Mr. Begin sought to place the peace treaty with Egypt in a broad historic perspective, and then enumerated the many tasks facing Israel as it entered its thirty-second year. Among the challenges were immigration and absorption of immigrants, freedom for Soviet and Arab Jewries still imprisoned, human relations in Israeli society, and the resolution of pressing economic problems. Text:
The citizens of Israel, on Independence Day, 5739, rejoiced without trembling. There is nothing to tremble about. There is what to rejoice about.
How is this Independence Day different from 0 its predecessors? During the entire thirty years we were in a state of war with all our surrounding neighbors. This year we have peace with one of our neighbors, the biggest and strongest of them, with Egypt. We signed a peace treaty with Egypt, and a week ago it came into effect.
A peace treaty is not a scrap of paper. This is the most important international agreement that a state can undertake, and the peace treaty between us and Egypt also has practical results. On the eve of Independence Day -you saw one of these results with your own eyes, from afar. This is the first time that a ship flying the Israeli flag -the blue-and-white flag - crossed the Suez Canal from its southern entrance at Suez City to Port Said.
This happened for the first time, one could say, since the time of De Lesseps, who dug the canal, or the time of Disraeli, who purchased it for Great Britain. Certainly the first time since the "Bat-Galim" which was sent 25 years ago, was stopped at Suez, her sailors imprisoned for a full three months, and the ship confiscated. This time, our ship crossed with the Israeli banner raised for all to see, the sailors on deck, and on both sides of the canal thousands of cheering Egyptians, happily greeting the ship and paying their respects.
This phenomenon should not be belittled. It demonstrates that it is the Egyptian people which desires peace, and not only its distinguished president, or the Government of Egypt.
Soon there will be additional practical results to the peace we have made with the Egyptians, but I will not conceal from you - on the contrary - the fact that for this peace we made a great many sacrifices, some of them painful indeed. Why did we do this? Because we prefer sacrifices for peace to victims in war.
On the eve of our thirty-first Independence Day we received a unique gift, citizens of Israel. A few days ago there arrived here seven Prisoners of Zion who had been sentenced to ten and to fifteen years at hard labor. Anyone who was in a Soviet concentration camp knows what it means to be there, behind barbed wire fences. Nine years, fourteen years, it means much suffering and I shall not go into details. There is no need for that. Many of those now in Israel were in these camps, and they know.
And it fell out that on the very eve of Independence Day, they came to us. Wonderful people, heroes of the spirit, they did not break like others did. They admitted explicitly: 'We are Jews, Zionists. We believe that the Land of Israel is the historic homeland of the Jewish people. We want to return to the land of our fathers and build it.' And when they were sentenced to fifteen years' imprisonment, they raised their right hand and uttered the ancient-sacred oath, from the days of the Babylonian exile: "If I forget thee, 0 Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning."
We were privileged to receive them in our land with love. It was a very moving moment when we saw them descending from the El Al plane which brought them from afar - from Russia, from Vienna, from New York. They were reunited with their families and we saw - some of them had not seen their children during all these years -unchecked human happiness, the joy of those who are once again free and have returned to their homeland.
Let me assure you, citizens of Israel, that we shall continue to deal with obtaining the release of Prisoners of Zion and with ensuring the right of Aliya to all those in the Soviet Union who seek Zion. I have also received an explicit assurance from the President of the United States - with whom I have held more than two or three talks on this issue - that he will continue to make efforts for the release of all Prisoners of Zion and to ensure the right of every Jew who so desires to make Aliya from the U.S.S.R. to Israel.
And still another promise: We have not forgotten our brethren in Syria. They are not imprisoned, but they are in a ghetto and live in fear. They must be released from that fear and from the land of intimidation. We have made many efforts and we shall continue to do so. I cannot go into details. I can tell you, my friends, that we have not forgotten these our brethren, some four thousand souls of an ancient Jewish community which made a prodigious contribution to Jewish knowledge and wisdom over the course of hundreds of generations and thousands of years. With just a few airplanes they can be taken out, brought to a safe heaven. We cannot grasp wherefrom comes this sadism which is expressed in their being kept as hostages. I do not give our friends in Europe and America peace on this issue, but request them almost daily to work for the liberation of our brethren in Syria.
And the same applies for our brethren the Falashas of Ethiopia. Again, I am not at liberty to go into details, but I can tell you that we are working in order to bring them all to the land of Israel, and we shall persist in our efforts. We shall not rest, we shall not be silent until all the Jews - both in Syria and in Ethiopia - are with us in our land.
In my Independence Day message to the Jewish people wherever they may be, I called upon our brethren in the dispersions of the Diaspora: Arise and come to Eretz-Israel. The time has come, almost fifty thousand Jews will this year leave the Soviet Union, and unfortunately there exists the grave and negative 'dropout' phenomenon. We shall try to put an end to it and call on all those leaving the Soviet Union for Eretz-Israel to tell them: We are here. Let them come to Eretz-Israel and not wander again to lands of the Diaspora.
And if to these fifty thousand Jews - let us hope their number grows - we add tens of thousands of olim from the countries of the west, from the free lands, then, God willing, we shall soon attain an Aliya of one hundred thousand persons a year. That should be the minimum; Then we shall know that we shall both absorb the new immigrants and increase the numbers of those returning to Zion and we shall build. Traditionally, the enterprise of building in our country is a key to employing all the economic resources, so there will be also economic growth and we shall build our land in honor, and live from our toil.
The day will come when that is how we will live: When we will no longer be dependent on outside help. To that end we must ensure that our country is an attractive one. The days have passed when in the west, or even in central Europe, what Herzl called 'The misfortune of the Jews' was the decisive factor with respect to Aliya to Zion. Today we have our own state and any Jew who wishes to come can do so. And on the day he sets foot on the soil of the homeland, he is a citizen. But we still face problems that block Aliya. So, as I said, our country must have a power of attraction.
I am positive that the peace will have an effect on Aliya. I will not hide from you one sad fact: It is true that in the Yom Kippur War there was a situation of surprise and of eclipse. Ultimately our army overcame. It was one of the most tremendous victories in all the annals of Israel. But the first days of the war were very difficult ones for our people. Ever since, there have been Jews, both in the east and in the west, who, perhaps without justification but in accordance with the fact, have placed a kind of question-mark over the State of Israel and its future.
I am convinced that that question-mark has now vanished. With the signing of the peace treaty between Israel and the strongest of the Arab states - with all the other neighboring states around Israel numbering less than half the population of Egypt - I am confident that the future of the State of Israel is no longer in any doubt. Indeed, there are and will be problems, but as regards the existence of an independent Jewish state, the survival of the Jews - no question-mark hovers over them any longer. Therefore the peace will certainly be one of the factors attracting those returning to Zion by coming to the land of Israel.
But the quality of life will also be a crucial element. We must ensure courtesy in the relations between people, show respect for our neighbors, for women, old people, children. We must work to keep our country clean. Why can't we be like Switzerland? There, no citizen will dare throw a cigarette butt on the ground, and if another resident sees one he bends down, picks it up and deposits it in the wastebasket where it should be.
Please, let us all behave like that. Then our country will be clean. Our land is a good land; Beautiful, green, verdant. Why not keep it clean? That, too, will constitute an element to draw Jews to come to Eretz-Israel and settle here.
A free economy, an economy open to free private enterprise - that is yet another power of attraction. It is self-evident that the free economy must be bound to social justice. No one should be without work here, or hungry for bread, or without a roof over his head. It is the free economy which will build our land. But this must be interwoven with social justice - and it will be.
There are still a number of unsolved economic and social problems. I speak to you as one speaks to a friend - and you all know to what I refer. Heading the scale of priorities is the problem of housing for the underprivileged, and of overcrowded housing, especially for young couples.
I know that the Minister of Absorption, Construction and Housing will make every effort in order to solve these problems in the foreseeable future. To that end, the government has decided to freeze public construction, except for a few exceptions, one of which is of course renewal of the poor neighborhoods. The second exception is our capital, Jerusalem, and hospitals. But generally speaking, we shall freeze public construction so that we can divert all the resources, and particularly construction manpower, to the construction of housing. And if during the coming two-and-a-half years - until the end of the present Knesset term - we can, as I hope, build tens of thousands of apartments and perhaps largely solve this problem, we will have done an important act. Please believe us when we say that with all our heart we want to do this important act - and we will try to carry it out, in order to do away with the problem that is the most oppressive to all of us.
We have been taught: "Rejoice in your festivals." And I call on you, citizens of Israel, to rejoice, rejoice with all your heart on this thirty-first Independence Day - for there is cause to rejoice.
In olden times, so our wise men tell us, it was said: "He who has never seen the rejoicing during the water-drawing festival, has never seen rejoicing." Let us see to it that one hundred years from now there will be those in our land who will say: "He who did not see the rejoicing of Independence Day 5739, never saw rejoicing."
A happy holiday to each and every one of you. Happy Independence Day to the whole House of Israel in the homeland and in the dispersions of the Diaspora.