A Leading Political Figure Reports on Israel

A Leading Political Figure Reports on Israel An address given to the Los Angeles World Affairs Council On September 15, 2011 by His Excellency Danny Danon Deputy Speaker of the Israeli Knesset; Chairman of the World Likud Organization Shalom good evening everyone. It is my pleasure being here. This is my second trip this month. My first one was to Southern Sudan, the new nation in Africa. And I have to tell you that the hotels in Beverly Hills are much nicer, and the food is much better. But the hospitality I received in Southern Sudan was very warm. And I was delighted to see a new nation that was only 60 days old; created a new Christian nation in the middle of Africa; of people who support and love Israel. When I met the president of Southern Sudan, Salva Kiir, we shared what s happening in the Middle East and the UN vote that s coming next week. And I asked him, Mr. President, please do not vote against Israel. And he told me, Mr. Danon, we have similar issues, because we are fighting the Muslims from Northern Sudan. We don t fight them about oil rights only. We don t fight with them about borders only. We fight with them about the very existence of a Christian nation in Southern Sudan. 1

This is very similar to what we have today in Israel. It is not about Jerusalem. It is not about the settlements in Judea and Samaria. It is not about other issues. It is about the very existence of a Jewish state in the Middle East. Tomorrow morning I will be flying to New York City to attend the UN General Assembly. You know, as a politician, we always look for places to speak; for media exposure. But last night I got a phone call from the Prime Minister Netanyahu that was very happy. The Prime Minister told me he will come personally to attend the UN next week. I thought it was a right decision because we need the top politician in Israel to come and explain the case of Israel in front of the UN. I can tell you that Prime Minister Netanyahu will do an excellent job there. He will put all the facts in front of the UN. But they will vote against us. It has nothing to do about looking at the facts and about the reality. I know there are a few lawyers in the crowd today. And when you speak about the Oslo Accord that was signed in 1993 and 1995, I have to admit I was against. I think it was a mistake, the Oslo Accord. But it was signed by the Prime Minister of Israel, Yitzhak Rabin. It was signed by President Clinton. It was signed by Yasser Arafat. And when I look at what is written there, I say, Wake up! When you read the Oslo Accords, it states clearly that neither side will take unilateral action until the end of the negotiation. Open it tonight. Google the Oslo Accords and you ll see it. 2

And look what s going happen next week? The Palestinians are ignoring completely the Oslo Accords, and they are going to declare a state at the UN. And actually, what they are telling us is: we do not believe in negotiations anymore. We do not believe that we should negotiate with Israel anymore. And you see what s happening with other nations who were witness to the Oslo Accords in the White House: Russia; the EU, they are ignoring it. It s not the way to proceed to achieve genuine peace. You have to sit and talk. I told Prime Minister Netanyahu, If this is the case, and this is the way we re being treated in the UN, there is only one answer. If the Palestinians are going to the UN unilaterally, Israel must unilaterally take actions as well. I suggest, and I promote a bill in the Israeli parliament, in the Knesset, that Israel will annex the Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria. That should be the response to a unilateral action that is being made by the Palestinians. I don t believe we can achieve peace if each side is taking unilateral actions. But on the other end we cannot allow, and we cannot permit, Palestinians taking unilateral actions, ignoring everything that was agreed so far, and we should stand still. You have a very nice neighborhood here in Beverly Hills; West LA; Los Angeles. Unfortunately in Israel it is a beautiful country, with a lot of holy sites for Christians; for Jews; for Muslims. But we didn t pick the neighbors. And when you look at our neighbors today, it s not the best neighborhood. 3

We cannot move all of them. We had a discussion about it we cannot move all of them. And today, when I open a newspaper and I hear about the Arab Spring it s a beautiful word, Arab Spring. It sounds like it s coming from poetry. But look at the reality. What is it, the Arab Spring? Look what s happening today in Libya. Look what s happening in Egypt; in Syria. I can tell you there are two scenarios for the Arab Spring. Neither of them is connected to Democracy or to Human Rights Values. The first scenario: there will be more of the same. Instead of Mubarak, there will be Tantawi or Suleiman or Mohammed. And instead of Khadafi there will be somebody else. In the second scenario, it will be worse than the situation today, and that s what we see today. We see that those countries are becoming radical; hostile. And those countries are heavily supported by the US with your taxpayer s money. And today when I m meeting congressmen and senators, I encourage them, and I encourage you, as people who are influential in the community; who are involved to tell to your congressmen and senators to stop the military support for those countries. If you want to support them, support them. Send them food. Send them medical supply; education. Send them books. But don t send them military supplies. Don t share with them the intelligence that you acquire. Because it is only a matter of time until they will use that intelligence and technology against 4

Israel and against the US. And I m saying against Israel and the US because we are in the same boat. We are in the same boat. Today in Iran and I m sure there are some Iranians in the crowd but today in Iran, every morning, when a child it can be a Muslim child; a Jewish child; a Christian child when you step into the school in Iran, you have to walk over the Israeli flag. But that s not enough. After you walk over the Israeli flag, you walk over the American flag. And they are chanting every morning and I admire you for that, the way you respect your flag and your national anthem. I think we Israelis should learn from you on these issues and principles. But in Iran, they are chanting against the US and against Israel at the same time. And for that matter, because we share the same values, we have the same enemies. Look, we all saw the whole picture of 9/11. It doesn t matter how many times you look at those pictures and hear the testimonies and you understand how bad terrorism can be on daily life. But Al Qaeda chose to attack Manhattan. And those of you who have been to Tel Aviv very nice towers in Tel Aviv today, the Israeli towers and they become a symbol of Tel Aviv. And I can tell you even though we have a lot of intelligence and a lot of precautions, if Osama bin Laden wanted to attack the towers of Israeli in Tel Aviv, he could have done it successfully. But he chose to attack Manhattan. 5

And if, God forbid, we do not stand together against our enemies, no one will guarantee you that they will attack Israel first and I am referring mainly to the threat coming from Iran. Next week in the UN, I will see Ahmadinejad. Every year he comes. You let him in. You have to let him in because of the UN. Your taxpayer s money is paying also for the UN. Ahmadinejad is coming every year, and we condemn him. We speak against him. But when he goes back to Tehran he continues to build the nuclear reactors in Iran. And if, God forbid, Iran becomes nuclear, it will be a threat to you in Beverly Hills. It will be a threat for us in Tel Avi and Jerusalem. And no one will guarantee you that the threat will be in the missiles flying to Jerusalem or in a container in a San Diego port. No one knows what will happen there and for that matter we need to see a strong leadership coming from the White House. We need a strong leadership that will lead the fight against Iran. When I met the Prime Minster of Australia, and I asked her to get involved about the issue of Iran, she told me very sincerely, Danny, we will follow the US. Whatever the US will do, we will follow the US. That is the same response we are getting from the European countries. But in order to follow you need to see leadership. And I think that today, we do not see enough leadership coming from the US. 6

I know we talk about the issues of the Palestinians and about other issues that we are all concerned about, but you cannot compare the risk that we have coming from Iran to the other issues. When you open the newspapers today, even in the US, leave aside the job creation issue which is important for all of you then you read about settlements; Palestinians going to the UN. You don t read about Iran. It s scary because history has taught the Jewish people that, when you have a leader who is motivated, organized, and has an agenda against the Jewish people, you cannot ignore him. And that is exactly what is happening today in Iran. You have a leader who is motivated; organized, who is building the capability, and he is saying it out loud that he will use it against the Jewish people. And we cannot ignore it. And if, God forbid, we see that nobody reacts and people ignore it, Israel will have to deal with the threat itself. We have the military ability to do it. But we don t want it to be a war between Jews against Muslims, or Israel against Iran. But I can share with you the information that the Israeli air force is training for flying from Tel Aviv to Barcelona. The Israeli pilots, you know why they are flying to Barcelona? Not because they want to look over the [soccer] stadium with Barcelona winning Madrid. They re flying to Barcelona because it is exactly same distance between Tel Aviv and Tehran. And we know how to do fueling in the air, and we know how to sustain our forces even if it s at a distance, and we proved it. We proved it in the 80s, when we decided to bomb the nuclear reactor in Iraq with the brave decision 7

of a brave prime minister, Prime Minister Menachem Begin. And he was condemned by the UN and in the US people condemned him. But 10 years later when the US forces invaded Iraq they said, Thank God the Israelis took care of the reactors in Iraq. I tell you this is the time to take another bold decision and deal with the reactors in Tehran. Otherwise, it will come to a point of no return and then we will start to negotiate with Tehran, and we will see other countries like Turkey; like Egypt. If Iran is to become nuclear, we will have to do the same. We can do the same and nobody will ever stop it. I know that you all are all following what will happen next week in the UN. So I can share with you that on the ground in Israel, nothing will change. Even if there will be a vote in the General Assembly, and the Palestinians will win that vote, it will not change the facts on the ground. But I know that, not all of you, but most of you have Facebook accounts, there will be a lot of flags. There will be a state in Facebook. People say they like the idea. But in order to have a state you have to have certain conditions. And today when I look at the Palestinians; at the amount of hate inside them, I ask myself: which state do they want to have? When they decided to work together with the Hamas you have few states, North Korea; Iran; Libya before the revolution. Do we want to see another state that promotes terrorism? I don t know about you, but where I live it s about four-and-a-half kilometers from the 67 line. I don t want to see a state of terrorism in my backyard. In English you say it very nice, NIMBY not in my backyard. We 8

don t have this word in Hebrew, but I don t want to see in my backyard a state of terrorists. That s what will happen though. You know, we saw the pictures of the US troops hunting down Osama bin Laden, and I think it was magnificent. That is the way you fight terrorism. I saw people celebrating in Time Square. You were watching it on television and we did the same in Israel. You know there was one leader that condemned the assassination of the freedom fighter Osama bin Laden. You know who was the leader who condemned the assassination of the freedom fighter? Anyone? No, not Ahmadinejad, not him. Believe it or not he kept quiet. Somebody else who gets funding from Ahmadinejad: Khaled Meshaal, the leader of the Hamas. He sent a press release; a statement a written statement where he condemned the assassination of Osama bin Laden. And look what s happened: On one hand, the American president, taking a brave decision, sending the troops to hunt down a terrorist. On the other hand, he s trying to push Israel to sit down and compromise with the same organization. It doesn t work that way. We can not do it. Now, it s not easy for us when we share the same values and we are partners in the same boat. It is not easy for us to come and to tell the American President we can not do it. And today the Palestinians, what they want, they want to go into a negotiation room. 9

But before they go into the room they want too know exactly the outcome of the negotiation. I don t know how you run your own business but you don t run a negotiation with the other side stepping into the room with the result of the negotiation. But that s exactly what the Palestinians want. And let s leave aside my beliefs about the right of the Jews to the land; the Biblical rights. Let s leave aside the historical rights. Let s leave aside the security rights. Let s say, even if you are willing to compromise on everything, you don t get into a room for negotiation with the other side know that we accepted everything in advance. And now, when the White House and the EU is trying to find a compromise before the vote next week, that is what they are offering us. You will postpone the vote, but you will have to permit that you will accept the demand of the Palestinians for the final negotiations. And I told the prime minister, and I am telling you tonight, no, we can not do it. And we will not do it. It is against the interests of the Jewish people and we should do what is in the benefit of the people in Israel. And if I have to choose and I know one of the questions I covered already the issue of Iran. There are two questions it doesn t matter where I go, Sudan; Australia or Manhattan; two questions I have to answer every evening. One of them is about Iran. The second one is about the Israeli P.R. why we don t do so well in the media. 10

So I think I coved the issue of Iran. But the issue of the media, I will tell you frankly, if I need to choose to lose the PR war but to make sure the Israelis live safely in their homes, I will fail to lose the PR war. When we decided to invade Gaza in order to bring tranquility to the citizens who live in the southern part of Israel, look what happened. We took the Jews out of Gaza six year ago in order to have peace. But instead of getting a peaceful response, we are got missiles flying from Gaza to Israel. When we decided to go into Gaza, we received the Goldstone Report coming from the UN. We received a lot of bad media. But I prefer to deal with the media and next week in the UN I will deal with media. I prefer to do that. But to let the Israeli s live safely in their homes. So we do need to do a better job in explaining the issues, and mainly the issue of human rights. But always the Palestinians are talking about human rights and I ask myself, what about the human right of Jews in Israel? Do you know that there is an Israeli soldier by the name of Gilad Shalit who s been held in captivity for more than five years? Nobody visited him. Not the Red Cross. Not the UN. Not the EU. Not his parents. Not a lawyer. No one. And I don t hear those voices. And I put a bill in the Knesset and I hope to finish with the translation in the next few months that says there will be no visitation rights for Hamas prisoners in Israeli jails until there will be visitation rights for Gilad Shalit. 11

And if the Red Cross will come to us and ask us, Why you doing so? We will ask them, Where have you been? Where have you been so many years when we have Israeli soldiers in captivity? I m talking about a visit. Just a visit of the Red Cross, which is a given. It s a minimum. So I think what we have to do in Israel, whether we should walk together with the US., because we are together. We can argue every once in a while like a family. But you have to work together. We have to promote our common interests. But we in Israel also have to remember that if push comes to shove it will be our task to defend ourselves. We saw it in the past and I think we will have to see it in the future. I want to thank you very much, first of all for being involved. I see the young crowd that joined us here today, and I think I am very happy for the youngsters here. I believe a lot in the young people. I was your age when I decided to get involved in politics. Whether it was a good decision or a bad decision, you can ask my wife about it. But it was around your age when I decided to make a change not only to look about what s happening and to complain but to actually be inside, and I encourage you to be involved. But also today in Israel I work a lot with the youngsters; get them more involved; get them connected to the Jewish heritage or to come to Jerusalem to know their roots. I believe we will not be able to achieve peace in the near future, and it s a hard sell for you sorry. 12

I know we are a real politician and we have to sell something to you. We have to sell change. We have to sell economy; job creation. You vote for me or give me a donation and I will do one; two; three. Today I am coming and telling you I have nothing to sell to you. There will be no change in the near future in Israel. There will be no peace in the near future in Israel. But let s use our energy and our time to educate the youngsters about the heritage; about the commitment to the land. And one day one day there will be a real viable partner on the other side and we will be able to sit and negotiate and achieve a viable peace. But until that day comes we should focus our energy and ourselves on our youngsters and our commitment. Thank you very much. www.lawac.org Speeches are edited for readability and grammar, not content. The views expressed herein are not endorsed by the Council. The Los Angeles World Affairs Council is a non-profit, non-partisan organization that pays neither honoraria nor expenses to its speakers. 13