14/05/2024
Today we celebrate our independence, the return from the forced exile, and the de-colonization of our indigenous lands.
Zionist Israel is the gratest story of de-colonization in history. Our people survived brutal exile, which included pogroms, forced assimilation, massacres, blood libel, genocide, and Holocaust…
Our “host” countries brutalized us, subjected us, relegated us to ghettos, and in many cases tried to steel our very identity as Jews forbidding use of our native Language, banning religious practice and traditions, and forbidding any outward expression of our Jewishness.
Yet here we stand, having broken the chains of exile, returned to our indigenous home lands, brought our language back from the dead, built and rebuilt cities, infrastructure, and industry. All to become one of the strongest, most innovative, productive, and positive contributors to humanity on the planet. In just 76 years.
In that time we have been attacked by enemies both internal and external. We have been terrorized by Jihadist murderers. We have successfully defended ourselves in many wars by nearly every country that surrounds us. We have lived in a constant state of war, intifada, or imminent threat of war and terror from the day that we proclaimed our independence.
Yet here we stand continuing to thrive.
We, in the face of the most harrowing times we have faced as the modern State of Israel, have bound ourselves to one another in the most unprecedented ways, we have fought with deep conviction and morality, and our commitment to a free and democratic ideal had never been stronger.
We see clearly, we see that the most potent and brutal colonizer in the history of the world is the Islamic Fundamentalist Caliphate dreamer. Their imperialistic hegemony and expansionism has destroyed nations. Brutalized and ethnically cleansed minority groups, and marginalized communities. Whole religions, national identities, customs, and groups of people have been systematically destroyed by Islamic conquest. They don’t seek borders, they seek global dominance.
Zionism, stands in the face of this global face of Islamic evil. We a small, insignificant number of Jews reclaimed our land from the iron grip of the Islamic caliphate dream. We have shown the world that the old way of colonialism and imperialism can be broken.
We have brought hope to the world. We have risen from the ashes of our exile, we have taken back our destiny, no longer to suffer fate at the whim of our oppressor.
This light, the light of the success of the Jewish people, the successfull re-establishment of the Nation of Israel as a democratic, multicultural, free society - is blinding to the evil that has befallen the world.
This is why we see the hate and vitriol against us. The light we shine as a nation threatens the very existence of the evil in the world.
Today I stand proud as a Jew, as a Israeli, as a Zionist.
לא נופלים מדור תש״ח
