Olmert: We will ensure Jewish majority
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert delivers speech during special Knesset session to mark Herzl Day, says: 'We must ensure that there will be a proven Jewish majority, otherwise the term Jewish state becomes empty of meaning'
Olmert said that "this special Knesset session is dedicated not only to marking Herzl's birthday but also the discussion of his heritage. The Law of Zion was passed in the Knesset in order to ensure that the heritage and vision of the State's founding father is preserved. As a journalist he covered the Dreyfus trial and was seriously shocked by the anti-Semitic wave that washed over France."
'No hope in exile'
"Through his sharp senses he realized that the Jewish nation has no hope and that there is no alternative to establishing the State of Israel. He didn't invent Zionism, which existed before him, but he turned the dream into a political destination and the dreamers into a national movement. We must live as one people, connected not only to all of the scattered Jewish nation, we must lived as united nation here too. That is Herzl's vision. His vision, that the Jewish nation has an independent state, was realized, but the mission is not over," added Olmert.
Knesset Member Binyamin Netanyahu said that "Herzl was a visionary, not a dreamer. He was not only a prophet of the revival but also saw the danger. He said that if the Jews don't return to their land we will be annihilated. Herzl wrote about the Holocaust at least 30 times, and was thought of as a madman as a result. The threat to destroy us which saw then has not passed. We must become unified in the face of the element threatening our national existence. We must unite where we can unite and dedicate the necessary sources in order to stand in the face of the danger. We must be Herzl's students in this sense."
Theodor (Binyamin Ze'ev Herzl) was born on May 2 1860, and passed away on July 3, 1904.
