Notable & Quotable

Posted

From Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s speech to the Israeli Knesset in Jerusalem Jan. 20:

Israel is the only country in the Middle East which has long anchored itself in the ideals of freedom, democracy and the rule of law.

And these are not mere notions.

They are the things that, over time and against all odds, have proven to be over and over again the only ground in which human rights, political stability, and economic prosperity may flourish.

These values are not proprietary.

They do not belong to one people or one nation.

Nor are they a finite resource.

On the contrary, the wider they are spread, the stronger they grow.

Likewise, when they are threatened anywhere, they are threatened everywhere.

And who threatens them, or more precisely, what today threatens the societies that embrace such values and the progress they nurture?

Those who scorn modernity, those who loathe the liberty of others, and those who hold the differences of peoples and cultures and religions in contempt.

Those who often begin by hating the Jews.

But, history shows us, [they] end up hating anyone who is not like them.

Those forces, which have threatened the State of Israel every single day of its existence and which, as 9-11 graphically showed us today, threaten all of us.

And so, we either stand up for our values and our interests here in Israel, stand up for the existence of a free, democratic and distinctively Jewish state, or the retreat of our values and our interests in the world will begin.