Address to the Knesset on the Disengagement
Plan
(October 25, 2004)
Mr. Speaker, Members of Knesset,
This is a fateful hour for Israel.
We are on threshold of a difficult decision, the likes of which we have
seldom faced, the significance of which for the future of our country
in this region is consistent with the difficulty, pain and dispute it
arouses within us. You know that I do not say these things with a light
heart to the representatives of the nation and to the entire nation
watching and listening to every word uttered here in the Knesset today. This is a people who has courageously faced, and still faces
the burden and terror of the ongoing war, which has continued from generation
to generation; in which, as in a relay race, fathers pass the guns to
their sons; in which the boundary between the frontline and the home
front has long been erased; in which schools and hotels, restaurants
and marketplaces, cafes and buses have also become targets for cruel
terror and premeditated murder.
Today, this nation wants to know what decision this
house will make at the end of this stormy discussion. What will we say
to them, and what message will we convey to them? For me, this decision
is unbearably difficult. During my years as a fighter and commander,
as a politician, Member of Knesset, as a minister in Israel’s
governments and as Prime Minister, I have never faced so difficult a
decision.
I know the implications and impact of the Knesset’s
decision on the lives of thousands of Israelis who have lived in the Gaza Strip for many years,
who were sent there on behalf of the Governments of Israel, and who
built homes there, planted trees and grew flowers, and who gave birth
to sons and daughters, who have not known any other home. I am well
aware of the fact that I sent them and took part in this enterprise,
and many of these people are my personal friends. I am well aware of
their pain, rage and despair. However, as much as I understand everything
they are going through during these days and everything they will face
as a result of the necessary decision to be made in the Knesset today,
I also believe in the necessity of taking the step of disengagement in these areas, with all the pain it entails, and I am determined to
complete this mission. I am firmly convinced and truly believe that
this disengagement will strengthen Israel’s hold over territory
which is essential to our existence, and will be welcomed and appreciated
by those near and far, reduce animosity, break through boycotts and
sieges and advance us along the path of peace with the Palestinians
and our other neighbors.
I am accused of deceiving the people and the voters
because I am taking steps which are in total opposition to past things
I have said and deeds I have done. This is a false accusation. Both
during the elections and as Prime Minister, I have repeatedly and publicly
said that I support the establishment of a Palestinian state alongside
the State of Israel. I have repeatedly and openly said that I am willing
to make painful compromises in order to put an end to this ongoing and
malignant conflict between those who struggle over this land, and that
I would do my utmost in order to bring peace.
And I wish, Mr. Chairman, to say that many years before,
in 1988, in a meeting with Prime Minister Yitzchak
Shamir and with the Ministers of the Likud,
I said there that I believe that if we do not want to be pushed back
to the 1967 lines, the territory should be divided.
As one who fought in all of Israel’s wars, and
learned from personal experience that without proper force, we do not
have a chance of surviving in this region, which does not show mercy
towards the weak, I have also have learned from experience that the
sword alone cannot decide this bitter dispute in this land.
I have been told that the disengagement will be interpreted
as a shameful withdrawal under pressure, and will increase the terror
campaign, present Israel as weak, and will show our people as a nation
unwilling to fight and to stand up for itself. I reject that statement
outright. We have the strength to defend this country, and to strike
at the enemy which seeks to destroy us.
And there are those who tell me that, in exchange for
a genuine signed peace agreement, they too would be willing to make
these painful compromises. However, regrettably, we do not have a partner
on the other side with whom to conduct genuine dialogue, in order to
achieve a peace agreement. Even prime ministers of Israel who declared
their willingness to relinquish the maximum territory of our homeland
were answered with fire and hostility. Recently, the chairman of the
Palestinian Authority declared that “a million shaheeds will break
through to Jerusalem”. In the choice between a responsible and
wise action in history, which may lead to painful compromise and a “holy
war” to destroy Israel, Yasser Arafat chose the latter –
the path of blood, fire and shaheeds. He seeks to turn a national conflict
which can be terminated through mutual understanding into a religious
war between Islam and Jews, and even to spill the blood of Jews who
live far away.
Israel has many hopes, and faces extreme dangers. The
most prominent danger is Iran,
which is making every effort to acquire nuclear weapons and ballistic
missiles, and establishing an enormous terror network together with Syria in Lebanon.
And I ask you: what are we doing and what are we struggling
over in the face of these terrible dangers? Are we not capable of uniting
to meet this threat? This is the true question.
The Disengagement
Plan does not replace negotiations and is not meant to permanently
freeze the situation which will be created. It is an essential and necessary
step in a situation which currently does not enable genuine negotiations
for peace. However, everything remains open for a future agreement,
which will hopefully be achieved when this murderous terror ends, and
our neighbors will realize that they cannot triumph over us in this
land.
Mr. Chairman, with your permission, I will read several
lines from a famous essay which was published in the midst of the Arab
Revolt of 1936 – and we must bear in mind that the Jewish
community in Israel numbered less than 400,000. This essay by Moshe
Beilinson was published in “Davar”, as I mentioned, during
the murderous Arab Revolt of 1936 (and I quote): “How much longer?
People ask. How much longer? Until the strength of Israel in its land
will condemn and defeat in advance any enemy attack; until the most
enthusiastic and bold in any enemy camp will know; there are no means
to break the strength of Israel in its land, because the necessity of
life is with it, and the truth of life is with it, and there is no other
way but to accept it. This is the essence of this campaign.”
I am convinced that everything we have done since then
confirms these emphatic words.
We have no desire to permanently rule over millions
of Palestinians, who double their numbers every generation. Israel,
which wishes to be an exemplary democracy, will not be able to bear
such a reality over time. The Disengagement Plan presents the possibility
of opening a gate to a different reality.
Today, I wish to address our Arab neighbors. Already
in our Declaration of Independence,
in the midst of a cruel war, Israel, which was born in blood, extended
its hand in peace to those who fought against it and sought to destroy
it by force (and I quote): “We appeal – in the very midst
of the onslaught launched against us now for months – to the Arab
inhabitants of the State of Israel to preserve peace and participate
in the upbuilding of the State on the basis of full and equal citizenship
and due representation in all its provisional and permanent institutions.”
A long time has passed since then. This land and this
region have known more wars, and have known all the wars between the
wars, terror and the difficult counter-actions undertaken by Israel,
with the sole purpose of defending the lives of its citizens. In this
ongoing war, many among the civilian population, among the innocent,
were killed. And tears met tears. I would like you to know that we did
not seek to build our lives in this homeland on your ruins. Many years
ago, Zeev Jabotinsky wrote in a poem his vision for partnership and
peace among the peoples of this land (and I quote): “There he
will be saturated with plenty and joy, the son of the Arab, the son
of Nazareth and my son.”
We were attacked and stood firm, with our backs to
the sea. Many fell in the battle, and many lost their homes and fields
and orchards, and became refugees.
This is the way of war. However, war is not inevitable and predestined.
Even today, we regret the loss of innocent lives in your midst. Our
way is not one of intentional killing.
Forty-eight yeas ago, on the eve of our Independence
Day in 1956, against the background of the return of the bodies of ten
terrorists who committed crimes in Israel, murderous acts in Israel,
and who were delivered in wooden coffins to the Egyptians at a border
crossing in the Gaza Strip. On this, the Hebrew poet, Natan Alterman
wrote the following:
“Arabia, enemy unknown to you, you will awake
when you rise against me,
My life serves as witness with my back against the wall and to my
history and my G-d,
Enemy, the power of whose rage in the face of those who rise to destroy
him until the day
Will be similar only to the force of his brotherhood in a fraternal
covenant between
one nation and another.”
This was during the time of the terrorist killings
and our retaliatory raids.
Members of Knesset,
With your permission, I wish to end with a quotation
from Prime Minister Menahem
Begin, who at the end of December 1977, said on this podium (and
I quote):
“Where does this irresponsible language come
from, in addition to other things which were said? I once said, during
an argument with people from Gush Emunim, that I love them today,
and will continue to like them tomorrow. I told them: you are wonderful
pioneers, builders of the land, settlers on barren soil, in rain and
through winter, through all difficulties. However, you have one weakness
– you have developed among yourselves a messianic complex.
You must remember that there were days, before you
were born or were only small children, when other people risked their
lives day and night, worked and toiled, made sacrifices and performed
their tasks without a hint of a messianic complex. And I call on you
today, my good friends from Gush Emunim, to perform your tasks with
no less modesty than your predecessors, on other days and nights.
We do not require anyone to supervise the Kashrut of our commitment to the Land of Israel!
We have dedicated our lives to the land of Israel and to the struggle
for its liberation, and will continue to do so.”
I call on the people of Israel to unite at this decisive
hour. We must find a common denominator for some form of “necessary
unity” which will enable us to cope with these fateful days with
understanding, and through our common destiny, and which will allow
us to construct a dam against brotherly hatred which pushes many over
the edge. We have already paid an unbearably high price for murderous
fanaticism. We must find the root which brings us all together, and
must carry out our actions with the wisdom and responsibility which
allow us to lead our lives here as a mature and experienced nation.
I call on you to support me at this decisive time.
Thank you.
Sources: Israeli
Foreign Ministry |