Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife Sara lit the second Hanukkah candle at the Western Wall in Jerusalem together with IDF soldiers, the Rabbi of the Western Wall and Holy Sites, Rabbi Shmuel Rabinowitz, and his wife, Western Wall Heritage Foundation Director Mordechai (Soli) Eliav, and US Ambassador Mike Huckabee and his wife Janet.
Prime Minister Netanyahu and his wife Sara, placed a note between the stones of the Western Wall for the success of the IDF soldiers and security forces. Mrs. Netanyahu expressed her wishes for the return of the fallen hostage, a hero of Israel, Ran Gvili, of blessed memory.
"Dear friends, Sara and I are very moved to be with you, brave soldiers of Israel. I look into your eyes, and I see the determination, and the courage, and the heroism of the Maccabees. You are the Maccabees of our time. I do not say this lightly, not as an empty statement, but out of a deep belief that I know you share, that we are essentially performing the same miracles that the Maccabees performed 2,200 years ago," Netanyahu told the troops.
He explained that the Maccabees "stood against a force that tried to wipe the people of Israel, the Jews, and Judaism off the face of the earth. That was the decree, and the decrees that came from Antiochus, who tried to erase the Jews, and what we faced was essentially annihilation. And had those heroes not risen up, he would have succeeded. And in this warfare, we first and foremost saved our people. But we also fought the war of the people of culture, the people of light against the people of darkness. And we are winning. You are winning. You are truly performing miracles with supreme bravery.
Netanyahu added, "President Trump asks me, 'How do you do it? Israel is so small, and they are so many; a small country and its neighbors are so large. Where does this strength come from?' It comes from the heritage of Israel. It comes from our faith. It comes from our understanding that we will not allow anyone to sever the life-thread of the people of Israel. This is a tremendous and immense thing, and it overcomes everything. They are performing miracles in our day, at this time, just like in that time. And I salute you here, next to the Western Wall, where our Maccabee heroes dedicated the Temple."