Of the four speeches made in the Knesset, I want to quote from that of Yair Lapid, leader of the opposition. His was the only speech that was not sycophantic and self serving. Instead he spoke of redeeming Israel. The transcription is from an automatic service (he spoke in English) so it may be off here and there; I've tried to correct it as much as possible. I've also omitted a few small parts.
For two years we waited for this moment. Two years of sleepless nights. Two years without air in our lungs. Our eyes are filled with tears today. Our hearts are filled with gratitude. Our children are coming home. In the Babylonian Talmud, a sacred book of the Jewish people, it is written, "Whoever destroys one life, it is as though he destroyed an entire world. And whoever saves one life, it is though as he has saved an entire world." Mr. President, you have saved the lives of our hostages. But you saved so much more. You have saved the souls of the bereaved whose loved ones now will be brought home for burial. You have saved thousands of soldiers who will now not fall in battle. And you have saved millions from the horrors of war. You have saved more than one life and each life is an entire world.
But we also need to take responsibility. The destiny of Israel will always be written by the people of Israel. We must now prove ourselves worthy of what has been achieved. From its founding, Israel has said to the world that our strength, our power rest upon our values. Israel is the strongest country in the Middle East because we are the only democracy in the Middle East. Because we believe in the principles laid in our declaration of independence which says [that] Israel will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its habitants irrespective of religion, race or sex. It will guarantee freedom of religion, conscious language, education and culture. It will safeguard the holy places for all religions. Those are our values. That is who we are as people, as a country.
Our neighbours must understand one more thing about us. We are not going anywhere. The Middle East is our home. We are here to stay. Our story did not end in the Bible - it began there. It continues in our laboratories and universities, in our innovation hubs. Hamas, Iran, and the Houthis, they all read the wrong intelligence reports. The real intelligence report on Israel's intentions is found in the book of Genesis, "and I will give you and your descendants after you the land of Canaan for an everlasting possession". We call upon the nations of the Islamic world, on all our neighbours Saudi Arabia, Syria, others. We are here to stay. We can do great things together. Come and talk to us.
After two years of war, the peoples of this region should look around and ask themselves whose situation is better. Those who chose the path of peace or those who chose the path of war? Those who invested in their people, in the education of their children, in science and education and technology or those who invested in hate and in violence?
I say to all those who demonstrated against Israel this past two years on the streets of London and Rome, in Paris and in Columbia University: I do not represent the government. As you know, I am the leader of the opposition and I tell you that you were deceived. You were deceived. Propaganda experts funded by terror money manipulated you. Now that the war has stopped, you have time and a chance to go and learn the facts. The truth is there was no genocide, no intentional starvation. The truth is there was an army and a country fighting in the most complicated conditions imaginable against terrorists who send their own children to die for a follow-up, who use their own children as human shields. The truth is that the democratic state was attacked by a fanatical terrorist organization. 1,200 people were killed in one day. Women were raped. Babies were burned alive.
On all the why [? Maybe it should be "Along the way"] they played with your minds, selling you the absurd idea that supporting Islamic terror is somehow a liberal value. There is good and evil in this world. When you stand with Hamas, you stand with evil. When you stand with the Iranian regime, you stand with evil. When you stand with Israel, you stand on the side of justice.
Israel has endured two terrible years on the battlefield and in the international arena. But in those two years, we also rediscovered our own greatness. We remember how good we can be. Our pilots who took control of the skies over Iran. Our industries leading the world in technology. Our civil society which reached out to help every victim of the war. We will move forward toward a different future. Our heroic soldiers who saved us all will fold away their uniforms and rise as teachers and engineers, scientists and innovators, investors and small business owners.
We will never be able to repay the debt to those who sacrificed everything these past years to those who, as President Lincoln said, gave the last full measure of devotion. We can only be worthy of them, worthy of their sacrifice. Mr. President, allow me to speak also to the businessmen in you, the dealmaker who understands value. If there were one stock in the world I would invest in today, it is the state of Israel. If there were one nation that deserves unrestricted access to GPU chips, to AI and SMR technologies, to American markets, it is the state of Israel. Israel's future is intertwined with our eternal alliance, our strategic and moral covenant with our greatest friends, the United States of America.
This war is over. We will always need to stay vigilant to guard against those who seek our destruction. But the state of Israel is about to reinvent itself. The challenges ahead demand not only strength but a new vision. It's time to take a new path to be a nation that is advanced and thriving and peace-seeking. We have waited for this moment, for the end of the war, for the return of the hostages, for the chance to channel our grief and loss into the energy needed to rebuild our nation. Thanks to you, Mr. President. Thanks to our soldiers, our lions. Thanks to the millions of great Israeli patriots who filled the streets and the square and never, not for one moment, gave up on the hostages. Thanks to all of them, the strength within us can now rise, succeed, and build for our future and for our children. Thank you very much. God bless the United States of America. Am Israel Chai.
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