“We are not numerous, but we are independent, and if it’s necessary to say no we shall say so to our enemies and even to our friends,” Premier Golda Meir declared yesterday at a public meeting in Petach Tikva commemorating the 50th anniversary of the township. Mrs. Meir, who will soon mark her 50th anniversary in the Holy Land, said of Israel: “This people will accept no dictate from those who wished to destroy us and did not succeed. The world does not realize that the source of our strength is our people, the independent free people.” A nation is free, she asserted, “not when it announces its freedom but when it decides and knows in its innermost heart that it is free.” Mrs. Meir emphasized to her listeners, who included Hagans veterans, that “We are not a people striving for war but a peace-loving people,” a situation that she said was “so simple as not to be understood by the world.” Israel, she said, “can no longer be frightened,” for “what have we not experienced?” Thus, she said, “We shall stand fast also in hard disputes with our friends.”
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
