‘Settlements don’t threaten our existence, they guarantee it,’
Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin spoke Wednesday in honor of Zionist leader Zev Jabotinsky. Rivlin took the opportunity to reject statements made by President Shimon Peres several days earlier during a memorial for Binyamin Zev (Theodore) Herzl.
Peres had warned that Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria (Shomron) pose a demographic threat to Israel’s future as a Jewish state.
“I admire and respect President Peres, as a noted Zionist and a beloved public representative,” Rivlin said. “But the students of Jabotinsky, myself included, do not see settlements as a threat to our existence.”
“The communities in Judea and Samaria do not threaten our existence, they guarantee our existence,” he said.
Regardless, Judea and Samaria communities should not be judged solely by their strategic usefulness, Rivlin argued. “The settlements are not more or less justified based on their strategic location,” he said. “Rather, based on our right to our land.”
“Unfortunately,” he added, “today there are many who think we do not need to emphasize this right… Even those who think we must give up parts of the land must not hint at disregard for our right.”
Rivlin expressed sympathy with Israeli Arabs while not-so-subtly accusing the left of racism. “I feel pain for the Arab public in Israel, which is humiliated over and over by statements that describe it – or its brothers, and it by implication – as a threat,” he said.
“Jabotinsky’s liberal, democratic and nationalist tradition is not part of the ‘demographobic’ school of thought,” he continued. “That school, which spends all day counting heads – whether east of the armistice line or west of it – is dangerous.”
“For the one thing, because in the name of demography the two-state solution is presented as necessary. Worse than that, because in the name of demography, Arab citizens of Israel wake up in the morning and discover that they are a threat. They find that when they brought children into the world, they were plotting against the state of Israel, without even realizing it,” he said.
The legacy of Jabotinsky is to take the vision of Jewish democratic state seriously, “and not to let go,” he concluded.
That is precisely the reason for making the legal case of ownership of J & S and then perhaps make a deal that the Pal will have “to take or leave it” at their own expenses once for all.
End of the BS!
LET US HOPE THAT R RIVLIN WILL BACK HIS SUPPORT FOR THE SETTLEMENTS WITH ACTION. ABOUT TIME THAT THE ISRAELI LEADERSHIP PROCLAIM AND DEFEND HER RIGHTS.
I commented on, and posted here, this article last week when it first came out. as I said then, rivlin when talking to the settlers is obviously trying to make up for his incompetent leadership failure where he and Yaalon jumped on a settler lynch mob bandwagon without a shred of evidence and the revenge burning of Jews was a direct result of him spreading a lie. I noted that he made the statements in a speech to settlers but you never heard that in public or to foreign leaders.
correction: following is the one I commented on last week but the gist of my criticism is the same in that he made a terrible and crucial error in leadership which demonstrated he is not fit to be president… a president says lets wait until the facts come out but he and Yaalon without a shred of evidence accused the settlers and therefore the revenge burnings of Jews is his and yaalons responsibility
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/199859#.VeNinflVgSU
Rivlin: Our Right to Judea and Samaria is a Basic Fact
Israeli President defends Israel’s rights to Biblical heartland as ‘fact’ – not ‘political debate.’
Rivlin finally has the guts to say what we think .When The USA gives back California and Texas to Mexico and Alaska to the Russians then come back to us .Its time to classifie groups like JStreet the enemy of Israel and close the borders to them . 99% of these morons have never been to Israel .these are the same Jews that did nothing when 6 million Jews died in the concentration camps .The rabbis that sign that petition to accept Iran as a peace partner and letting them have the bomb will be playing golf on Yom Kippur