Excerpts from former Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu\'s speech in the United States Senate yesterday:
\"The question many in my country are now asking is this: Will America apply its principles consistently and win this war, or will it selectively abandon these principles and thereby ultimately risk losing the war?
\"My countrymen ask this question because they believe that terrorism is an indivisible evil that must be fought indivisibly. They believe that if moral clarity is obfuscated, that if you allow one part of the terror network to survive, much less be rewarded for its crimes, then the forces of terror will regroup and rise again.
\"Until last week, I was absolutely certain that the United States would adhere to its principles and lead the free world to a decisive victory. Today, I too have my concerns. I am concerned that when it comes to terror directed against Israel, the moral and strategic clarity that is so crucial for victory is being lost. I am concerned that the imperative of defeating terror everywhere is being ignored when the main engine of Palestinian terror is allowed to remain intact. I\'m concerned that the State of Israel, that has for decades bravely manned the front lines against terror, is being pressed to back down just when it is on the verge of uprooting Palestinian terror...
\"No one, of course, would dare suggest that the United States was the guilty party in World War II because German casualties - which, by the way, included millions of civilians - were 20 times higher than American casualties. So too, only a twisted and corrupt logic would paint America and Britain as the aggressors in the current war because Afghan casualties are reported by some - I don\'t have conclusive figures - to have well exceeded the death toll of September 11th…
\"With or without international support, the government of Israel must fight, not only to defend its people and to restore a dangerously eroded deterrence to secure the Jewish state, but also to ensure that the free world wins the war against terror in this pivotal arena in the heart of the Middle East… [Israel] must dismantle Arafat\'s terrorist regime and expel Arafat from the region. As long as the engineer of Palestinian terror remains in the territories, terrorism will not stop and the promise of peace will never be realized. Second, Israel must clean out the terrorists, the weapons, the explosives from all the Palestinian-controlled areas. We have uncovered just in Jenin about 1,400 Kalachnikov rifles, 12 laboratories for explosives, for TNT explosives, and hundreds - hundreds - of front-line terrorists. No place, whether it is a refugee camp in Gaza or an office in Ramallah, can be allowed to remain a haven for terror…
Rather than bomb Palestinian-populated cities and towns from the air - an operation that would have claimed thousands of civilian casualties - the Israeli army is taking on a much greater risk by using ground forces that painstakingly make their way through the hornet\'s nest of Palestinian terror. But instead of praising Israel for seeking to minimize civilian casualties through careful and deliberate action, most of the world\'s governments shamelessly condemn it. For seven months, many of these governments have rightly supported the war against Afghan terror, yet after only seven days, their patience for Israel\'s war against terror has run out…
\"Europe - which 60 years ago refused to lift a finger to save millions of Jews on whose soil they were annihilated - is now turning its collective backs on a Jewish state that is trying to ward off mass killers with legitimate military action. I think this is downright shameful. But I have to admit that I didn\'t expect much better from any of these European governments.
\"Yet the America I know and have come to deeply respect has always been different. History has entrusted upon this nation the task of carrying the torch of freedom. And time and again, through both war and peace, America has carried that torch with courage and with honor, combining a might the world has never known with a sense of justice that no power in history has possessed.
\"I have come before you today to ask you to courageously continue to carry this torch with courage, with honor, by standing by an outpost of freedom that is resisting an unprecedented terrorist assault. I ask you to stand by Israel\'s side in its fight against Arafat\'s tyranny of terror, and thereby help defeat an evil that threatens all of us, that threatens all of mankind. And, knowing you, I\'m sure that you will respond.\"
\"The question many in my country are now asking is this: Will America apply its principles consistently and win this war, or will it selectively abandon these principles and thereby ultimately risk losing the war?
\"My countrymen ask this question because they believe that terrorism is an indivisible evil that must be fought indivisibly. They believe that if moral clarity is obfuscated, that if you allow one part of the terror network to survive, much less be rewarded for its crimes, then the forces of terror will regroup and rise again.
\"Until last week, I was absolutely certain that the United States would adhere to its principles and lead the free world to a decisive victory. Today, I too have my concerns. I am concerned that when it comes to terror directed against Israel, the moral and strategic clarity that is so crucial for victory is being lost. I am concerned that the imperative of defeating terror everywhere is being ignored when the main engine of Palestinian terror is allowed to remain intact. I\'m concerned that the State of Israel, that has for decades bravely manned the front lines against terror, is being pressed to back down just when it is on the verge of uprooting Palestinian terror...
\"No one, of course, would dare suggest that the United States was the guilty party in World War II because German casualties - which, by the way, included millions of civilians - were 20 times higher than American casualties. So too, only a twisted and corrupt logic would paint America and Britain as the aggressors in the current war because Afghan casualties are reported by some - I don\'t have conclusive figures - to have well exceeded the death toll of September 11th…
\"With or without international support, the government of Israel must fight, not only to defend its people and to restore a dangerously eroded deterrence to secure the Jewish state, but also to ensure that the free world wins the war against terror in this pivotal arena in the heart of the Middle East… [Israel] must dismantle Arafat\'s terrorist regime and expel Arafat from the region. As long as the engineer of Palestinian terror remains in the territories, terrorism will not stop and the promise of peace will never be realized. Second, Israel must clean out the terrorists, the weapons, the explosives from all the Palestinian-controlled areas. We have uncovered just in Jenin about 1,400 Kalachnikov rifles, 12 laboratories for explosives, for TNT explosives, and hundreds - hundreds - of front-line terrorists. No place, whether it is a refugee camp in Gaza or an office in Ramallah, can be allowed to remain a haven for terror…
Rather than bomb Palestinian-populated cities and towns from the air - an operation that would have claimed thousands of civilian casualties - the Israeli army is taking on a much greater risk by using ground forces that painstakingly make their way through the hornet\'s nest of Palestinian terror. But instead of praising Israel for seeking to minimize civilian casualties through careful and deliberate action, most of the world\'s governments shamelessly condemn it. For seven months, many of these governments have rightly supported the war against Afghan terror, yet after only seven days, their patience for Israel\'s war against terror has run out…
\"Europe - which 60 years ago refused to lift a finger to save millions of Jews on whose soil they were annihilated - is now turning its collective backs on a Jewish state that is trying to ward off mass killers with legitimate military action. I think this is downright shameful. But I have to admit that I didn\'t expect much better from any of these European governments.
\"Yet the America I know and have come to deeply respect has always been different. History has entrusted upon this nation the task of carrying the torch of freedom. And time and again, through both war and peace, America has carried that torch with courage and with honor, combining a might the world has never known with a sense of justice that no power in history has possessed.
\"I have come before you today to ask you to courageously continue to carry this torch with courage, with honor, by standing by an outpost of freedom that is resisting an unprecedented terrorist assault. I ask you to stand by Israel\'s side in its fight against Arafat\'s tyranny of terror, and thereby help defeat an evil that threatens all of us, that threatens all of mankind. And, knowing you, I\'m sure that you will respond.\"