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Olmert gave a speech two days ago:
>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.
>
> In a loud and clear voice:
>
>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.
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