Prime Minister Ariel Sharon met with French Prime Minister Jospin today, explaining to him the necessity of Israel\'s newly-affirmed policy of \"targeted killings\" of Arabs engaged in terrorism. Sharon is set to return to Israel this afternoon. Speaking yesterday at a joint wreath-laying ceremony with German Chancellor Schroeder at Gruenewald railway station in Berlin, the Prime Minister said the following:
\"Here at Gruenewald railway station, on these platforms, on [a day in] November 1942, three children of the Bobkar family - Maly, Hala and Abraham - stood here by themselves. Perhaps the two older sisters held their seven-year-old brother by the hand. They stood here without mother or father and the train came. The transport number was #23, the destination was Auschwitz. They were among the first. The Wansee Conference [where the Nazis formulated the Final Solution for the \"Jewish Problem\"] had taken place not long before, on the other side of the forest... The three children joined thousands of men, women and children who were brutally uprooted from their daily lives and sent - starting in October 1941 - from Berlin to the Lodz, Warsaw and Riga ghettos and - starting in August 1942 - directly to Auschwitz... Out of 75,000 Berlin Jews, approximately 60,000 were murdered in the death camps...
\"I come here today from the Land of Israel where I was born, in which I live and for which I have fought all my life. Maly, Hala and Abraham Bobkar were from my age group when they set out from here on their last journey. The same historical process that scattered my people across the entire globe and founded the Zionist movement is what led to the fact that they, and not I, were on transport #23.
\"Today, 56 years after the final group was sent from platform #17 at Gruenewald, we must remember, more than ever, that the State of Israel\'s right to defend itself is a major right and obligation which has been given us in order to prevent the recurrence of the events we recall as we stand here on this platform. We must remember that the Jewish people have one small state in which we have the right and the power to defend ourselves with our own forces, and we must daily thank the Al-mighty for this... We will preserve this right more than anything...\"
\"Here at Gruenewald railway station, on these platforms, on [a day in] November 1942, three children of the Bobkar family - Maly, Hala and Abraham - stood here by themselves. Perhaps the two older sisters held their seven-year-old brother by the hand. They stood here without mother or father and the train came. The transport number was #23, the destination was Auschwitz. They were among the first. The Wansee Conference [where the Nazis formulated the Final Solution for the \"Jewish Problem\"] had taken place not long before, on the other side of the forest... The three children joined thousands of men, women and children who were brutally uprooted from their daily lives and sent - starting in October 1941 - from Berlin to the Lodz, Warsaw and Riga ghettos and - starting in August 1942 - directly to Auschwitz... Out of 75,000 Berlin Jews, approximately 60,000 were murdered in the death camps...
\"I come here today from the Land of Israel where I was born, in which I live and for which I have fought all my life. Maly, Hala and Abraham Bobkar were from my age group when they set out from here on their last journey. The same historical process that scattered my people across the entire globe and founded the Zionist movement is what led to the fact that they, and not I, were on transport #23.
\"Today, 56 years after the final group was sent from platform #17 at Gruenewald, we must remember, more than ever, that the State of Israel\'s right to defend itself is a major right and obligation which has been given us in order to prevent the recurrence of the events we recall as we stand here on this platform. We must remember that the Jewish people have one small state in which we have the right and the power to defend ourselves with our own forces, and we must daily thank the Al-mighty for this... We will preserve this right more than anything...\"