Social Equality Minister Gilal Gamliel reacted to Friday's anti-Israel vote at the United Nations Security Council by quoting one of the Maccabees on Monday night.
Speaking at a candle-lighting ceremony at the Western Wall of the Temple in Jerusalem, she said, "Just as Simon the Hasmonean said, more than 1800 years ago, 'We took no foreign land, and we did not govern foreigner's property.' As it was in those days so it is at this time." Gamliel said the UN resolution "does not recognize our historical right to the land of our ancestors, nor on the western Wall. We must say clearly - a people does not occupy its [own] country. We are here, not by the merit of our strength but by the strength of our ancestors' merit."