Hlavní strana » English Pages » Address delivered by the…

Address delivered by the President of the Czech Republic in Israel

English Pages, 13. 9. 2005

Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen,

I would like to use this opportunity and to thank you for the invitation to visit your country as well as for the very friendly welcome I and my delegation received. I would also like to strongly emphasize the importance I attach to my visit to your country.

Israel is located in the place considered to be one of the cradles of civilisation. It is here where great religions were born. Jews, Christians and Muslims have a strong emotional bond to your country, your country is close to them and they are not indifferent to its future. This is true also about many citizens of the Czech Republic.

Israel is a state that was founded as a reaction to the persecution the Jews had been subjected to for centuries, particularly in European countries. The return to the old Jewish homeland in Palestine was their attempt to solve the inability of the European society to get rid of antisemitism and discrimination against Jews, which at the end, in the era of Nazi Germany, reached enormous dimensions and turned into Holocaust. Your state was established as a manifestation of the will of millions of people connected by their faith and origin to take their destiny and their future in their own hands. Many of them came also from the Czech lands. Like the extensive Jewish cultural heritage which is an indispensable part of our culture, they form a firm bond between our two countries.

The terrible destiny of the European Jewry in the Second World War led to widespread support for the emerging State of Israel. Czechoslovakia, a country whose hundreds of thousands Jewish citizens lost their lives in Nazi concentration camps, was in the first line of those who stood at your side. We provided Israel with arms and aircraft and in 1948, in critical moments of combat with the Arabs, we trained Israeli pilots. Your late President Ezer Weizmann was one of those who received pilots’ training in Czechoslovakia and I have heard him several times remembering those days and our country.

The cold war and communist totalitarian regime froze our relations for four decades but they could not suppress the spontaneous and natural friendship that had always existed between us. That is why one of the first steps our country took after the fall of communism was the renewal of diplomatic relations and resumption of normal cooperation with your country in all areas. Our intensive political dialogue can be proved also by the fact that this visit of mine is already the third visit of the head of the Czech state to Israel. I myself have come to Israel already for the third time. In 1994 I visited your country officially as the Czech Prime Minister and in 1995 I came to Jerusalem to pay tribute to the assassinated Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.

The economic relations between our two countries are continuously developing, our mutual trade and investments are growing and the companies in both countries are interested in further development of these contacts. The proof of this is a delegation of Czech businessmen who have come here with me to promote this very objective. I believe their mission will be successful.

Mr. President, the existence of your state has been accompanied from the very beginning by the conflict that has belonged for decades among the most serious problems of international policy and that endangers regional stability and world peace. The continuation of this conflict creates an obstacle both to normal peaceful life your citizens long for as well as to positive changes and developments in your neighbourhood. It has already caused several wars, extensive destructions of material values and human lives as well as long term personal and economic uncertainty to millions of people. It became evident that there is no military solution to the problem. That is why the Czech Republic supports all initiatives aiming at peaceful solution of the Middle East problem. Solution that would guarantee Israel security and normal existence and at the same time give the Palestinians a chance to build their own statehood based on peaceful and democratic principles. I do understand how enormous and difficult this task is. I do understand that the dividing lines do not run only between the Israelis and Arabs and that it is a difficult struggle for mutual trust within the individual nations. I also understand it is a fight with prejudice, fanaticism and extremism of all kind. For the politicians it is a unique opportunity to demonstrate exceptional courage, persuasiveness and responsibility. And it is a principal challenge for the international community to do everything possible to contribute to finding a solution of this burning problem.

I wish to assure you, Mr. President, that the Czech Republic, with its traditional ties to Israel as well as to your Arab neighbours, is sincerely interested in peaceful solution to the Middle East conflict. The Czech Republic has been a full member of the European Union since May last year and I wish to assure you that within the EU we shall strive for a balanced approach that should stimulate willingness to negotiations and balanced compromises on both sides. I do appreciate the political courage of the Israeli government demonstrated by the measures it has recently taken and I believe that it will find courageous, responsible and reliable partners also on the Palestinian side.

Mr. President, allow me to raise the glass and wish you, the Israeli government and your people much success on this difficult path, to raise a toast to the happy life of your citizens, to your good health and to the good health of your loved ones.

Václav Klaus, address delivered during the state visit to Israel, September 13th, 2005, Jerusalem, Israel