Speeches, etc.

Margaret Thatcher

Speech to Anglo-Jewish Ex-servicemen (AJEX)

Document type: Speeches, interviews, etc.
Venue: Oriental Club, central London
Source: Thatcher Archive: speaking text
Editorial comments: After lunch.
Importance ranking: Minor
Word count: 1934
Themes: Civil liberties, Foreign policy (Middle East), Foreign policy (USA), Foreign policy (USSR & successor states), Religion & morality, Science & technology

I am honoured and privileged to be with you on this day, a day when we specially remember that we do not enjoy Freedom and Justice because of our own virtues, but because of the unselfish sacrifice of others who gave their lives that we may enjoy ours. Among them were many distinguished members of Ajex and we salute them. We owe it to them to build an honourable and more noble life for our children and theirs.

I found the ceremonies today very moving. The book ‘We will remember them’, which is an eternal record of the Jews who died in the Armed Forces of the Crown in the last war, paints a vivid picture of the lives of each and everyone: of their zest, their youth, their hopes and their courage—all so abruptly cut off. We remember not only their sacrifice: we remember how they lived, and that their families have been bereft of their presence for ever.

FIFTY YEARS ON

Recent years have been particularly poignant because of the many historic commemorations. Fifty years on, we have recalled the Normandy landings; we now know all the difficulties and the dangers, and the supreme effort required to overcome them. We believe that those men and women who played a part [end p1] in these momentous events, were given extra strength because they had faith that what they were doing was right, that they fought for all humanity, and that they were fighting evil itself. With the opening of the Holocaust Museum in Washington, we recalled the grievous suffering of millions of people. And the remarkable film, Schindler's List, left us shocked to the core as we were reminded of the depths of brutality to which some of this century's generation had sunk. Last year too, I visited Warsaw for the 50th anniversary of the Ghetto uprising and trod the harrowing path that took hundreds of thousands of Jews to their deaths.

But we recall also those for whom the defeat of Nazi tyranny did not bring freedom. The people of Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary, and the brave “dissidents” in the former Soviet Union. I saw them each time I visited Moscow. We never forgot them, we never ceased to work for their freedom: freedom of worship, freedom of speech, freedom to teach Hebrew, freedom to emigrate, freedom to work for a better future. May the world never forget that the strength of faith, liberty, and justice in the end helped to bring that evil empire crashing down. As Cardinal Hume put it “the power of love was greater than the love of power” . [end p2]

TRIBUTE TO AJEX

Members of this association fought gallantly in two world wars, on land, sea, and in the air, wherever battle was joined. 60,000 Jewish men and women served during World War 2 with the British Armed Forces. Yet more served with the Dominion Forces and with British Forces in Palestine. Altogether over 3,200 Jews gave their lives in that War fighting for a law governed liberty. The many Awards for bravery included a Victoria Cross, 67 military crosses, 61 DFCs and 23 bars to the DFC, 73 Military medals, 5 DFMs, 484 mentions in Despatches. You bore your full share of the heat of battle. We can't undo what has happened this century but we must learn its lessons so that we do not repeat its mistakes. We must learn it is vital to keep our defences strong, to invest in the latest technology, and to maintain our alliances—particularly with America. For it is weakness that tempts an aggressor; and strength which deters him provided we have the resolve to use it.

BIBLICAL VALUES—THE MORAL FOUNDATION

Jews and Christians are both peoples of the Bible. We both believe in the sanctity of the individual, every individual, and altogether there are now five and three-quarter billion of us on this globe. Each one of us is unique, no two [end p3] human faces are exactly alike, no two human handwritings are indistinguishable and no two personalities the same. Each and everyone matters. The Ten Commandments are addressed to each of us individually.

The whole notion of inalienable human rights, applied to all, which belong to Man as Man—rights which governments have no moral power to deny—is rooted in our Judaeo-Christian tradition. The central importance of law as a means of civilising human behaviour is one of the most striking biblical features. It is a law which cannot be abrogated: on which human authority must be based and by which human behaviour must ultimately be judged. It is on that concept of a higher moral law which binds all of us, however powerful, however poor, that human rights are founded.

Democracy therefore is about more than just majority rule; it is about upholding those rights. They must be central to any system of government. As President John Quincy Adams said—speaking of the American Constitution soon after it took effect—‘Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for the Government of any other’. We have no written constitution but the same tradition applies to us.

It is when ambitious dictators obliterate those rights and tyranny takes hold, that [end p4] liberty, law, truth, and democracy are crushed. It is in our willingness to defend these principles and when necessary to fight for them that Britain, America and Ajex serve as beacons to the whole world.

ADVANCING IDEAS

But while emphasising the deep-rooted values which should guide our deeds I should also like to pay a tribute to the debt the world owes scientists who advance our knowledge and ideas. And as you know many of the most distinguished have been Jewish.

It is sometimes alleged that the discoveries of science have undermined the foundations of religious belief. On the contrary, the unlocking by imaginative research, of the secrets of the Universe and the laws of nature, has demonstrated once again the remarkable capacity of man's mind as endowed by the Great Creator—a miracle indeed. As Rudyard Kipling said in his poem ‘The Secret of the Machines’:

‘Remember …   . for all our power and weight and size we are nothing more than children of your brain.’ [end p5]

And we should remember that it was Einstein and his other scientific colleagues who, in 1939, first wrote to alert President Roosevelt that Hitler was aware of the possibility of making a nuclear weapon from the Uranium Ore deposits he took over following his invasion of Czechoslovakia. The letter was handed to Roosevelt on 11 October—no letter was ever acted upon more swiftly. On 19 October Roosevelt replied to Einstein that he found his data of such importance that he was convening a high powered board to investigate “the possibilities of your suggestion regarding the element of uranium” . We know the rest. Fortunately America obtained the atomic weapon before our enemies. But what sort of world would we live in today had Einstein and his colleagues not spoken out and Roosevelt not acted.

A DIFFERENT FUTURE?

Over the fifty years, after the end of the Second World War, we all became used to a fairly stable and predictable world. The centre-piece was the Cold War.

— The world was divided between East and West and dominated by the Soviet Union and the United States. — Familiar institutions—NATO and the Warsaw Pact—confronted each [end p6] other across the Iron Curtain. — The existence of very large numbers of numbers of nuclear weapons on each side ruled out a conflict in Europe. — The United Nations was generally paralysed.

There were some terrible times, as when Soviet tanks rolled into Hungary and Czechoslovakia to crush the first stirrings of liberty. But Nato could not take action for fear of precipitating a third world war.

It was largely a frozen world and looked likely to remain so.

Then suddenly everything we had become used to was swept away in an amazing upheaval in world affairs—a sort of global earthquake.

In quick succession we had the end of the Cold War, the disintegration of the Soviet Union, the collapse of Communism, leaving the United States as the sole super-power, and a massive reduction in nuclear and other arms. I do not think there has ever been such a period of concentrated and massive change.

Our way of life, that is the democratic system of government backed by a rule of law and supported by a free market economic system, has come out on top [end p7] in the great ideological struggle of this century. It is certainly not universal, but increasingly it is accepted as the standard across the world.

PROSPECTS FOR PEACE

The end of the Cold War and then the consequences of the Gulf War made possible the settlement of problems which for decades had seemed insoluble.

The Israel/Palestine problem was perhaps one of the first. Previously it had always been viewed through the prism of the Cold War. The PLO were supplied with weapons and training by the Soviet Union and had relied for money on the Arab states. But suddenly the Soviet Union collapsed and the PLO's support for the wrong side in the Gulf War starved it of funds. The world had changed and the PLO came to the negotiating table.

Most of us saw and applauded the agreement signed at the White House between Mr. Rabin and Mr. Arafat. It offers a better future for thousands and thousands of young people whose lives had been dominated by military service.

Complex negotiations seldom run smoothly. Every religion can be hampered by fanatics whose use of violence to attain their political ends, as scholars [end p8] remind us, has no sanction in the true religion. Power not peace is their aim, power at any price. We must ensure that the true message of our faiths is the one which endures.

A TIME OF TRANSITION

As one danger passes so others arise, and the same vigilance in defence of freedom, is still required.

For the timebeing the world is full of ‘transitions’—difficult transitions—the former states of the USSR moving from communism to freedom; China moving rapidly to an enterprise society but not yet to democracy; India, the world's largest established democracy, on the move to an enterprise society; many Latin American countries now choosing democracy; South Africa wrestling with her economic problems after her first democratic election; and the whole Asia-Pacific region rising like a phoenix—indeed its rapid economic growth will gradually transfer power from the Old World of the European-Atlantic area to the newer world of Asia-Pacific. This is an historic shift in the structure of world relations and it will have enormous strategic consequences.

And what of our role in Britain? There will never be a new World Order. [end p9] There is no substitute for leadership, the Anglo-American leadership, which has saved the World for liberty this century and in which Jewish men and women, “staunch to the end, against odds uncounted” have played such an enormous role. In 1941 when we stood alone Winston Churchill said ‘Out of the depths of sorrow and sacrifice will be born again the glory of mankind’. The words were for us all, but they seem especially right for your people who had suffered from such savagery.

HOPES FOR THE FUTURE

May we bring to future generations the same faith and courage as those we remember today gave so selflessly to us.

The words ‘We will remember them’ come from Laurence Binyon 's poem ‘For the Fallen’—its other wonderful verses are seldom heard—

They mingle not with their laughing comrades again;
They sit no more at familiar tables of home;
To the innermost heart of their own land they are known
As the stars are known to the Night;
As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust,
[end p10]
Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain,
As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness,
To the end, to the end, they remain.

So tonight when we look up in perfect silence at the stars we will remember them with pride in our hearts.