality, only as a religion. We know when that recognition was given to us and the other denied.

Now also may I inform you, ladies and gentlemen, that since January the first there were many attacks carried out by that organization, all of them against civilians: Two killed, 120 wounded - but when we say wounded, we don't describe reality. We should say legless, armless, eyeless, handless people, maimed for a lifetime, all of them civilians, men, women and children. Because they turned the civilian population into a target of their attacks. They aimed to destroy a people, to annihilate a people, to renew the unheard of wrong done to the Jewish people for centuries: Homeless and defenceless - and turning (them) again into a defenceless and homeless people. Whereas that wrong was redressed by the proclamation of our independence, by the creation of our state - demented genocide killed man, woman and child.

It is a very serious matter to us, our dear friend, Mr. Secretary, some may say that we are sensitive about it. We are - because we have the experience. But perhaps sensitivity is not the proper word. I think it is ratio, logic.

To learn from experience is the duty of a man who bears responsibility for the future of his nation. And therefore our stand is clear: We want peace, we want to negotiate peace treaties, we brought proposals, alternative proposals, we have looked, we shall look for any avenue to bring about such negotiations to conclude peace treaties. But that organization, the philosophy of which is based on an Arabic "Mein Kampf," is no partner whatsoever and never would be a partner for us to hold any talks - because such is the philosophy, such the design, and such the method. I believe all free mankind should accept that attitude and also have the same attitude. It's a danger to all free nations, to the free world.

Ladies and Gentlemen, we believe that our great friend the United States of America will comprehend the attitude of Israel towards this special moral issue. We will have the same decision as far as participation in the Geneva Conference is concerned, because we believe in the moral greatness of the United States. Now we hope we shall make progress and achieve peace.

We are grateful to you, Mr. Secretary, for your efforts. We will do whatever we can to make your stay and that of your gracious lady enjoyable in our country.

And in this spirit of hope and optimism and faith in the future of our nations, and indeed of human liberty and justice, I raise my glass to the President of the United States of America, to our guests, Secretary of State - and to the everlasting friendship between the United States and Israel. Thank you very much.