Speeches

Statements by Senior

Embassy Officials

Ambassador Richard H. Jones Remarks for Independence Day

8:15 pm at the Ambassador’s Residence

July 3, 2007

Bruchim Haba’aim, Madam Interim President and Speaker of the Knesset, Mr. Prime Minister, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen!  Welcome to our Independence Day celebration.  This year, in true-blue Israeli style, we are holding the festivities on “the erev” of our holiday.  Also, it’s a Tuesday, which I’ve been told is twice as good according to local tradition.  But the timing of our celebration is less important than what we are commemorating tonight.  In fact, few people – even Americans – know that two hundred and thirty-one years ago today, the American colonies had already declared their independence from England.  It was on July 2, 1776, that the Second Continental Congress adopted the Lee Resolution declaring that:

These United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown…

However, the formal Declaration of Independence document was not signed until July 4, which became the official date to mark the occasion.  Since many of you work in government, you can surely appreciate that getting the whole declaration approved by its fifty-six signers in two days (without email I might add) was no mean feat! 

Of course, in practical terms, July 4 did not mark independence, but the beginning of a bitter war that would go on for seven long years.  And that was just the beginning of our struggle as a fledgling democracy.  Following that war, our leaders took decades to unite our country and reconcile their political ideals with the socio-political realities of the day, including slavery.  Eventually, our political divisions would devolve into a bloody civil war in which 200,000 of our citizens were killed, devastating our young country. 

Thus, I submit to you that tonight, rather than celebrating the birth of a perfect union, we venerate the courage and the audacity of 56 men who pledged their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor to unite for a common goal – a sovereign, independent and democratic America.  America’s Founding Fathers were merchants, farmers, scientists, physicians, and ministers, but above all, they were dreamers.  They dreamed of a nation free of tyranny from both within and without.  The Declaration of Independence was not merely a repudiation of the injustices imposed on the colonists by the British Crown, but a statement of the ideals that would guide the formation of a new nation committed to liberty, to the premise that all men are created equal and to the right of all its citizens to pursue their own dreams.

But the Founders were not America’s only dreamers.  To be an American is to dream; it is a part of the very fabric of American culture.  As a people we live to dream new dreams and to imagine a better future for ourselves and our children.  In the Preamble to the Constitution, undoubtedly the single most important document in the history of  the United States, our forefathers set out their goals, and among them: to form a more perfect union, not a perfect union, but a more perfect union.  The Founders were wise enough to realize that the government that they were establishing for the new United States in 1783 was not perfect, and probably never would be.  Today, we Americans know all too well that there will always be work to be done before our nation can fulfill its vision, in part because that vision is always expanding.    

1. Close to 2,000 years ago Rabbi Tarfon taught, “It is not up to you to finish the work, but neither are you free to abstain from it.”  This, I think, is a concept very familiar to Americans.  To be American is to never be satisfied with the status quo – we can always do more, always come closer to achieving the vision we teach our children every day:  a republic with liberty and justice for all.  Of course, in our striving we often make mistakes, but as President-elect Peres good-naturedly reminded me earlier today, the world without America would be an even bigger mistake! 

In every generation, new American heroes rise up to meet the challenges of their day, whether to protest the injustices of slavery, to stand up for women’s rights, to fight corruption, to preserve the sanctity of free speech, or to defeat brutal dictators.  In my childhood, Martin Luther King was one such hero.  He dreamed of the day when his children would be judged not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.  Thanks to the passion and determination of Dr. King and people who shared his beliefs, I began school in one of the first desegregated classrooms in the country. 

Just as the United States is a country that was founded upon the dream of democracy and a better life for its people, so too is the State of Israel.  In 1896, after experiencing the evils of European anti-Semitism, Theodore Herzl became convinced that the only way the Jewish people would ever be masters of their own fate was to have a state of their own.  One year later, after the First Zionist Congress in Basel, Switzerland, Herzl wrote, “At Basel, I founded the Jewish State…in another fifty years everyone will be convinced of this.  The state is created mainly upon the people’s will for a state.”  How true those words were!  One hundred and twelve years later, here we stand in a prosperous, democratic Israel with Nobel Prize-winning authors, world-class scientists and engineers internationally revered statesmen, a thriving economy, and a vibrant press as well as a robust civil society.  Theodore Herzl was right:  “Eim tirzu, ayn zo agadah” – “If you will it, it is no dream.” 

This is all the more remarkable considering Israel’s history.  The Jewish state came into being only through the terrible birth pangs of war.  On May 15, the day after Israel declared its independence, five invading armies attacked the new state.  Since then, Israel has fought numerous wars, the last one as recently as last summer.  But consider that out of the ashes of the Holocaust, despite the trials and tribulations along the way, you have built not only a Jewish state, but a multi-ethnic, pluralistic society with strong democratic institutions and a commitment to social and political equality for all citizens irrespective of religion, race or sex.  You have not only survived; you have become a model in so many ways for the region and the world. 

We Americans view our own history in a similar light.  Somehow, despite the odds, our two nations have overcome the obstacles and the challenges, and grown stronger in the process.  The success and prosperity of the United States of America and of Israel is in large part thanks to the determination of our peoples not just to dream, but to persevere until dreams become reality. 

In 2007, we can look back at our two countries’ accomplishments and close ties over the years with pride.  But we must also take care to remember that there is so much more to achieve.  Fifty-nine years after the establishment of Israel, peace is still elusive.  Today, we stand at a crossroads in the history of the Middle East, and perhaps even the entire world.  In this era of globalization, we are more connected than ever before, and thus, the nature of our independence is more limited.  We cannot act in isolation, for our actions have vast implications for others and for our own futures.  And so our friendship takes on an added significance as we confront the challenges of our age together and seize opportunities to improve our world. 

I believe the dream of our age is to defeat extremism and secure a lasting peace throughout this region.  We also dream of the day when Gilad Shalit, Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser will return to their families safe and sound; we dream of the day when there will be no need for bomb shelters in Israeli communities; we dream of the day when there will be no checkpoints in and around Palestinian cities, or need for them.  Ours are not new dreams; others have pursued them before us.  But I believe that now is the time; we who are gathered here tonight, we are the ones who can achieve these dreams.  So let us celebrate – celebrate the hard fought battles our forbears won for democracy and freedom, and celebrate the future battles we will fight and win for peace, always remembering that if we will it, it is no dream.  “Eim tirzu, ayn zo agadah.”

Thank you.