I have been told that the disengagement will be interpreted as a shameful withdrawal under pressure, and will increase the terror campaign, present Israel as weak, and will show our people as a nation unwilling to fight and to stand up for itself.  I reject that statement outright.  We have the strength to defend this country, and to strike at the enemy which seeks to destroy us. And there are those who tell me that, in exchange for a genuine signed peace agreement, they too would be willing to make these painful compromises.  However, regrettably, we do not have a partner on the other side with whom to conduct genuine dialogue, in order to achieve a peace agreement.  Even prime ministers of Israel who declared their willingness to relinquish the maximum territory of our homeland were answered with fire and hostility.  Recently, the chairman of the Palestinian Authority declared that “a million shaheeds will break through to Jerusalem”.  In the choice between a responsible and wise action in history, which may lead to painful compromise and a “holy war” to destroy Israel, Yasser Arafat chose the latter – the path of blood, fire and shaheeds.  He seeks to turn a national conflict which can be terminated through mutual understanding into a religious war between Islam and Jews, and even to spill the blood of Jews who live far away. Israel has many hopes, and faces extreme dangers.  The most prominent danger is Iran, which is making every effort to acquire nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles, and establishing an enormous terror network together with Syria in Lebanon. And I ask you: what are we doing and what are we struggling over in the face of these terrible dangers?  Are we not capable of uniting to meet this threat?  This is the true question. The Disengagement Plan does not replace negotiations and is not meant to permanently freeze the situation which will be created.  It is an essential and necessary step in a situation which currently does not enable genuine negotiations for peace.  However, everything remains open for a future agreement, which will hopefully be achieved when this murderous terror ends, and our neighbors will realize that they cannot triumph over us in this land. Mr. Chairman, with your permission, I will read several lines from a famous essay which was published in the midst of the Arab Revolt of 1936 – and we must bear in mind that the Jewish community in Israel numbered less than 400,000.