| SPEAKERS
Sister
rose thering
GOV.
GEORGE PATAKI
Elie
Wiesel
BILL
BENNETT
Benjamin
Netanyahu
MORTIMER
ZUCKERMAN and REP. DICK
GEPHARDT
Natan
Sharansky
Deputy
Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz
MARK
SOKOLOW and other victims
of terrorism
JANET
PARSHALL, Robert Goldberg and
Sen. Harry Reid
RABBI
MICHAEL MELCHIOR
REP.
DICK ARMEY
Rudolf
Giuliani
SEN.
ARLEN SPECTER
Senator
Barbara Mikulski
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ELIE
WIESEL
MR. MICHAEL BOHNEN: Thank you
all for being here. When I landed in Israel last Tuesday, just as I
stepped off the plane the two-minute siren began in commemoration of Yom
Ha Shoah. I was reminded that one major difference 60 years after the
Shoah that today, Thank God, Israel has an army to defend itself.
(Applause. Cheers.)
In 1986, the Nobel Prize for
Peace was awarded to our next speaker, a man who wrote about the Shoah
with passion and intensity. Elie Wiesel is a symbol of decency and
compassion, a symbol of glorious triumph of unspeakable adversity. But
he is much more than that: he is a man who renews the Jewish tradition
of speaking truth to power; who takes his campaign for human freedom and
dignity to places near and far where those values are threatened. No one
speaks with greater authority of evil and of violence, and no one speaks
of greater passion of the human and the humane.
Ladies and gentlemen, it is my
great honor to present to you Elie Wiesel. (Applause. Cheers.)
Elie Wiesel: My dear friends, this day will be remembered in the history
of American Jewry. (Applause. Cheers.) In the years to come, your
children and grandchildren will hear you tell the story of this
gathering, and simply you will then say, "I was there."
(Applause. Cheers.) And I am saying to you, my friends, today, this
place is our place. From near and far, by plane and by train, by bus and
by foot, we have come together here today, young and old, Jew and
non-Jew, not only to proclaim our solidarity with the state of Israel,
its citizens and its soldiers, but also to voice our fervent support of
President Bush's war on terrorism. (Applause. Cheers.)
This time both America and Israel know how real is the threat, and how
ugly the face of the enemy. This is a battle both nations have to
confront. The only difference is that at this moment Israel fights for
her existence. Still the terror hangs all over us. We are here to let
the Jewish state and its brave beleaguered citizens and its valiant
soldiers know that they are
not alone. (Applause. Cheers.)
When a family celebration is brought to a bloody halt by a suicide
bomber in Jerusalem – when a joyous Seder meal is turned into a
massacre in Netanya, it is not one Israeli family but the entire family
of Israel that makes us weep. We weep with them and for them. And you
know it is not only the Jews who mourn with them, but also the entire
American people and its leadership in the White House and Congress. We
have learned only too well that whatever happens in Israel could and did
happen here. On September 11th terrorists struck just two blocks from
where my son works in New York. We all know it could happen just because
as easily it happened – it could happen anywhere – in London, Paris.
Terrorism knows no borders. And therefore the opposition to terrorism
must know no borders. (Applause. Cheers.)
Nineteen suicide killers – 19 suicide killers – and I beg you, my
friends, don't use the expression from now on "suicide
bombers" – call them "suicide killers." (Applause.
Cheers.) They destroyed not only 3,000 lives in America, but also the
lives of people who loved them and needed them. And in doing so the
suicide hijackers – the hijackers changed its political and moral
outlook on this new century. How much more destruction and death? How
many more suicide killers will it take to make the civilized world
understand the fear and the pain and the anguish in which Jews live now
in their ancestral land?
Israel has endured untold murders – (inaudible) – saboteurs,
infiltrators and six wars. And remember the PLO and Fatah were created
before '67. (Applause. Cheers.) But what Israel goes through now, the
sorrow of Israel, and unprecedented – these murderer suicide killers
and their mentors claim that death is their sole weapon. Well, that is
the wrong weapon, and they will not succeed. If they want to live in
peace with Israel, Israel will respond. One thing is clear: there is no
sacred cause that justifies the killing of innocent people by suicide
bombing. (Applause. Cheers.)
Thousands of brave and selfless heroes gave their lives defending and
rescuing the innocent victims of terrorism on September 11th and the
days since. God bless the Fire Department of New York! (Applause.
Cheers.) God bless the New York Police! (Applause. Cheers.) And God
bless the New York – all those in New York of the Health Department,
the Police Department, who helped the victims survive. (Applause.
Cheers.) And God bless seven times fold the officers and soldiers and
the security services of Israel. (Applause. Cheers.) We owe it to them.
We owe it to those who fell and to their memories, to make sure their
sacrifice was not in vain. We owe it to them to make sure terrorism will
never become acceptable as a form of legitimate political expression. We
owe it to them to finish the job. (Applause. Cheers.)
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