ISRAEL SOLIDARITY RALLY, DRURY LANE THEATRE,
LONDON 23 SEPTEMBER 2001
CHIEF RABBI PROFESSOR JONATHAN SACKS

Of the 6000 languages spoken in the world today, only one is
truly universal: the language of tears.
And that is the language we speak today.

For a year we've shared tears with the people of Israel,
who've suffered the almost unimaginable number of more than
7000 terrorist attacks. That is one an hour, every hour of
every day for almost a year. In their wake, they've left
thousands injured and more than 170 dead.

And now we share tears with the people of America, who have
suffered the worst single peacetime act of terror they and
we have ever known. And we say to them, your grief is ours.
We feel it in our very bones.

Ribbono shel olam [Lord of the Universe]: you know we never
sought this.

Almost three thousand years ago your prophets were the first
people in all of history to speak of peace as an ideal.

There wasn't one prayer we prayed for a hundred generations
that didn't end with a prayer for peace.

And today, we heard the father of a murdered son, and the
brothers and sisters of Israeli soldiers missing in
action -- people whose lives have been shattered by grief --
and in all they said, there was not one word of anger or
hate or desire for revenge; instead, just a deep humanity
and a desire for peace. Ribbono shel olam, this is your
people, and I am humbly proud to belong to it.

And when your children, ravaged by the Holocaust, came
together to rebuild their life as a nation in Your holy
land, all they ever sought was to live at peace with their
neighbours.

On the very day the state of Israel was born, attacked on
every one of its borders, David Ben Gurion said -- it's
there for all time in the declaration of independence -- "We
extend our hand to all neighbouring states and their peoples
in an offer of peace and good neighbourliness." And the
offer was rejected, as it has been rejected so many times
since.

Eight years ago the late Yitzhak Rabin shook hands with
Yassar Arafat before the cameras of the world, and Israel
and the Palestinians bound themselves to engage in
negotiations, renouncing all violence and terror. Yitzhak
Rabin gave his life for that ideal.

Another Prime Minister, Ehud Barak, offered more for the
sake of peace than anyone dreamt, anyone expected, anyone
thought possible. And at that very moment, when they were
being offered more than they could realistically have hoped,
the Palestinians broke the Oslo accords, and began a
campaign of terror, designed to undermine the very existence
of a Jewish home. It brought bloodshed to the streets, the
marketplaces, the restaurants, of Israel. But it did more
than that. It became a campaign of vilification directed to
the press and television screens of the world that 1 never
dreamed 1 would see in my lifetime.

It culminated in a United Nations conference in Durban, a
conference convened to fight racism, which became instead a
platform for a new and virulent racism, resurrecting every
evil image and myth of a thousand years of anti-semitism.

There, under the unprotesting eyes of the nations of the
world, the Jews of Israel were accused of racism, apartheid,
ethnic cleansing, genocide and crimes against humanity.

There was holocaust denial, not from crazed individuals but
from official government spokesmen. Thousands of leaflets
were distributed with passages adapted from the Protocols of
the Elders of Zion and cartoons from Der Sturmer. And this
at an international conference against racism?

Is this what the United Nations has become? Is this what humanity has
learned from the Holocaust? That Jews should
still face the hate about which the world once said, "Never
again"? That we should still have to defend our the right to
exist? That Jews should still be threatened, endangered,
held hostage, murdered for the mere fact that they are
Jews -- and then be blamed for it as well? Ribbono shel
olam -- is that what your world has become?

When the history of the 20th century comes to be written, it
will tell a simple story: of how fascism came and went;
how Soviet communism came and went;
and how anti-semitism came and stayed.

Al elah ani bochiyah. For these things, I weep.

And within a week of the hijacking of the United Nations
came the hijacking of four planes in the United States -- as
if to remind us what no one should ever have forgotten: that
hatred knows no boundaries. It spreads like fire, and if it
is not extinguished at the outset it blazes beyond control.

And yet even then, unbelievably, we heard voice after voice
blaming Israel, as if all the evils of the world have one
source: us, we who have striven for peace, for blessing and
for life. Friends, let me say it clearly and unequivocally.

There is only one connection between the attacks on Israel
and the United States. It has nothing to do with Israel's
relations with the Palestinians. It has nothing to do with
American foreign policy. It is that Israel and the United
States are free, open, liberal, democratic societies, and
therefore constitute the ultimate threat to those who seek
to create closed, repressive, autocratic and totalitarian
societies -- with no rule of law, no free press, no
independent judiciary, no permitted dissent, and no minority
rights.

Imagine this, that those journalists who have blamed Israel
in the past weeks were forced to leave Britain. Where would
they choose to live? In Afghanistan, under the Taleban? In
Gaza under the Palestinian authority? In lraq under Saddam
Hussein? In Iran or Libya or Syria or any other of a dozen
countries we could name? Or in Tel Aviv in the Israel they
condemn, where you can live as a Christian, pray as a
Muslim, even criticise the government, without being
imprisoned, mutilated or quietly assassinated.

Or ask this: who ever offered the Palestinians a future? The
Jordanians, who threw them out of Jordan? The Lebanese, who
threw them out of Lebanon? The Syrians, who threw them out
of Tripoli? Or all those other friends and neighbours who
used them ruthlessly, exploited them and gave them hate
instead of hope, and guns instead of food? The only nation
to offer the Palestinians a future has been Israel. And for
this Israel stands condemned.

Friends, there are certain condemnations that are badges of
honour. And if today in certain minds Israel is linked with
the United States -- let that too be a badge of honour.

Because it was the United States that, like Israel, was
created to be a home for refugees; the United States like
Israel that was built on freedom and respect for human life;
the United States like Israel that out of desolation made
prosperity; the United States like Israel that sought to
share its blessings with others. If these things are
condemned, then let us too be condemned; but let us never
stand with those who fear freedom, and kill those with whom
they disagree.

A few days ago, we sat in shul on Rosh Hashanah. What did we
read about when we read from the Torah and the prophets on
that holy of holies of Jewish time? We didn't read about war
or power or conquest. We read about Sarah and the gift of a
child. We read about Hannah and her prayer for a child. We
read about Rachel, weeping for her missing children.

I cannot tell you how moving I find it that this is the
greatest Jewish dream -- just that: to bring children into
the world, and give them a place of safety, a home; and
teach them the songs and stories of our people; and see them
grow and write their own chapter in our story; and make our
ancient faith young again. And in the end that simple love
of life and of children gave us the strength to outlive
every empire built on war and power and violence; and when
nations learn to love their children more than they hate
their neighbours, we will have peace.

And so I say to the enemies of freedom: Children deserve
better than to be taught to hate those with whom they must
one day learn to live. Children deserve better than to be
taught to win their place in heaven by committing suicide in
the act of killing others. Every child deserves a future. In
the name of all you hold holy, give your children hope.

Teach them to live, not die.

And as we stand today, with the people of Israel, with the
people of the United States and Britain, and with, 1
believe, the majority of Muslims around the world, I want
every one of us to leave this place with our heads held
high.

Let us say to the world: we will not answer hate with
hate; nor will we respond to terror with fear.

Let us say to our enemies: We do not seek our freedom at
the cost of yours; therefore do not seek yours at the cost of ours.

From this day forth, and for as long as it takes, let us pray for
peace, work for peace, and yes, if necessary, fight for
peace, until the children of the world, regardless of their
race faith, can grow up without hate and without fear:
loving the life that is theirs, respecting the life that is
their neighbours'. "See," said Moses, "I have set before you
life and death, the blessing and the curse. Therefore choose
life." That is now the choice that faces the world. Ribbono
shel olam, give every one of us the strength to defeat the
forces of death and, at last, build a world that honours
life.

---

Jewish Australia thanks readers Sonia Dobb
and JewsRead Chat for sending in this speech.

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