DMTX. Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu striding to the podium for his address at the culmination of the three-day conference; pointing to his lips, as he spoke about Jewish immigrants' longing for Jerusalem. Jerusalem, Israel. 17/02/2010.
I shot these photos of Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu during his address, given on the closing night of the Jerusalem Conference, held in Jerusalem on Feb. 15-17, 2010.
The Israeli leader, seen in one photo gesturing to his lips, spoke of the eternal Jewish longing to return to Israel after their expulsion by the Romans two millenia ago, and gave an example of Ethiopian immigrants' travails over the past several decades trying to make their way to the Jewish State.
"The dream of Jerusalem built Jerusalem, but it also built Tel Aviv, and all of our renewed nation and land," Netanyahu said to sustained applause from the estimated 1,000 supporters who filled a ballroom at Jerusalem's Regency Hotel on Mt. Scopus.
There are accounts of some Ethiopian Jewish pilgrims dying from marauders, thirst and starvation en route as they trudged through hundreds of kilometers of hostile deserts to reach the Israeli embassy in Addis Ababa, and from there, a plane flight to Israel:
"And the longing for Jerusalem brought waves of aliyah, from Russia, from Yemen, from Poland, from Morocco and Ethiopia - one of the most moving things to hear are the stories of Ethiopian immigrants, that came on foot, lost family members - and on their tongues, the word, 'Jerusalem.'"
Netanyahu opened his address by recalling Rehavam Ze'evi, a veteran Israeli right-wing political legend and military leader who founded the Moledet Party. "Ghandi," as Ze'evi was nicknamed, was assassinated on October 17, 2001 by four Palestinian gunmen in a hallway at the hotel. An Israeli court later convicted the four, handing down life, and extended sentences.
The centerpiece of Netanyahu's speech called for “sanctions with teeth,” against the government of Iran, including imports of gas, and energy exports.
“The argument is over,” Netanyahu asserted, referring to the possibility that Iran was trying to make a nuclear weapon, and added that Iran was a threat to world peace, and to Israel.
Netanyahu made similar statements regarding Iran in meetings held days earlier with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.
“Millions of Iranians want freedom,” Netanyahu said, referring to the waves of street riots by Iranian dissidents in Teheran and other cities in the wake of strongly contested election results in the summer of 2009.
“Now, the question is, what will the international community do, in light of this situation?” he added, and asked “If not now, when?” quoting Hillel the Elder, a Jewish Mishnaic sage from the second century.
Netanyahu said harsh sanctions would cause the Iranian economy to “grind to a halt,” if the leadership refused to back down in its uranium processing towards what western experts contend is weapons-grade material.
Netanyahu's calls for strict sanction against Iran were backed up with Israeli army muscle:
"The world is very aware that Iran continues to display open hostility and hatred toward the Middle East, through means of funding and the transfer of weaponry to Hezbollah and Hamas," said Israeli Minister of Defense, Ehud Barak, in comments at a graduation ceremony at an Israeli Defense Forces officer training base.
"We are prepared to make firm decisions, for the sake of a better future," Barak warned, possibly alluding to Israel's military prowess.
Israel's air force destroyed a suspected nuclear facility in Syria last year.
