-- Transcript of the part delivered in English
Before why I explain why
this speech was so disappointing to millions of Israelis, I want to say that
Israel is deeply grateful to the United States of America, to successive
American administrations, to the American Congress, to the American people. We’re
grateful for the support Israel has received over many, many decades. Our
alliance is based on shared values, shared interests, a sense of shared destiny
and a partnership that has endured differences of opinions between our two
governments over the best way to advance peace and stability in the Middle
East. I have no doubt that our alliance will endure the profound disagreement
we have had with the Obama Administration and will become even stronger in the
future.
But now I must express my deep disappointment with the
speech today of John Kerry – a speech that was almost as unbalanced as the
anti-Israel resolution passed at the UN last week. In a speech ostensibly about
peace between Israelis and Palestinians, Secretary Kerry paid lip service to
the unremitting campaign of terrorism that has been waged by the Palestinians
against the Jewish state for nearly a century.
What he did was to spend most of his
speech blaming Israel for the lack of peace by passionately condemning a policy
of enabling Jews to live in their historic homeland and in their eternal
capital, Jerusalem.
Hundreds of suicide bombings, thousand,
tens of thousands of rockets, millions of Israelis in bomb shelters are not
throwaway lines in a speech; they’re the realities that the people of Israel
had to endure because of mistaken policies, policies that at the time won the
thunderous applause of the world. I don’t seek applause; I seek the security,
and peace, and prosperity and the future of the Jewish state.
The Jewish people have sought their place under the sun
for 3,000 years, and we’re not about to be swayed by mistaken policies that
have caused great, great damage.
Israelis do not need to be lectured
about the importance of peace by foreign leaders. Israel’s hand has been
extended in peace to its neighbors from day one, from its very first day. We’ve
prayed for peace, we’ve worked for it every day since then. And thousands of
Israeli families have made the ultimate sacrifice to defend our country and
advance peace.
My family has been one of them; there
are many, many others.
No one wants peace more than the people of Israel. Israel remains committed to
resolving the outstanding differences between us and the Palestinians through
direct negotiations. This is how we made peace with Egypt; this is how we made
peace with Jordan; it’s the only way we’ll make peace with the Palestinians.
That has always been Israel’s policy; that has always been America’s policy.
Here’s what President Obama himself said
at the UN in 2011. He said: ‘Peace is hard work. Peace will not come through
statements and resolutions at the United Nations. If it were that easy, it
would have been accomplished by now.’
That’s what President Obama said, and he
was right. And until last week this was repeated over and over again as
American policy. Secretary Kerry said that the United States cannot vote
against its own policy. But that’s exactly what it did at the UN, and that’s
why Israel opposed last week’s Security Council resolution, because it
effectively calls the Western Wall ‘occupied Palestinian Territory,’ because it
encourages boycotts and sanctions against Israel – that’s what it effectively
does, and because it reflects a radical shift in US policy towards the
Palestinians on final status issues – those issues that we always agreed, the
US and Israel, have to be negotiated directly, face to face without
preconditions.
That shift happened despite the
Palestinians walking away from peace and from peace offers time and time again,
despite their refusal to even negotiate peace for the past eight years, and
despite the Palestinian Authority inculcating a culture of hatred towards
Israel in an entire generation of young Palestinians.
Israel looks forward to working with President-elect
Trump and with the American Congress, Democrats and Republicans alike, to
mitigate the damage that this resolution has done and ultimately, to repeal it.
Israel hopes that the outgoing Obama
Administration will prevent any more damage being done to Israel at the UN in
its waning days. I wish I could be comforted by the promise that the US says we
will not bring any more resolutions to the UN. That’s what they said about the
previous resolution.
We have it on absolutely incontestable
evidence that the United States organized, advanced and brought this resolution
to the United Nations Security Council. We’ll share that information with the
incoming administration. Some of it is sensitive, it’s all true. You saw some
of it in the protocol released in an Egyptian paper. There’s plenty more; it’s
the tip of the iceberg.
So they say, ‘but we didn’t bring it.’
And they could take John Kerry’s speech with the six points. It could be raised
in the French international conference a few days from now and then brought to
the UN. So France will bring it, or Sweden – not a noted friend of Israel –
could bring it. And the United States could say, well, we can’t vote against
our own policy, we’ve just enunciated it.
I think the United States, if it’s true
to its word, or at least if it’s now true to its word, should now come out and
say we will not allow any resolutions, any more resolutions in the Security
Council on Israel. Period. Not we will bring or not bring – we will not allow
any (further resolutions), and stop this game, the charades.
I think that the decisions that are
vital to Israel’s interests and the future of its children, they won’t be made
through speeches in Washington or votes in the United Nations or conferences in
Paris. They’ll be made by the Government of Israel around the negotiating
table, making them on behalf of the one and only Jewish state – a sovereign
nation that is the master of its own fate.
And one final thought – I personally know the pain, the loss and the suffering
of war. That’s why I’m so committed to peace. Because for anyone who’s
experienced it, as I have, war and terror are horrible. I want young
Palestinian children to be educated like our children, for peace. But they’re
not educated for peace. The Palestinian Authority educates them to lionize
terrorists and to murder Israelis.
My vision is that Israelis and
Palestinians both have a future of mutual recognition, of dignity, mutual
respect, co-existence. But the Palestinian Authority tells them that they will
never accept, should never accept the existence of a Jewish state.
So, I ask you, how can you make peace
with someone who rejects your very existence?
See, this conflict is not about houses,
or communities in the West Bank, Judea and Samaria, the Gaza district or
anywhere else. This conflict is and has always been about Israel’s very right
to exist. That’s why my hundreds of calls to sit with President Abbas for peace
talks have gone unanswered. That’s why my invitation to him to come to the
Knesset was never answered. That’s why the Palestinian government continues to
pay anyone who murders Israelis a monthly salary.
The
persistent Palestinian refusal to recognize a Jewish state remains the core of
the conflict and its removal is the key to peace.
Palestinian rejection of Israel and
support for terror are what the nations of the world should focus on if they
truly want to advance peace, and I can only express my regret and say that it’s
a shame that Secretary Kerry does not see this simple truth.
Thank you.
***
"For more than an hour, Kerry obsessed over the issue of settlements and hardly touched on the root of the conflict - Palestinian resistance to a Jewish state within any borders," the premier said.
True, but Bibi did not explain why the Palestinian are rejecting the Jewish state within any borders. The answer is because they are Muslim and Islam dictates a perpetual state of jihad.
The two-state solution has been dead for a while. Why? Because it is incompatible with the Islamic tenet of jihad.
Does this mean that there is no way to coexist with Islam in general and the Palestinians in particular? No. I believe that a diplomatic process with the Palestinians is just that, a process that does not lead anywhere. It does not lead anywhere because it cannot lead anywhere since it is contrary to the core Muslim tenet of Jihad. So we need to find a solution which fits both sides. Does it exist? Yes. Muslims are permitted not to wage jihad if the infidel side is perceived as too strong, in which case 10 years of hudna or cease-fire is permitted, after which the conditions for jihad are reevaluated.
The best we can therefore hope for, until these concepts are rendered obsolete by Muslims themselves, is a perpetual state of back-to-back, 10-year-long hudnas. Clearly, amid such a reality, Israel's strength would not be perceived as an obstacle to peace, but as the only viable solution.