Ken Berwitz
Ladies and Gentlemen, Thepeople of Israel pray for peace.
But ourhopes and the world\’s hope for peace are in danger. Because everywhere we look,militant Islam is on the march.
It\’s notmilitants. It\’s not Islam. It\’s militant Islam. Typically, its first victims areother Muslims, but it spares no one. Christians, Jews, Yazidis, Kurds – nocreed, no faith, no ethnic group is beyond its sights. And it\’s rapidlyspreading in every part of the world. You know the famous American saying:”All politics is local”? For the militant Islamists, “Allpolitics is global.” Because their ultimate goal is to dominate the world.
ISIS andHamas share a fanatical creed, which they both seek to impose well beyond theterritory under their control.
AsHamas\’s charter makes clear, Hamas\’s immediate goal is to destroy Israel. ButHamas has a broader objective. They also want a caliphate. Hamas shares theglobal ambitions of its fellow militant Islamists. That\’s why its supporterswildly cheered in the streets of Gaza as thousands of Americans were murderedon 9/11. And that\’s why its leaders condemned the United States for killingOsama Bin Laden, whom they praised as a holy warrior.
So whenit comes to their ultimate goals, Hamas is ISIS and ISIS is Hamas.
Ladiesand Gentlemen, Militant Islam\’s ambition to dominate the world seems mad. Butso too did the global ambitions of another fanatic ideology that swept to powereight decades ago.
The Nazisbelieved in a master race. The militant Islamists believe in a master faith.They just disagree about who among them will be the master…
Once Iran produces atomic bombs, all the charm and allthe smiles will suddenly disappear. They\’ll just vanish. It\’s then that theayatollahs will show their true face and unleash their aggressive fanaticism onthe entire world. There is only one responsible course of action to addressthis threat: Iran\’s nuclear military capabilities must be fully dismantled.Make no mistake – ISIS must be defeated. But to defeat ISIS and leave Iran as athreshold nuclear power is to win the battle and lose the war.
To defeatISIS and leave Iran as a threshold nuclear power is to win the battle and losethe war.
Ladiesand Gentlemen, The fight against militant Islam is indivisible. When militantIslam succeeds anywhere, it\’s emboldened everywhere. When it suffers a blow inone place, it\’s set back in every place. That\’s why Israel\’s fight againstHamas is not just our fight. It\’s your fight. Israel is fighting a fanaticismtoday that your countries may be forced to fight tomorrow.
For 50days this past summer, Hamas fired thousands of rockets at Israel, many of themsupplied by Iran. I want you to think about what your countries would do ifthousands of rockets were fired at your cities. Imagine millions of yourcitizens having seconds at most to scramble to bomb shelters, day after day.You wouldn\’t let terrorists fire rockets at your cities with impunity. Norwould you let terrorists dig dozens of terror tunnels under your borders toinfiltrate your towns in order to murder and kidnap your citizens. Israeljustly defended itself against both rocket attacks and terror tunnels. Yet Israelalso faced another challenge. We faced a propaganda war. Because, in an attemptto win the world\’s sympathy, Hamas cynically used Palestinian civilians ashuman shields. It used schools, not just schools – UN schools, private homes,mosques, even hospitals to store and fire rockets at Israel.
As Israelsurgically struck at the rocket launchers and at the tunnels, Palestiniancivilians were tragically but unintentionally killed. There are heartrendingimages that resulted, and these fueled libelous charges that Israel wasdeliberately targeting civilians.
We werenot. We deeply regret every single civilian casualty. And the truth is this:Israel was doing everything to minimize Palestinian civilian casualties. Hamaswas doing everything to maximize Israeli civilian casualties and Palestiniancivilian casualties. Israel dropped flyers, made phone calls, sent textmessages, broadcast warnings in Arabic on Palestinian television, always toenable Palestinian civilians to evacuate targeted areas.
No othercountry and no other army in history have gone to greater lengths to avoidcasualties among the civilian population of their enemies. This concern forPalestinian life was all the more remarkable, given that Israeli civilians werebeing bombarded by rockets day after day, night after night. As their familieswere being rocketed by Hamas, Israel\’s citizen army – the brave soldiers of theIDF, our young boys and girls – they upheld the highest moral values of anyarmy in the world. Israel\’s soldiers deserve not condemnation, but admiration.Admiration from decent people everywhere.
Nowhere\’s what Hamas did: Hamas embedded its missile batteries in residentialareas and told Palestinians to ignore Israel\’s warnings to leave. And just incase people didn\’t get the message, they executed Palestinian civilians in Gazawho dared to protest.
No lessreprehensible, Hamas deliberately placed its rockets where Palestinian childrenlive and play. Let me show you a photograph. It was taken by a France 24 crewduring the recent conflict. It shows two Hamas rocket launchers, which wereused to attack us. You see three children playing next to them. Hamasdeliberately put its rockets in hundreds of residential areas like this.Hundreds of them.
Ladiesand Gentlemen, As Israeli children huddled in bomb shelters and Israel\’s IronDome missile defense system knocked Hamas rockets out of the sky, the profoundmoral difference between Israel and Hamas couldn\’t have been clearer: Israelwas using its missiles to protect its children. Hamas was using its children toprotect its missiles.
Afterdecades of seeing Israel as their enemy, leading states in the Arab worldincreasingly recognize that together we and they face many of the same dangers:principally this means a nuclear-armed Iran and militant Islamist movementsgaining ground in the Sunni world.
Ourchallenge is to transform these common interests to create a productivepartnership. One that would build a more secure, peaceful and prosperous MiddleEast.
Togetherwe can strengthen regional security. We can advance projects in water, agriculture,in transportation, in health, in energy, in so many fields.
I wantpeace because I want to create a better future for my people. But it must be agenuine peace, one that is anchored in mutual recognition and enduring securityarrangements, rock solid security arrangements on the ground. Because you see,Israel\’s withdrawals from Lebanon and Gaza created two militant Islamicenclaves on our borders from which tens of thousands of rockets have been firedat Israel.
Just look around you.
TheMiddle East is in chaos. States are disintegrating. Militant Islamists arefilling the void.
Israelcannot have territories from which it withdraws taken over by Islamic militantsyet again, as happened in Gaza and Lebanon. That would place the likes of ISISwithin mortar range – a few miles – of 80% of our population.
Thinkabout that. The distance between the 1967 lines and the suburbs of Tel Aviv islike the distance between the UN building here and Times Square. Israel\’s atiny country. That\’s why in any peace agreement, which will obviouslynecessitate a territorial compromise, I will always insist that Israel be ableto defend itself by itself against any threat. Yet despite all that hashappened, some still don\’t take Israel\’s security concerns seriously. But I do,and I always will. Because, as Prime Minister of Israel, I am entrusted withthe awesome responsibility of ensuring the future of the Jewish people and thefuture of the Jewish state.
