I want to speak about the Land of Israel.  There is a recurring strange tendency among the Zionists to advocate the renewed partition of the Land of Israel.  Where on earth does this tendency come from?  In our generation there were a number of arguments concerning the partition of the land.  The first was after 1922.  The second was in the period 1936/7.  The third was in the 1940s.  But it is a fact that in those times, also those who spoke in favor of partition said that they regretted it, that it was painful for them, but that in their opinion there was no alternative, no other way.  We did not accept their claims.

But in the `30s it was not only Ze`ev Jabotinsky and his students who were opposed to partition, and against Jewish consent to the dividing of the Land of Israel. This is a historical fact.  Tabenkin and Berl Katznelson also went from town to town, and declared: don`t do it!

Now, the Western Land of Israel is in our hands.  And now they say: divide.  It has been newly united, and must be divided again. Once again, this strange tendency, the desire to lop off a large part of the land of our ancestors, ourselves and our descendants. This is a curious phenomenon in Jewish history.  We were only tens of thousands here, and we claimed our indivisible right over an undivided Land of Israel.  And today - it must be divided?

This is a strange psychological phenomenon.  It has a recidivist element, it seems that those who once supported partition have a need to prove to themselves that even though reality has completely gone against them, they were nevertheless in the right.  All historical developments in our time have been in the direction of uniting the country.  Nothing could stand in the way of this.

Had the Arabs taken the strategic advice of their general, Riyad, in June 1967, it is very possible that we would not be sitting here today.  He claimed, in the terminology of Churchill, that the soft underbelly of Israel is in the east, not the south.  There was a danger to the existence of the state.  Until we reached this area.

This is historical development.  But it must be proved that those who supported the division of the Land of Israel are in spite of it all in the right.  And so - divide!  The land must be partitioned anew.  `And then there will be peace.`  The peace that the Prime Minister (Mrs. Golda Meir)  has called for is, in our estimation, a lie, a false peace.  There will not be peace.  There will be bloodshed, and a renewed danger to the very existence of the state.