Speaking in Jerusalem to a group called "Rabbis for Eretz-Israel", the prime minister explained his total rejection of the concept "land for peace" He believed that it was "absolutely possible and necessary to arrive at peace without conceding; heaven forbid, one bit of the land of our forefathers, the holy land. " He lashed out at the "traitors ", "those who surrender and give in. " Text:
It is a special privilege for me to be with you today; to tell you the truth, it pleased me a great deal. You are scholars and men of the Torah. You are the most outstanding embodiment of the strong link to the Torah of Israel and Eretz-Israel, and just as you would not permit anyone, Heaven forbid, to detract from the Torah of Israel,' we are sure that you would rebel with all your souls and with all your might against any plot or tendency to detract from Eretz-Israel. After all, it is holy, and nothing that is holy and dear to the Jewish people may be betrayed.
In the path you have chosen, you are a continuing link in a golden chain of rabbis, each of whom in his generation, placed Zion at the top of the Jewish people's public agenda, and in so doing the rabbis of all generations laid the foundations for the movement of salvation in Israel. Let us recall only a few names of the great rabbis and geniuses who educated the people in the spirit of Eretz-lsrael, such as Rabbis Yehuda Alkalai, Shmuel Mohilever, Zvi Kalisher, Meir Bar-Ilan, Ben Iri Mordechai Gimpel Yaffe a century ago, Yehuda Leib Maimon, and perhaps above them all, Rabbi Avraham Yitzhak Hacohen, of blessed memory. We have recalled only a few rabbinical representatives, and you are continuing in their path.
I want to touch today upon an issue in which, you, perhaps, have a special mission: Unity, national unity, the unity of the Jewish people. It is certainly well-known just how much I saw the formation of the national unity government as a vital mission in light of the many challenges facing us, in light of the many enemies surrounding us, both close and far. Because of all these things, it seems to me that we would be committing a sin against our people if during this period, we were to spend too much time on controversial and divisive subjects.
Furthermore, there are people who are worried and hesitant that someone like me is dealing now with the peace initiative and the negotiations with our enemies over settling the conflict between us and them in a peaceful way. I understand those who are concerned, since we agreed that when talking about peace with the Arabs, thoughts turn as if automatically to concessions and retreat from all that is holy to us. And I dare to reassure you that everything we are doing today in the realm of the peace initiative we are doing only for the sake of both Eretz-lsrael and peace. There is no truth to what some think and say, that Eretz-IsraeI and peace are a contradiction in terms. This is not true. This is an accepted lie, but a lie nevertheless. It is absolutely possible to fight for Eretz-Israel, and at the same time to act with all our heart and soul for peace.
I said this to our friends in the U.S. and to the leaders of the largest friendly country in the world, who tried to influence me into placing in the initiative, as one of its principles, concession of parts of Eretz-Israel, if only by hints. In diplomatic language: territories in exchange for peace, or the like. I rejected this wholeheartedly, because I say, and I believe, that it is absolutely possible and necessary to arrive at peace without conceding, Heaven forbid, one bit of the land of our forefathers, the holy land, On the contrary, it is incumbent on us to convince and to show that people who believe with all their hearts and with all their might in Eretz-Israel are also capable of a breakthrough on the road to peace, and that peace is not the monopoly of traitors, of those who surrender and give in. To the best of my knowledge, during the second stage of the peace initiative, too, as we have presented it and are presenting it, during the negotiations when we will be discussing with our neighbors the permanent solution, and God-willing, arriving at such a solution, this solution will not include any territorial component because otherwise, Israel will not have peace and without peace in Israel, there will be no peace at all. But the road to negotiations regarding a permanent solution and the attainment of a permanent solution are still far off. And in the first stages of the peace negotiations, it is appropriate and necessary for all political camps to act in unison against our enemies and those who hate us and wish to uproot everything, to take away from us immediately everything we have, and therefore the entire national unity government, all its components included, was able to unite today around this initiative, which has even today become a symbol of internal peace, a symbol of national unity.
Rabbis and teachers, we have gathered here in Jerusalem, for where else but Jerusalem should a conference for Eretz-lsrael be held, and from here, we shall tell those who are nurturing illusions regarding Jerusalem, those who seek to erode it in one way or another, we shall tell them that it shall never come to pass that 'I have set watchmen upon thy walls, O Jerusalem, they shall never hold their peace day or night.' This conference made its voice heard, as it had to, in favor of strengthened settlement throughout all of Eretz-Israel. We know that the path of the settling pioneers is not easy, and supreme dedication is required of them to this day and will continue to be required of them. We shall mobilize for them, encourage them, support them, we shall promote their enterprise and increase the number of Jewish settlements throughout all of Eretz-Israel.
At the same time, it is good to say in these days that it is good to see the recent progress in improving the techniques used by our security forces in order to maintain Israel's security on all of Israel's lands. We send bold greetings to all those who hold the weapon and keep watch over security anywhere and everywhere. May they be strengthened.
Dear friends, we find ourselves today in troubled times, and even though in reality it sometimes looks this way, let us believe that those pursuing us shall not reach us in our distress, that we shall rise by the strength of our belief
and our will, and God willing, the days of distress will be followed by the days of consolation, and we shall see the light, and in our struggle to establish another layer on the road to salvation we shall be strengthened for the sake of our people and our land. Amen.