I have never posted a speech on this blog.

This one is a MUST read.
It is one for the ages.

Speech by Ehud Olmert July 31, 2006

Ladies and gentlemen, leaders of the world. I, the
Prime Minister of Israel, am speaking to you from
Jerusalem in the face of the terrible pictures from
Kfar Kana. Any human heart, wherever it is, must
sicken and recoil at the sight of such pictures. There
are no words of comfort that can mitigate the enormity
of this tragedy. Still, I am looking you straight in
the eye and telling you that the State of Israel will
continue its military campaign in Lebanon.

The Israel Defense Forces will continue to attack
targets from which missiles and Katyusha rockets are
fired at hospitals, old age homes and kindergartens in
Israel. I have instructed the security forces and the
IDF to continue to hunt for the Katyusha stockpiles
and launch sites from which these savages are
bombarding the State of Israel.

We will not hesitate, we will not apologize and we
will not back off. If they continue to launch missiles
into Israel from Kfar Kana, we will continue to bomb
Kfar Kana. Today, tomorrow and the day after tomorrow.

Here, there and everywhere. The children of Kfar Kana
could now be sleeping peacefully in their homes,
unmolested, had the agents of the devil not taken over
their land and turned the lives of our children into
hell.

Ladies and gentlemen, it's time you understood: the
Jewish state will no longer be trampled upon. We will
no longer allow anyone to exploit population centers
in order to bomb our citizens. No one will be able to
hide anymore behind women and children in order to
kill our women and children. This anarchy is over. You
can condemn us, you can boycott us, you can stop
visiting us and, if necessary, we will stop visiting
you.

A voice for six million citizens

Today I am serving as the voice of six million
bombarded Israeli citizens who serve as the voice of
six million murdered Jews who were melted down to dust
and ashes by savages in Europe. In both cases, those
responsible for these evil acts were, and are,
barbarians devoid of all humanity, who set themselves
one simple goal: to wipe the Jewish race off the face
of the earth, as Adolph Hitler said, or to wipe the
State of Israel off the map, as Mahmoud Ahmedinjad
proclaims.

And you - just as you did not take those words
seriously then, you are ignoring them again now. And
that, ladies and gentlemen, leaders of the world, will
not happen again. Never again will we wait for bombs
that never came to hit the gas chambers. Never again
will we wait for salvation that never arrives. Now we
have our own air force. The Jewish people are now
capable of standing up to those who seek their
destruction - those people will no longer be able to
hide behind women and children. They will no longer be
able to evade their responsibility.

Every place from which a Katyusha is fired into the
State of Israel will be a legitimate target for us to
attack. This must be stated clearly and publicly, once
and for all. You are welcome to judge us, to ostracize
us, to boycott us and to vilify us. But to kill us?
Absolutely not.

Four months ago I was elected by hundreds of thousands
of citizens to the office of Prime Minister of the
government of Israel, on the basis of my plan for
unilaterally withdrawing from 90 percent of the areas
of Judea and Samaria, the birth place and cradle of
the Jewish people; to end most of the occupation and
to enable the Palestinian people to turn over a new
leaf and to calm things down until conditions are ripe
for attaining a permanent settlement between us.

The Prime Minister who preceded me, Ariel Sharon, made
a full withdrawal from the Gaza Strip back to the
international border, and gave the Palestinians there
a chance to build a new reality for themselves. The
Prime Minister who preceded him, Ehud Barak, ended the
lengthy Israeli presence in Lebanon and pulled the IDF
back to the international border, leaving the land of
the cedars to flourish, develop and establish its
democracy and its economy.

What did the State of Israel get in exchange for all
of this? Did we win even one minute of quiet? Was our
hand, outstretched in peace, met with a handshake of
encouragement? Ehud Barak's peace initiative at
Camp David let loose on us a wave of suicide bombers
who smashed and blew to pieces over 1,000 citizens,
men, women and children. I don't remember you being so
enraged then. Maybe that happened because we did not
allow TV close-ups of the dismembered body parts of
the Israeli youngsters at the Dolphinarium? Or of the
shattered lives of the people butchered while
celebrating the Passover seder at the Park Hotel in
Netanya? What can you do - that's the way we are. We
don't wave body parts at the camera. We grieve
quietly.

We do not dance on the roofs at the sight of the
bodies of our enemy's children - we express genuine
sorrow and regret. That is the monstrous behavior of
our enemies. Now they have risen up against us.
Tomorrow they will rise up against you. You are
already familiar with the murderous taste of this
terror. And you will taste more.

And Ariel Sharon's withdrawal from Gaza. What did it
get us? A barrage of Kassem missiles fired at peaceful
settlements and the kidnapping of soldiers. Then too,
I don't recall you reacting with such alarm. And for
six years, the withdrawal from Lebanon has drawn the
vituperation and crimes of a dangerous, extremist
Iranian agent, who took over an entire country in the
name of religious fanaticism and is trying to take
Israel hostage on his way to Jerusalem - and from
there to Paris and London.

An enormous terrorist infrastructure has been
established by Iran on our border, threatening our
citizens, growing stronger before our very eyes,
awaiting the moment when the land of the Ayatollahs
becomes a nuclear power in order to bring us to our
knees. And make no mistake - we won't go down alone.
You, the leaders of the free and enlightened world,
will go down along with us.

So today, here and now, I am putting an end to this
parade of hypocrisy. I don't recall such a wave of
reaction in the face of the 100 citizens killed every
single day in Iraq. Sunnis kill Shiites who kill
Sunnis, and all of them kill Americans - and the world
remains silent. And I am hard pressed to recall a
similar reaction when the Russians destroyed entire
villages and burned down large cities in order to
repress the revolt in Chechnya. And when NATO bombed
Kosovo for almost three months and crushed the
civilian population - then you also kept silent. What
is it about us, the Jews, the minority, the
persecuted, that arouses this cosmic sense of justice
in you? What do we have that all the others don't?

In a loud clear voice, looking you straight in the
eye, I stand before you openly and I will not
apologize. I will not capitulate. I will not whine.
This is a battle for our freedom. For our humanity.
For the right to lead normal lives within our
recognized, legitimate borders. It is also your
battle. I pray and I believe that now you will
understand that. Because if you don't, you may regret
it later, when it's too late.