ABSTRACT

Your Excellency President and Mrs. Weizman, Mr. Speaker, our friend Avraham Burg, please accept my heartfelt congratulations on your deserved election as Speaker of the Knesset.

[. . .] Let me begin with a personal comment. I have been a soldier for practically all

my adult life. I have known the pride of victory, but also the pain of failure. . . . I am not alone here today on this podium. Together with me are generations of IDF soldiers who withstood the most severe trials of fire in order to secure our liberty. Together with me are those who returned at dawn from the nighttime inferno, carrying on their shoulders the silent stretchers bearing their lifeless comrades.