32 Address by Prime Minister Begin to the Jerusalem Conference on International Terrorism- 2 July 1979

What is the difference between a fight for freedom or liberation, on one hand, and terrorism, on the other hand? To answer this decisive question, one should recall two criteria: The aim and the method. Fights for liberation took place throughout the centuries, from the ancient times to our own days. There are historians who contend that the most justified fight of all in the annals of mankind was that of Spartacus in ancient Rome; until Crassus crushed that famous revolt through raising throughout the Via Appia up to the sea crosses on which the rebels slowly extinguished. Because, so they say, that was a fight not for political independence, which is justified, but for - in the literal sense of the word physical liberation, for the piercing of the shackles on the hands of the slaves, of the gladiators. Yes, indeed, so it was. So we have a fight for political independence, we have a fight for physical liberation, and there is another stage in human history, as we experienced it for all the two previous aims and the third: For survival.

That was the fight we, the Jews, conducted in a country historically known as Eretz Israel, or the Land of Israel, since the Prophet Samuel and Ezekiel, in which the passages appear: "Now there was no smith found throughout all the land of Israel" (Samuel I:13:19), or "in the visions of god brought he me into the Land of Israel, and set me down upon a very high mountain" (Ezekiel 40:2) - and others call it Palestine.

This is not a unique phenomenon in history. We know, for instance, that the Japanese call their country Nippon; the whole world calls them Japan. The Germans call their country Deutschland; everybody else calls them Germany. In French, with a change. In Hebrew, "Germania". Many people call a certain island Formosa; its inhabitants call it Taiwan. And so on.

Since the Emperor Hadrianus, who crushed the Bar Kochba revolt, the great fight for liberation of our forefathers in the second century, he renamed the country: instead of Judea, as the Romans called it even after the destruction of the second temple, "Syria et Palestina". And since then, many nations adopted this second name.

Well, when we fought, our aim was to save a people from the danger of utter destruction. What happened in the '40's in Europe, everybody here present knows. In those days Palestine, promised as the national home for the Jewish people was shut off to every and any Jew. And great tragedies - which remind us of these days too - at sea did take place. So, were it not for our fight for liberation and independence and survival, our people would have suffered total extinction.

And now, I will pause for a while in order not to commit sacrilege; and I will ask what is the name of the organization known in our time as P.L.O., whereas the 'L' stands horrible dictu - for liberation? There is a so-called Palestinian charter, and its article 1 stipulates: "Palestine is the homeland of the Palestinian Arab people and an integral part of the great Arab homeland, and the people of Palestine is a part of the Arab nation." What does that mean? The state of Israel must disappear.

There are some learned people who call it "politicide" - the destruction of a country. I disagree, because it would be again genocide. The Jewish people cannot exist without this country of its forefathers, as it was already proved.

But pay attention, ladies and gentlemen, to this sentence: That they are part of the Arab nation. If this is the case, we must remember that the Arab nation has got now, as an expression of its inherent, undeniable right of self-determination, twenty-two sovereign states. Now the proposition is that the Arab nation should have twenty-three sovereign states - and the only Jewish country should disappear from the earth. This is the aim.

In article 6, it is being stipulated: "Jews who were living permanently in Palestine until the beginning of the Zionist invasion will be considered Palestinians." What do the words "Zionist invasion" mean? Well, we have the interpretation by the authors of this document, and it means the Balfour Declaration, November, 1917. In those days in Palestine, there were 60,000 Jews. Now, in this country, there are 3,200,000 Jews. In other words, all the others will have to leave.

And this is a repetition of the Nuremberg laws, because then the Jews would lose even their citizenship, and will have to go, as the Iraqis a few days ago promised, they will fight on until all the Jews who came to Palestine will be sent back to the countries of their origin.

And ultimately is article 22: "Zionism is a political movement organically related to world imperialism and hostile to all movements of liberation and progress in the world. It is a racist and fanatical movement in its formation."

Ladies and gentlemen, I am an old man - I am a Zionist sixty years. I studied almost every book and almost every article and almost every speech written or spoken about or for or on behalf of Zionism. I learned what is Zionism from Herzl, Nordau, and Jabotinsky; men of great learning, famous writers and orators; some of the greatest liberals in the 19th and the 20th centuries, who imbued us that nothing that is human should be strange to us, to Zionists. And the authors of this document have the impudence to say that this movement, that all of us sitting here who call themselves Zionists, learned from their own experience, is the purest human, humanitarian liberation movement of a people wandering throughout the world for nineteen centuries - humiliated, oppressed, deported, persecuted, ultimately physically destroyed by racism - that this pure, great, idealistic movement is racist, etc.

Now you can understand what is the aim of this so-called P.L.O. - not to save a people: To destroy a state and a nation together. What is the method? Well, I will call as witnesses many, many commanding officers of the British army in Palestine, and they will give evidence to every court that, after many, many battles between that army and the Jewish fighting underground, those commanding officers used to comment "it was a fair battle." For nearly five years of danger of utter destruction - no British child was ever hurt, no British woman was ever injured, no citizen of Britain was ever attacked; only armed men against armed men. Armed men are also human beings we never rejoiced when we had to hurt them, and we, on our side, used to take all the risks. All are human beings - A soldier is also a human being, and we always regretted whenever there were casualties on either side. Yes, there was a unique case, about which I will tell you at the end of my remarks, with a revelation of which I, myself, learned only a few weeks ago.

But the method was always never, never hurt a civilian, or a man, a woman, or a child, whether Jew, Arab, or British.

Now I will again pause, in order not to be responsible for sacrilege, and ask the question, what is the method of the so-called P.L.O.? The civilian population is the target of their attacks. For all the years, they have never attacked a military installation - only civilians. Therefore, they have an uncountable number of living targets: actually, 3,200,000 targets. Nahariya - just to give you an example: They took a father and a girl of four. They shot the man; then they shot the girl. The girl did not die of the bullet. And then, the two-legged beast smashed the head of the four-year-old girl with the butt of his rifle. And then he raised his hands in surrender, and our soldiers - because they know ethics of warfare - could not shoot at him; because when he raised his hands in surrender, he saved his life, and they arrested him.

Petach Tikva: A young mother of 24 and a baby girl. Ma'alot: 18 boys and girls, fourteen-years-old, ordered to lie down on the floor and machine-gunned. This is the only country in the world in which all our schools are being guarded, arms in hand, by the parents, by the teachers, or by special guards. Why? Because they do come to our schools to kill our schoolchildren.

Endless examples I could give you. The method is genocidal: Kill the Jew, because he was born a Jew. This is racism in its basest expression. Kill an Israeli, because he was born an Israeli - again, the same racism.

So, now we have the answer: The aim is not to save or liberate a people, because twenty-two sovereign countries is -the expression of self-determination which is for nations, and not for fractions of nations; otherwise, what would happen to the map of the world in any country. And the method is absolutely genocidal: The target is always the civilian population.

Now, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to tell my friends from Europe, and ask them to tell their respective governments: You have your own terrorism. In our time, it is called the new left, and usually, because of a famous propaganda success a man who says that he is on the left is absolutely convinced that he represents human progress. The new left is one of the darkest reactions in human history. They fight democracy. They are enemies of democracy. And I, myself, one of previous underground fighters, state here and now that wherever you can decide issues by the ballot, you must under no circumstances use the bullet; from either direction - either right or left. Therefore, the new left - a reactionary, dark movement - fights democracy in Italy and in France and in Germany and in Japan and in other countries.

But mainly the European countries - in which Jewish blood flowed from the Rhine to Danube, and from the Bug to the Volga, for years. The European countries cannot expect to overcome terrorism in their own midst, if they give comfort and support to the so-called P.L.O. - the basest armed organization ever since the days of the Nazis. You cannot expect to overcome your own terrorism, if you open offices of the P.L.O. in your capitals; if you accept them into the United Nations, if you give their representative the right to sit around the table of the Security Council, draw your conclusions, please.

Now, ladies and gentlemen, there are some people who say that for many years to come, we shall have to live with terrorism. It's impossible - respectfully, I disagree. In the 19th century, there was the phenomenon of armed anarchism throughout Europe. Ultimately it was smashed and it disappeared. And that anarchism, indeed, launched the famous - or infamous - slogan: "There are no innocents" - repeated now by the terrorists of our time. There are no innocents: Everybody should be a victim.

Yes: We can hit them and we can overcome, and it may pass. Let me give you an example: Only a few years ago, highjacking of planes was almost a daily phenomenon. Lately, it is very rare, because when they took measures -defensive and also offensive. Now, as I can tell you - No, I do not boast, I state a fact - we undertook measures in the El Al planes: It can be shot at; it cannot be highjacked by anybody. El Al planes are now the safest under the sky - strikes is a different story. Because we undertook measures. We can overcome this. We, in any case, do our best. In Lebanon, too.

Sometimes people teach us lessons: Why do you go up to Lebanon and hit those bases. I will ask this question: What should we do? to use the so-called retaliation - wait between one attack upon the Jewish civilian population in our country and another attack - and, in other words, condemn an unknown number of our citizens to die, because in between they will be attacked. So we do not use anymore the so-called retaliation. And as far as children are concerned, we always remember the famous verse of our great poet, Bialik: "Revenge like this - the revenge for the blood of a child, Satan himself did not yet create it." Nobody can take revenge for the blood of a little child - nobody. We don't want to retaliate - we want peace for our people, security for our people, and for our children. So we hit them - and this is the sublime, most legitimate national self-defense; until we overcome. And overcome we shall.

And everybody can overcome, if we unite in this resolve: Not to have this curse, especially in free, democratic countries. But beware: Don't give, my dear friends from Europe and also your governments, comfort and support to this terroristic, horrifying, inhuman, barbaric organization called the P.L.O., bent on genocide, bent on the destruction of Israel and its children and people.

(Question from the floor: Why did your government release 80 dangerous fighters of the P.L.O., and they are going maybe to release more of them - your government? Please tell us.)

Thank you. Yes, you asked a question - it's a parliamentary question I'll answer. It was a very hard decision. We wanted to save the soul of a man - he was not in the hands of any government - he was tortured every day and could have been killed any minute. Yes, it was a great sacrifice. It is no precedent and don't take it for a precedent, and let me finish my remarks.

Ladies and gentlemen, I promised you a certain revelation to prove my thesis about the methods of fighters for freedom and the methods of terrorists. Of course, all of you remember the famous, the great operation and even greater tragedy at the King David in 1946. Since then, for 33 years, we contended we gave a warning: Enough time to evacuate the hotel and nobody would have been hurt. And there were denials: First, that the warning was not given at all; and secondly, that it didn't reach the man on the spot. Now, three weeks ago, Lord Janner made a speech in the House of Lords, and he told the august assembly that he got a letter from Dr. Crawford, and Dr. Crawford wrote to him a letter about a British general with the name Dudley Sheridan Skelton. And he, Lord Janner, read out to the House of Lords the following passage of the letter:

"In 1946, he was head of a hospital in Palestine near Jerusalem and was a frequent visitor to the King David Hotel. Apparently he was there on the very day of the explosion, and he wrote me that a warning was passed on to the officers in the bar, in rather jocular terms, implying that it was Jewish terrorist bluff. But despite advice to ignore the bluff, he decided to leave and thus was out of the hotel when the explosion took place. I kept this letter for many years, but, unfortunately", so writes Dr. Crawford, "after the death of my wife in 1970 and my own severe illness in 1971, I sold my house and went into a flat; and because of limited space I unwisely threw away a lot of my accumulated papers and correspondence, so the letter is no longer available, and Brig. Skelton has long since died. I hope these facts will be of some help to you. Many of my friends knew the story at the time, but Jew have survived. My sister-in-law will remember it clearly, as she was friendly with the Brigadier and lived with us at that time. If you think it worthwhile, I could contact her." Lord Janner finishes his speech, saying, "I did ask him to contact her, and she wrote a letter confirming what Dr. Crawford said."

Ladies and gentlemen, from my master and teacher, Ze'ev Jabotinsky, I learned the famous slogan of Tomas Garrigue Massaryk: "Veritas Vincet", truth prevails and must win. Since 1946, that debate went on; and now you have this letter proving that the officers got the warning. Well, unfortunately, tragically enough, they didn't heed it; but we gave that warning for half an hour, because this is the difference between a fighter for freedom and a terrorist: A terrorist kills civilians; a fighter for freedom saves lives and fights on at the risk of his own life, until liberty wins the day.