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Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=16053
The Meaning of True Independence
(Israel Hayom) Col. Richard Kemp - For 68 years Israelis have fought again and again to defend their independence against enemies who would subjugate their country. No other nation has struggled so long and so hard, surrounded by such unyielding hostility. Israel's right to exist is not to be sanctioned by the peoples of the Middle East or by the leaders of the Western world. It is to be determined only by the Jewish people who, down the millennia, have fought, suffered and died for that inalienable right. It means that Israel is not to have its borders imposed by international bodies or by foreign states, no matter how powerful they might be. It means that Israelis are not to be dictated to about where they can and cannot settle in their land. It means that Israel is not to be told how it may or may not defend the lives of its people under the sovereign independence of the law. It means that Israel is not to be lectured or scolded about human rights by those that have no glimmer of understanding of what human rights truly are. The civilized world has an obligation to respect this independence just as it respects the independence of other free, democratic nations. Israel has shown mankind how a besieged nation - against all odds - can survive and flourish, decide its own destiny and unwaveringly retain its honor, its decency, its dignity, its integrity and its compassion. The writer is a former commander of British Forces in Afghanistan.