|
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Prime Minister’s Office director-General Ra’anan Dinur and Ramat Hanegev Regional Council (http://ramat-negev.org.il/en/) Chairman Shmuel Rifman, this afternoon, visited the Ayalim Association student village at Eshelim in the Negev.
Prime Minister Olmert said:
“Five years ago, when you came to me for our first meeting, I felt that this was the start of something that would develop and prosper. I see you here before me and I envision thousands of young people living in the new cities that will be built in the Negev in the future. I know that this will happen because this area has within it a great potential for development.
I do not hide the fact that I have gone through changes in my life. Today, I understand that for 40 years, the State of Israel invested its enthusiasm, as well as Zionism and resources, in order to build up a place in which, in retrospect, it has become clear that the future of the State of Israel does not lay.
For years, we have been proud that we have turned the desert into the Garden of Eden. But this is not true; we are only at the beginning. The desert has waited for us all these years. We are pioneers. You will yet draw many others after you.
Our country has always moved in cycles of dreamers. I am the son of people who also had a dream and one day your children will look at you and say that our parents also had a dream. As long as I can, I will do my utmost to assist your energies in making breakthroughs.”
|