Sunday, March 13, 2011

Thousands attend Itamar massacre victims' funeral - "We must continue to build while holding the sword"

Five coffins, two regular sized, 3 small ones. This is the appalling scene that met the eyes of the 30,000 attending the funeral of the five members of the Fogel family brutally murdered Friday night in the Itamar terror attack at the cemetery in Givat Shaul in Jerusalem.

Former Chief Rabbi, Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau was the first to eulogize saying:
"There are situations, there are days there are hours where you are at loss for words. You sit feel and sense the pain, feel the anger and mostly, feel the powerlessness…

"When you imagined that this circle of terror closed maybe 66 years ago and when the blood of infants runs like water and 1.5 million children were trampled by human beasts… it has been 66 years, we've declared statehood, gained our independence, established the enviable IDF. And still, the circle of terror and the river of blood flow and we stand helpless."
Knesset Speaker Ruby Rivlin:
"Despite all the difficulties you continued to believe. Lately there are those among us who question our rights to the land. If we cannot explain to ourselves why we are here, how will we explain to the nations of the world? They are trying to use the same methods they used in 1929. For the enemy there is no green line - no difference between 1948 and 1967, between Itamar and Beit Hagai and Haifa and Tel Aviv".

"We will continue to build with your blood in Itamar, Beit Hagai, Hebron and Jerusalem. Building in Israel is not an answer to terror - it's our right".
Vice Premier Moshe "Boogie" Ya'alon:
"The Arab children are raised on a lie that we have no right to Israel and so they murder us and the 'Palestinian Authority' pays them a salary when they are caught and jailed. Against the education for love of the land and the Torah, our neighbors educate to murder a four-month old child. Any agreement we sign will not be worth the paper on which it is written and it will be violated to allow the murder of Jews".

"But foreign governments are in partnership with the 'Palestinians' and this helps the murderers to act. But I hope that these murders will awaken those among us who are naive to see that this struggle is about our very existence. Therefore we can't just talk about security arrangements. The key is the Jews' right to their land, a right we have never given up".

"We must raise ourselves out of the remains and find the strength to stand up to the international attacks against us. We must continue to build while holding the sword. And as the torture us, so we shall develop (a play on words from Exodus 1). These murderers will not cause us to change our values - these are the Fogels' values".