Israel's interim Prime Minister Yair Lapid on Saturday evening gave his first statement to the press since taking office.
In it, Lapid thanked outgoing Prime Minister Naftali Bennett (Yamina), who will serve as Alternate Prime Minister until a new government is formed, for his "decency and friendship," and for the smooth transition.
"I want to thank the thirteenth prime minister of the State of Israel, Naftali Bennett, for his decency, his friendship, for leading the government over the past year to economic and security achievements which have not been seen here for years. A special thank you for the fact that the citizens of Israel saw this week an orderly transition between people who keep agreements and believe each other."
"The State of Israel is bigger than all of us. It is more important that any of us. It was here before us, it will be here long after us. It does not belong only to us. It belongs also to those who dreamed about it for thousands of years in exile, and to those who have not yet been born, to the coming generations.
"For them and for us, we must choose the common good, what connects us. There will always be disagreements, the question is how we manage them, and how we ensure that they do not manage us."
"Disagreement isn’t necessarily a bad thing so long as it doesn’t undermine the stability of the government and damage our internal resilience," Lapid continued. "So long as we remember that we all have the same goal: a Jewish, democratic, liberal, strong, advanced, and prosperous Israel."
"The deep Israeli truth is that on most of the truly important topics - we believe in the same things.
"We believe that Israel is the nation-state of the Jewish people. Its establishment didn’t begin in 1948, but rather on the day Joshua crossed the Jordan and forever connected the people of Israel with the Land of Israel, between the Jewish nation and its Israeli homeland.
"We believe that Israel must be a liberal democracy in which every citizen has the right to change the government and set the course of their life. Nobody can be denied their fundamental rights: respect, liberty, freedom of employment, and the right to personal security.
"We believe we must always preserve our military might. Without it, there’s no security. I am the son of a Holocaust survivor. A 13-year-old Jewish boy who they wanted to kill and who had no one to protect him. We will defend ourselves, by ourselves. We will make sure we always have the Israel Defense Forces, an army with undeniable strength, that our enemies fear.
"One night in the winter of 1944, in the Budapest Ghetto, my grandmother called out to my father, and told him: 'My child, you don’t know it, but today is your Bar Mitzvah. I can’t bake a cake, your father won’t return.' My grandfather perished in the Mauthausen Concentration Camp.
"'But there’s one thing I can do.' And she took out a small bottle of perfume, Chanel 5, which was the perfume of elegant ladies before the war. We’ll never know how she kept it all that time. She shattered it on the floor and said 'at least it won’t stink at my son’s bar mitzvah.
"We believe that Israel is a Jewish state. Its character is Jewish. Its identity is Jewish. Its relations with its non-Jewish citizens are also Jewish. The book of Leviticus says, 'But the stranger who dwells with you shall be unto you as one born among you, and thou shalt love him as thyself.'
"We believe that so long as Israel’s security needs are met, Israel is a country that seeks peace. Israel stretches out its hand to all the peoples of the Middle East, including the Palestinians, and says: the time has come for you to recognize that we’ll never move from here, let’s learn to live together.
"We believe there is a great blessing in the Abraham Accords, a great blessing in the security and economic momentum created at the Negev Summit with the UAE, Bahrain, Egypt, and Morocco and that there will be a great blessing in the agreements yet to come."
Lapid continued, "The people of Israel won't dwell alone. It is our job to continue to strengthen our position in the world, our relations with our greatest friend and ally, the United States, and to harness the international community in the struggle against antisemitism and the delegitimization of Israel."
"We believe that it’s the job of the government to uphold the law, and the job of the law to uphold the standards of government. The law is what protects us from corruption and violence. A court is what protects the weak from the strong. The law is the basis for our lives together.
"We believe that the Israeli economy must be based on free market principles, on the creativity and dynamism of Israeli technology, and that our job is to protect those who have nothing. To provide a fair opportunity for every child, everywhere.
"We believe that the Iranian threat is the gravest threat facing Israel. We’ll do whatever we must to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear capability, or entrenching itself on our borders.
"I stand before you at this moment and say to everyone seeking our demise, from Gaza to Tehran, from the shores of Lebanon to Syria: don’t test us. Israel knows how to use its strength against every threat, against every enemy.
"We believe in, and pray for the well-being of our soldiers and police officers, in the air, at sea, and on land. As it’s written in the prayer for the well-being of IDF soldiers, 'May the Almighty cause the enemies who rise up against us to be struck down before them.' We won’t be quiet and won’t rest until our sons are returned: Hadar Goldin and Oron Shaul of blessed memory, Avera Mengistu and Hisham al-Sayed.
"There’s something else that we believe in: that we’re allowed to disagree. Freedom of expression is a fundamental principle. Freedom of the press is a component without which democracy cannot survive. It’s incumbent upon us to put effort into revealing the facts and understanding the truth.
"Many people who didn’t vote for this government are listening to this speech, many people who don’t and won’t support it. I thank you for your willingness to listen. I ask to work together with you for the good of our country. I’m committed to serving you as well. I embrace the words of my predecessor, and want to repeat them: we are brothers.
"The challenges before us are immense. The struggle against Iran, terror at home, the Israeli education crisis, the cost of living, strengthening personal security. When the challenges are so great, we can’t let disagreements consume all our strength. In order to create a common good here, we need one another.
"Our children are watching us. What do we want them to see? We want our children to see that we did everything to build a Jewish and democratic, strong and advanced, benevolent and good Israel."