Mighty Democracies By GEORGE W. BUSH | May 16, 2008

The following are excerpts of remarks made by President Bush on Thursday
to members of the Knesset in Jerusalem:

We gather to mark a momentous occasion. Sixty years ago in Tel Aviv,
David Ben-Gurion proclaimed Israel’s independence, founded on the
“natural right of the Jewish people to be masters of their own fate.”
What followed was more than the establishment of a new country. It was
the redemption of an ancient promise given to Abraham and Moses and
David — a homeland for the chosen people Eretz Yisrael.

Eleven minutes later, on the orders of President Harry Truman, the
United States was proud to be the first nation to recognize Israel’s
independence. And on this landmark anniversary, America is proud to be
Israel’s closest ally and best friend in the world.

The alliance between our governments is unbreakable, yet the source of
our friendship runs deeper than any treaty. It is grounded in the shared
spirit of our people, the bonds of the Book, the ties of the soul. When
William Bradford stepped off the Mayflower in 1620, he quoted the words
of Jeremiah: “Come let us declare in Zion the word of God.” The
founders of my country saw a new promised land and bestowed upon their
towns names like Bethlehem and New Canaan. And in time, many Americans
became passionate advocates for a Jewish state.

Centuries of suffering and sacrifice would pass before the dream was
fulfilled. The Jewish people endured the agony of the pogroms, the tragedy
of the Great War, and the horror of the Holocaust — what Elie Wiesel
called “the kingdom of the night.” Soulless men took away lives and
broke apart families. Yet they could not take away the spirit of the
Jewish people, and they could not break the promise of God. When news
of Israel’s freedom finally arrived, Golda Meir, a fearless woman
raised in Wisconsin, could summon only tears. She later said: “For
two thousand years we have waited for our deliverance. Now that it is
here it is so great and wonderful that it surpasses human words.” ...

I have been fortunate to see the character of Israel up close. I have
touched the Western Wall, seen the sun reflected in the Sea of Galilee,
I have prayed at Yad Vashem. And earlier today, I visited Masada, an
inspiring monument to courage and sacrifice. At this historic site,
Israeli soldiers swear an oath: “Masada shall never fall again.”
Citizens of Israel: Masada shall never fall again, and America will be
at your side. ...

The fight against terror and extremism is the defining challenge of
our time. It is more than a clash of arms. It is a clash of visions,
a great ideological struggle. On the one side are those who defend the
ideals of justice and dignity with the power of reason and truth. On the
other side are those who pursue a narrow vision of cruelty and control
by committing murder, inciting fear, and spreading lies. ...

There are good and decent people who cannot fathom the darkness in
these men and try to explain away their words. It’s natural, but it
is deadly wrong. As witnesses to evil in the past, we carry a solemn
responsibility to take these words seriously. Jews and Americans have seen
the consequences of disregarding the words of leaders who espouse hatred.

And that is a mistake the world must not repeat in the 21st century.

Some seem to believe that we should negotiate with the terrorists and
radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have
been wrong all along. We have heard this foolish delusion before. As
Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared:
“Lord, if I could only have talked to Hitler, all this might have been
avoided.” We have an obligation to call this what it is — the false
comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history.

Some people suggest if the United States would just break ties with
Israel, all our problems in the Middle East would go away. This is a
tired argument that buys into the propaganda of the enemies of peace,
and America utterly rejects it. Israel’s population may be just over
7 million. But when you confront terror and evil, you are 307 million
strong, because the United States of America stands with you.

...The fundamental insight, that freedom yields peace, is the great lesson
of the 20th century. Now our task is to apply it to the 21st. Nowhere
is this work more urgent than here in the Middle East. We must stand
with the reformers working to break the old patterns of tyranny and
despair. We must give voice to millions of ordinary people who dream of
a better life in a free society. We must confront the moral relativism
that views all forms of government as equally acceptable and thereby
consigns whole societies to slavery. ... That future will be a dramatic
departure from the Middle East of today. ... if we and future Presidents
and future Knessets maintain our resolve and have faith in our ideals,
here is the Middle East that we can see:

Israel will be celebrating the 120th anniversary as one of the world’s
great democracies, a secure and flourishing homeland for the Jewish
people. The Palestinian people will have the homeland they have long
dreamed of and deserved — a democratic state that is governed by law,
and respects human rights, and rejects terror. From Cairo to Riyadh to
Baghdad and Beirut, people will live in free and independent societies,
where a desire for peace is reinforced by ties of diplomacy and tourism
and trade.

Iran and Syria will be peaceful nations, with today’s oppression
a distant memory and where people are free to speak their minds and
develop their God-given talents. Al Qaeda and Hezbollah and Hamas will
be defeated, as Muslims across the region recognize the emptiness of
the terrorists’ vision and the injustice of their cause.

Overall, the Middle East will be characterized by a new period of
tolerance and integration. And this doesn’t mean that Israel and its
neighbors will be best of friends. But when leaders across the region
answer to their people, they will focus their energies on schools and
jobs, not on rocket attacks and suicide bombings. With this change,
Israel will open a new hopeful chapter in which its people can live
a normal life, and the dream of Herzl and the founders of 1948 can be
fully and finally realized. ...

Sixty years ago, on the eve of Israel’s independence, the last
British soldiers departing Jerusalem stopped at a building in the Jewish
quarter of the Old City. An officer knocked on the door and met a senior
rabbi. The officer presented him with a short iron bar — the key to the
Zion Gate — and said it was the first time in 18 centuries that a key
to the gates of Jerusalem had belonged to a Jew. His hands trembling,
the rabbi offered a prayer of thanksgiving to God, “Who had granted
us life and permitted us to reach this day.” Then he turned to the
officer, and uttered the words Jews had awaited for so long: “I accept
this key in the name of my people.”

Over the past six decades, the Jewish people have established a state that
would make that humble rabbi proud. You have raised a modern society in
the Promised Land, a light unto the nations that preserves the legacy
of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. And you have built a mighty democracy
that will endure forever and can always count on the United States of
America to be at your side. God bless.