I am a Hebrew and a soldier By prisoner Menachem Shiff Gentlemen, When a man has to face a court, or an institution so called, which threatens to take his life, the gravity of the matter, if not the legal basis of the institution, demands that he present himself; saying who he is, where he came from what he wants and what views he has, why he left the ordinary paths of life and why he should have approached the orbit of the gallows; why he does not recognize the legal status of his judges to pass judgment on him; what it was that he believed in, regardless of whether he had to expect a long life or whether this was to be his last appearance in public; what motives he had that encouraged him to imperil his very life? To the first question I have a simple and short answer: I am a Jew. I am a son of that ancient nation which thousands of years ago emerged from the obscurity of history, reaching the country, its Land of Promise, through seas and deserts and battles, establishing in it a flourishing state, making fruitful not only the fields of this country but also the idea of man and the universe. The Jewish state lay at the crossroads of international routes, a fact that explains its importance and its curse to this very day. It was for this reason that from time to time conquerors and invaders intruded into this country, laying waste its towns and leading away into exile its kings and inhabitants. For many centuries this struggle continued between a small and yet great people and powerful empires that mounted and disappeared from the stage of history. Often it would appear to the peoples that our state had fallen never to be resurrected. But nevertheless, it did rise to its feet again, resuming its war and preferring to die standing erect than to eke out a miserable life on its knees. At the end of that epoch, after the fall of the last bastion of Bar-Kochba's rebels – or, rather earlier, when our Temple was destroyed, our people began to wander through all countries of the world. These migrations are unexampled in the history of mankind. Traces of these migrations can be found in every country, but all these traces are those of blood shed in the name of religion or nationalism, in the name of economy or politics, in the name of the revolution or counter-revolution, in the name of racialism, or hatred or envy. This bloodshed, following our migrations like a shadow, has gone on for almost two thousand years. Now the Jewish people had decided to return home, its exiled sons come to it in their thousands from all over the world, while its sons in the homeland are waging, as in ancient times, the sacred war for their people, their country and their faith. I gave you this short outline, Gentlemen, not in order to take up your time or to boast of belonging to a nation that preceded your people in the creation of sovereign institutions and a great civilization. I did so because I want to explain to you the difference in our points of view as a result of which, in spite of the present situation, we do not regard you as judges and ourselves as accused, nor try to please you, nor worry about our personal future or life. This is, of course, something unusual and if there is any explanation for it, it is just that difference of which I have spoken. Our perspectives are not the same. It is true that you are sitting on the elevated chairs of the judges while we are sitting on the low bench of the accused, but I am nevertheless convinced that we see the matters involved in this collective trial, the relations between the people of Israel and England as well as the future of this country, from a level higher than that upon which you are seated. You see the relations between the physical forces of a great power, though no longer the greatest but still a great power, and those of a people having just now lost six million sons. Yours is a calculation of aeroplanes and ships and guns that you have got and we have not, and you compare this calculation with the number of rifles and machine guns and grenades possessed by the Jewish people. For you the result of such a comparison is clear enough: the Jews will be defeated, or exterminated, since, as Frederic the Great put it, "God is always with the stronger battalions". But I should like to tell you that you are mistaken, that your calculations are unfounded, while, as Churchill once said, there is a strong basis in the faith that lives in our hearts. Is this imagination? Is this mysticism? No, Gentlemen: it is neither imagination nor mysticism but a historical perspective that I have because I am a Jew and which you have not because you – are you. We saw the Assyrian conqueror and his downfall; we saw victorious Babylon and its decline, the kingdom of the Seleucids and its ruin; we saw also how the Roman Empire went to pieces. All this we did see and – we live. Therefore we have not the slightest doubt that, whatever the outcome of the war between us may be, you will certainly not be the victors and all your victories over the people of Israel will be so many deadly blows to yourselves before history. But when I say "I am a Jew" I have not yet said all. I should add at once that I am a soldier, a Hebrew Soldier. You are probably surprised to hear this as you have not yet heard of a Jewish army but only of Jews fighting in alien armies. At best, you have heard of the Jewish Brigade within the British army which you have managed to disband because in your eyes it committed a terrible crime in helping too generously the remnants of our people, who in their effrontery wish to live in spite of the wish of your rulers who would have preferred that they had shared the fate of our six million dead. Nevertheless, Gentlemen, there is a Jewish army, an independent Jewish army, serving the Jewish people alone, and I as well as my comrades here are proud of serving in this army, of fighting in its ranks and following its banner. It is true that this is not a regular army, it has no uniforms and does not recruit its soldiers on a compulsory basis. But for precisely this reason this army is so dear to us. We volunteered to serve in its ranks, we joined it of our won free will with the full knowledge of the dangers involved for those who belongs to this army; no one forced us; no one enticed us. We went to enroll for service in its ranks because an inner voice told us: Rise and liberate your country! Yes, Gentlemen, - our army has accepted the task of liberating this country from your rule or any other rule, and to return it to the Jewish people as its property for ever. Our army does not conceal this aim from you or any other factor in the world. On the contrary, we state our task quite openly. For we think that you have made yourselves the masters of our country by different means, by force and cunning, by making promises and by breaking them again, and it was particularly the aspirations, the claims and the credulity of our own people that you took advantage of in order to reach your aim. Our parents trusted you and gave you the mandate over Eretz Israel. They refused France and the U.S.A., they yielded their fundamental right of managing the affairs of their country themselves, they empowered you to act for them because they had put their trust in you. This is why they did not set up an army but built – built wonderful things. This is why they did not amass arms but collected money to invest in their constructive work, in the firm belief that under your protection and with your help, they were laying the foundations of the rebirth of the Jewish State. And you deceived them. You simply deceived them. You invented all sort of formulas, found all sorts of excuses and justifications, all of which amounted to just one thing: the people of Israel was to remain in the countries of the Diaspora, to which one more was to be added: the Land of Israel, under British or, British-Arab rule. Our parents were naïve and the price they had to pay for their naivety is so horrible that no human mind can grasp it even. Suffice it to make one simple comparison: you, a people of 45 million have lost in the second world war three hundred thousand lives, while we, a people of 17 million, have lost twenty times as much as you have: six million lives, six million lives. We have drawn our conclusions from the bitter experience of our parents. We realize that no power in the world will ever save us from destruction if we ourselves do not do so; nothing will liberate us from slavery if we do not free ourselves. On these basic assumptions was created and built up the Jewish army, the liberation army whose task it is to return to our people that without which it cannot live: its homeland and its independence. You see therefore, that the Hebrew army is not a "private" army as your Prime Minister says, but it is an army created by the sovereign will of the People of Israel, which does not want the lands of foreigners nor the charity of foreigners nor the pogroms made by foreigners, but wants to obtain the right accorded to every nation, however small and weak; the right to homeland, to self-determination, and an independent Government. Therefore, the Jewish army cannot be "illegal" as your rulers say. For the foundation upon which this army was built is the law that is recognized by all the people of the world, the law for which two world wars had to be fought. An illegal act is done by him who breaks this law; a legal an moral act is done by those who fight for its maintenance and realization. Therefore not we are the breakers of the law but your rulers, they who play havoc with the rights of man, of the citizen and human society. And if we fight against them, then we are doing our duty, or duty towards our own people and our duty towards free people everywhere. And as a soldier of the free liberation army I have the honour of telling you on behalf of all my comrades that the officers of the army of the enemy have no right of jurisdiction over us and that according to the principles of international law we are prisoners of war, whose status is safeguarded by well-known international agreements. And another thing let me tell you and my people: as happy as I was to fight for my people and my country so happy am I now to suffer for them. For suffering too, when it is borne for one's faith, is a kind of war. And history teaches us that from these sacrifices grows on the ruins of tyranny the tree of liberty. This tree we planted with our blood; we are happy we could do so.