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Source: http://www.pmo.gov.il/English/MediaCenter/Events/Pages/EventCommunity110917.aspx
To the Jewish Community in Buenos Aires: We Have Rediscovered Our Ability to Defend Ourselves
(Prime Minister's Office) Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu - "Jews first came here [to Argentina] in the 19th century, and then again in the 1930s....They did so to escape anti-Semitism....The Jews could not defend themselves against anti-Semitism; it was impossible. They could only run to the New World....The Jews did not have the capability of self-defense." "Jews were perceived just 70, 80 or 100 years ago...as leaves blowing in the wind, the Wandering Jew, even the cowardly Jew. And when we look back, this is astonishing, because we know that the Jews had the greatest heroes in human history: Joshua, Gideon, Samson, King David, the Maccabees, Bar-Kochba." "We were not always successful, but we always fought, we always defended ourselves, our existence, our freedom. That is what characterized the Jews in ancient times. Knowing how to defend themselves was the strongest Jewish characteristic....This ability disappeared when we lost our country and our independence....The Jews lost the ability to control their destiny." "When we returned to our land and established our country, we rediscovered our ability to defend ourselves. The fathers of Zionism...did not say that the attacks on the Jews would stop when the Jewish state was established.... Rather, they said that when the state was established, the Jews would have the tremendous capability to push back these attacks, and that is exactly what has happened."