This is a proud Jew and Zionist. This is a Jew telling it like it is. Outstanding.
I like the cut of Naftali Bennett's jib.
I did a rough translation. Feel free to share it. If you are a Hebrew speaker reading it, feel free to send me edits-I'm obviously not a professional translator, but I think you get the idea. It's a pretty close translation.
Here is my translation:
My friends, friends, we understand your opposition. There is definitely room for that, but we invited Minister Bennett and I would ask that you give him a chance to speak, under the slogan of “It’s Time for Peace” and give him a chance to explain how he sees his peace.
Bennett:
Good afternoon.
In my previous life, I started, with three friends-more talented than me, a start up and we had a certain vision, and a very clear business plan- the product was for individual internet purchases with credit cards, everything was perfect on paper, we raised money and were on our way. We had all the plans.
After a year and a half, going two hundred kilometers per hour 70 employees, huge monthly expenses, month after month and we had no sales.
Each month, I had to stand in front of our directorate and say, here is our plan-what has to happen is, if we sell our product to 10 clients we will break event and then get start to make a profit. And another month went by and we had no profit, so what did we do? We moved the columns on our Excel spreadsheet one column over to the right. Another month, and another month we were heading right into a wall, going 200 km per hour.
Until, one day my deputy financial director Gilad Zvi said to me ‘Naftali, if we continue like this, the company will close’.
And at that moment, that was my moment of awakening that turned everything upside down, it was hard. WE changed everything. The product, the product that we had invested so much time and money and energy into-we threw it out. We went with a completely different product, turned course 180 degrees, we were also forced to trip our workforce down to 27 employees from 70. Now there are 400 employees in the company. And in the end, after a number of years, we hung on, and we even turned a profit.
The Israeli left, sitting here in the audience, like us-we raped the reality to fit an imaginary plan. Month after month, year after year rapes reality to fit its own theory.
How many missiles have to fall on the residents of Beersheva, Sderot and Ashkelon until you
(crowd yelling)
Bennett:
Friends, this is the last place that I thought that people would be prevented from speaking. And whoever tries will not succeed. I represent millions of Israeli citizens and I will say it again and again. And nobody will shut my mouth.
On the ground, the imaginary peace-over and over gets hit by reality missiles and it’s time to wake up.
The same “experts” and I see a list there or organizations-it’s exactly the same people who brought a terrorist organization from Tunis to Judea and Samaria-it’s the same people, who said when there were victims, that they were “victims for peace”, the same people who challenged the Prime Minister of Israel to expel 8,000 Jews from Gush Katif, and in return, they built a terrorist base that today-is used to launch missiles on Israeli citizens, from the very same houses from which Jews were expelled.
These are the same people who explained to us that we are so close-just a touch away from peace with Syria if we could just surrender the Golan. Ladies and gentlemen, if we had surrendered G-d forbid, the Golan, Diash and El Nusra and would be washing their feet in the Kinneret (Sea of Galilee) beside Ein Gev.
When will you make a new plan?
I would like to present a vision for peace, but for real peace and it will take time and it will take courage.
Moderator:
Friends, this isn’t an election meeting. I would ask that you let Minister Bennett speak and let him say what he has to say. Listen politely, whoever doesn’t like it can leave the auditorium, but we came here to listen to speakers from various perspectives and I ask that you let Minister Bennett say what he has to say. Thank you very much.
(applause)
The Middle East has entered a new era, the era of the Muslim Spring, with instability that could last five years, fifty years, one hundred years. From Egypt which had a revolution and a counter-revolution, to Iraq, which is falling apart in front of our eyes, with the Sunnis, Kurds and Shiites, where a tiny organization Diyash (ISIS) has conqured northern Iraq; Mosul Tikrit, Falujah with a force of about 1,000 violent fighters, so violent that even Al Qeida stays away from them, through to Lebanon, through to Syria-where there a civil war, where the Syrian government has slaughtered 150,000 of its own citizens.
What is the vision of the State of Israel as we face this?
How can we get to peace and exist in this very complicated situation?
Three things:
The first is that territory is the determining factor. Territory determines the facts.
Look, for example Diyash (ISIS) has now ensconced itself on the eastern border of Jordan, on the Jordan-Iraq border. We don’t know what will be tomorrow. My opponents, even on the right, think that we have to create a Palestinian state that has borders that are basically the Green Line.
So, where do you want to meet Diyash (ISIS -and that is something that is not dependent upon us.
At the Jordan River? Or Highway 6 (in Israel)?
It doesn’t matter? Really? It really doesn’t matter?
Territory doesn’t matter, they told us.
Where are thousands of missiles being launched from?
From Gaza-when we evacuated the territory. And they explained that an age of missiles territory doesn’t matter.
How come not a single missile has been launched from Judea and Samaria on the State of Israel? Because territory is the determinant.
The second thing:
My friends, I was taught in civics, in civics class that true democrats will fight to the death for the privilege of letting a person with opposing opinions have his right to speak.
The second thing. The second thing is deterrence. Deterrence.
Imagine, you are in a very tough neighbourhood, violent, lawless. And that is the situation in the Middle East. And all the desires will not change that fact. So what do you do? You have to be strong. You have to be so strong that nobody will even think about hurting you. Syria looks at how we act in Gaza. Gaza looks to see how we act at the eastern fence. Everyone looks at everyone
What is deterrence? It’s a kind of blanket that you can’t see, that protects you and [?] defends you against your surroundings.
But deterrence is the ability to hit your enemy, along with the ability to do so when it is necessary.
(hecklers)
Now, the Jewish people and the State of Israel do not want war.
Do not want war.
And anyone here, in their chutzpah, who says I want war-tell me about it.
To my great sorrow I fought in the first Intifadah, in South Lebanon, in the second Intifadah. In Defensive Shield I got on a plane in New York to take part in re-taking Tulkarm. I took part in the second war in Lebanon. Nobody in this room will tell me will lecture me on the desire for peace.
I say to you: there isn’t a citizen in Israel who wants peace more than me. I lost friends. Open your ears. But not the fantasies that lead to war. So the second thing is deterrence.
The third thing is national, internal immunity.
Internal immunity is solidarity between different parts of society.
National immunity is caring for minorities like Arab Israelis. In the past year and a half, I have been working day and night to create tens of employment centres for Arab women, more than you-over there-you shouting at me-have done, so that thousands of Arab women, for the first time, are working and earning a living.
Internal immunity is solidarity. We saw in the past weeks a nation with internal immunity. We saw three amazing families-the Frenkel family, the Shier, the Yifrach family, they came together, not [?] as you say here, but in unity. I saw Shelley Yachimovitch visit them, I saw from each side-left to right come together in unity with a common purpose. National immunity is also understanding…
(crowd heckles)
The days when you yell incitements, and we shut up, are over.
(crowd boos)
Moderator:
Friends, I ask you to stop interrupting and let Minister Bennet speak and say what he has to say and to pay attention.
There are people here who supported speaking to Yasser Arafat. There cannot be a situation where we are not capable of listening to Minister Bennett.
Bennett:
A certain politician once said ‘the argument is weak so shout it’.
The last thing is the justice/righteousness of living in this land.
We have been in this land for 3000 years through Avraham, Yitzchak and Ya’akov. Ya’akov who is the forefather of the Jewish nation who changed his name to Israel.
Through the Judges, King David, King Solomon, the Hasmoneans, through the Second Temple period and the Return to Zion, the idea that a people cannot “occupy” their own land.
I want to finish by reading a few words from a Zionist leader and I will ask you which Zionist leader said this.
[Quote here-have to find it, hard to translate.]
Who was that? Berel Katznelson? Jabotinsky? Who is it? Tabenkin? Yitzhcak Rabin-no. I will tell you.
It was Shimon the Hasmonean, who wrote it 2150 years ago (more on Maccabees here).
Chazak, chazak v’nitchazek-thank you.
(Be strong, and we will be strengthened-thank you.)
