President Herzog devoted most of his message to domestic developments in Israel, saying that some of them were disturbing. He mentioned growing physical violence, polarization of the society, growing number of road accidents and lack of discipline. He noted the many achievements of Israel in the past forty-one years and mainly in the year that had ended and called for greater national unity and cohesion. Text:
My Friends,
Our flag has just now been raised from half mast. The transition to Independence Day from Memorial Day for our Fallen Soldiers is extremely sharp and painful but it is a faithful reflection of the manner in which Israel came into being at a very high cost in life and enormous sacrifice. Difficult as this is, we must rejoice. For we would be failing to appreciate the sacrifice, if we did not sublimate our grief and properly value the miracle of our freedom.
When I remember our beginnings, our desperate situation on the day the State was declared, the siege of starved and thirsty Jerusalem, the cutting off of the Negev and Western Galilee, the fall of the Etzion Bloc, the invasion of Arab forces into the heart of the country - and all that we have gone through since then till today - I am grateful to Providence and confident that we will be able to overcome every difficulty and advance the State of Israel towards a bright future.
Much has transpired since the great, hard days of the establishment of our national home after two thousand years of dispersion. We have had to cross rivers of battle, sorrow and blood, and we have been granted remarkable achievements, exaltation of spirit, the radiance of peace. We have been suspended between abyss and summit. And now we stand in rebuilt Jerusalem and our eyes turn to the legacy of our past and the hope of the future. As in every year this is a moment of soul-searching for the entire nation.
We celebrate this Independence Day in the midst of a struggle for our right to live in our land; for the justice of our cause; for the preservation of the values of the precious freedom bought by the blood of the sons and daughters in whose memory we have stood in reverent silence. There is an open debate in our society. It is good and proper that this should be so; it speaks well for us. Our neighbouring society is also in the throes of debate, but it is overshadowed by threats and acts of internal terror among them.
This is no simple test. We must mobilize all our spiritual resources - the strength and endurance, wisdom and values innate in us. The first task of any government is the preservation of law and order and simultaneously to search for ways to bring about peaceful co-existence. It is our right and duty to demand of the security forces that they carry out their task faithfully and effectively while vigilantly preserving their human image, the purity of their arms and a high level of discipline. Faults and errors must not be whitewashed, but at the same time we must not forget that our soldiers and policemen have been sent out in a cause that is ours, to protect us, and it is for us to encourage and be grateful to them. Let us not cut down the branch on which we sit. Let us be wary of attempts by unauthorized bodies to take the law into their own hands and act in place of the bodies authorized to do so. That way lies the ruination of the delicate fabric of our democracy, and if we damage our democratic system our very existence is endangered.
I must admit that when I look about me at our internal problems, I am profoundly disturbed. The polarizing tendencies persist, and to our sorrow there are not a few of us - particularly among the youth - who have been ensnared by the attitudes of fanatical marginal groups completely alien to the Jewish spirit. In this week's Bible portion we have just been reminded of many of the moral values our people have inherited. We have read the commands not to "profit by the blood of our neighbor" and not to "hate the neighbor in your heart."
Physical violence has become all too frequent; we are shocked and shaken by merciless attacks on the old and helpless. Our roads have not become any safer and we are witness to bloodshed and profoundest sorrow and grief for meaningless sacrifices. We remain oblivious to the enormous number of victim's resulting from negligence and lack of discipline on the roads, at work and in training exercises. We dare not accept with equanimity these phenomena which are so terribly destructive of life.
I, like so many of my generation, who experienced the 1948 struggle for our independence and the excruciatingly difficult first years of the State, cannot cease to marvel at what has since been built, or at the structure of our sovereignty and the democracy that has been established in the land. In defense of that democracy we are morally obliged to renew our allegiance to our Declaration of Independence and all its provisions.
As I travel throughout the country I am moved over and over again by the magnitude of our national achievement. I always feel that I would like all the population to see and feel what my wife and I do on our journeys. In our concern with problems and needs, some of them very grave and dangerous, we become unaware of our splendid accomplishments in virtually every field of activity. Those accomplishments ought rightly to serve all of us as a source of pride and encouragement.
In the name of all the people of Israel I send heartfelt holiday greetings to the soldiers in Israel's Defense Forces, to the Police and the Border Police, to all involved in protecting our security. From all of them we draw strength.
To the wounded and ill we send our prayers for speedy healing; to prisoners and missing soldiers and their families our hopes for liberation and good tidings.
On Independence Day we sense the participation from afar of our kin in lands of oppression, hoping against hope for the freedom they are refused. For their return we long, and to all our brothers everywhere we say on Independence Day: "Come home!" It is our sacred obligation to be a beacon of light for them, to make every effort to bring them to us, to prepare effectively for their absorption in this country. In these days when there is new hope of liberation for the second largest Diaspora community, we must ask ourselves if we have done enough.
From Jerusalem, the Holy City, I say to all the House of Israel: Let us proudly hoist our flag, the banner of our independence. Let us celebrate this festival, and look with faith and confidence to the 42nd year of the State of Israel.
A happy Independence Day to all of you!