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Your Excellency, honoured guests and friends ...
Shalom.
There are approximately 235 countries in the world of which barely 60 are constitutional democracies governed by rule of law. Few countries have as free a press. And fewer yet are so completely under the media microscope.
The great powers of the world which have grown over the last two centuries have been moulded by civil wars, transitional regimes and revolutions. Visions and ambitions have changed. In our world - even the free world, we cannot take stability for granted.
How remarkable it is then, that over a century ago in Basle, the ideologues of the Zionist world, framed a vision of a constitutional democracy with universal suffrage. That 56 years ago their vision was realised. That in the entirety of Israel’s existence it has been a democratic state - which has seen democratic transition from governments of the left to the right and back. Thirty elected governments, eight Presidents; freedom of expression, a free press, a strongly independent judiciary, which can and will, without fear, rule against government policy and practice.
Israel - we are proud of you.
Let us not under-appreciate the magnificence of such accomplishment ... setting aside the terrible context of war, and terror, and the challenges - which Israel has faced and still faces - from the moment of its inception.
So often we marvel at the very miracle of Israel’s determined survival, that we neglect the additional accomplishments.
Just this month, for example, an Israeli software company, Ex Libris, has reported that its Aleph software has been commissioned to power libraries including - Harvard University and the University of California (with twenty-four million titles); the British Library, the China National Library and the Historical Department of the French Army. The Ex Libris software is used by over 3 million people in over 50 countries in over 20 languages for 18 national libraries and seven national banks.
This technology originated from the computer faculty of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Israel - we are proud of you.
In 1976 a volunteer organisation called Yad Sarah was established by a young man from Haifa called Uri Lupolianski. Named in memory of his grandmother who perished in the Holocaust, Yad Sarah is a free-lending service for wheelchairs through to the most sophisticated scanners and medical equipment. It lends to Jews, Christians, Moslems ... citizens and tourists ... for free.
I remember in 1992, when I was at Yeshiva, Yad Sarah was operating out of two old coaches across the road from my studies. This month’s accounts show that Yad Sarah has 6,000 volunteers in 100 units. With an annual budget of US$12 million it saves the country over $300 million in hospitalisation. Over 350,000 people a year take advantage of its services. Yad Sarah was awarded the Israel prize a couple of years back. Yad Sarah has since been invited to set up and advise on the establishment of over a dozen satellites internationally - particularly in developing countries and former Soviet republics.
Last year, Yad Sarah was given official NGO recognition by the United Nations; unique recognition for an organisation of its size.
Israel we are so proud of you.
Yad Sara’s founder, Uri Lupolianski, was recently elected mayor of Jerusalem.
This month it was announced that Israeli companies have won contracts for over $200 million for projects related to the Athens Olympics. These are in a variety of different fields including telecommunications, broadcasting and security.
Israeli companies account for $100 million per annum in biotech research and clinical trials. That’s a fair whack of a global market of $2 billion.
In March, Israel set up a joint science research facility over the rift valley with Jordan. It established a “Space Technology and Astrophysics Research for Students” or STARS centre - in the memory of astronaut Ilan Ramon. It will include a state of the art planetarium.
In March, also, India announced that it was going to take on Israeli cotton farming technology to improve its yield from 45% per hectare to 97% - the standard that Israel has achieved - the highest in the world.
Israel, we are so proud of you.
Israel, beyond the politics; Israel, beyond the terror - is a succession of successes, of achievement, of accomplishment in arts and science, in humanitarian aid and emergency rescue. Story after story, buried under the rubble of hostility and of jealousy.
There is no-one else, anywhere else, who will guarantee our safety as a people.
No-one else, anywhere else, so active in promoting our heritage and culture. Israel has made a desert bloom to the envy of those around. It has brought to life historic cities and ancient monuments.
To those who risk their lives every day just to keep it going; we acknowledge how thoroughly we are in your debt. Were it not for the resilience and tenacity, the heroism and the courage of those who were born into a battlefield; who take buses which might be bombed, shop in malls which might be attacked, eat in restaurants - knowing that since September 2000, Hamas has perpetrated 425 terrorist attacks of various kinds including over 50 homicidal bombings, in which 377 Israelis were murdered and 2,076 civilians and soldiers were wounded. Were it not for the resilience and courage of our brothers and sisters - we would have no state, no security and nothing to celebrate today.
Your Excellency - please convey to the people of Israel our congratulations, our appreciation, our solidarity and our support; our heartfelt prayers for a year of peace.
Democracy, freedom, liberty and justice - you have a friend that shines as a beacon. That friend is Israel.
And we are so, so proud of you.