Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu participated today in the cornerstone-laying ceremony for the Hall of Remembrance for Victims of Terrorism at Mt. Herzl in Jerusalem.
“The cornerstone that we are laying today in the ground on Mt. Herzl is for an additional memorial site in our country but it is a memorial site on a national scale. Several years ago, not far from here, we built the Hall of Remembrance for the Fallen of Israel’s Wars, and in a few years a memorial hall for the victims of terrorism will stand here,” the prime minister said in his remarks, according to a statement from his office.
“Abie and Roi, I remember that we gathered here several years ago. I think it was after one of the ceremonies, and you said ‘The time has come for us to build a memorial hall here.’ We discussed it and I promised you that the hall would be built, and I am very moved today, because it will be built,” he added.
Netanyahu said that the site will reflect the spirit of the nation of Israel.
“Mayor of Jerusalem, my friend Moshe Lion, there will be another site here in our capital. Such sites reflect the spirit of the nation. We are realizing this together, founded on the understanding that the deaths of the victims of terrorism has national significance. Our soldiers in uniform fell while guarding our homeland while civilians who were not in uniform fell at the hands of enemies that oppose our very existence in our homeland. Unfortunately, I must say this, the home front is also a front, the civilian front,” he said.
The prime minister also noted the high price of Israel’s success in recent years.
“The question of our existence was once in doubt; today it is not, even though the price is high. Your loved ones are torn from you, and then the pain and the longing do not relent. Family after family, each one, experiences the void at home. Family after family has its memories, but here we intend to gather all the memories in one hall,” he stated.
“The memory that unites will be etched on the walls of the building are will underscore the depth of our mutual responsibility. Even if there are among us differences of opinion and outlook, before anything else, we are brothers and sisters. The terrorism that deliberately strikes at innocents does not distinguish between secular and religious, Jew and non-Jew, right-wing or left-wing. We are all bound to one fate. We remember all of them and we promise in their names to fight terrorism all-out,” he added.