Back to Ambassadorial Speeches - Ambassador Zalman Shoval

Statement by Ambassador Shoval at the Embassy of Israel Washington, D.C. - January 17, 1991

AMBASSADOR SHOVAL: Ladies and Gentlemen, in this auditorium which we usually reserve for cultural events, I have to make the announcement that tonight, Washington time, during the night in Israel, there has been an unprovoked attack by Iraq, launching Scud missiles or perhaps improved Scud missiles at purely civilian target -- targets in Israel, jeopardizing the lives of both Jews and Arabs, Israelis and Palestinians who live next to each other, are often intermingled. And in the situation where Israel has time and time again declared that it is not part of the conflict with Iraq, it is not part of the coalition and as a matter of fact, it has remained with a low profile, if you remember that term, for all these months since the beginning of the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait.

We don't have exact details as of yet. We understand that there's a possibility that more than ten missiles were actually launched at Israel. Probably two hit the Tel Aviv area and another one hit the Haifa area. There may have been another hit, but that is not clear as of yet. The missiles in the Tel Aviv area hit a neighborhood in the southern part of the city inhabited mostly by elderly people and laborers, people who toil for their livelihood. We have so far -- and we hope this is a final count -- received information that there have been six or seven injured, fortunately not seriously injured, but I don't know the exact details, and there has been considerable damage in property, among other things, because that area where the missiles sit, it does not usually include -- does not usually contain the best of housing, and, therefore, these houses were probably damaged more than perhaps other houses would have been.

Immediately after the information about the missile strike became known, I was in contact with the Secretary of State and the Deputy Secretary of State and with the White House, all of whom conveyed their sympathy in the strongest possible feeling, in the strongest possible language. The word mentioned was "devastated." And I must say, listening to their voices, they were, indeed. And I was asked to convey this message as well as others to my government, to my Prime Minister, which, of course, I promptly did.

I know that the two governments or their representatives have been in contact and are in contact since then. I would like to add only two further comments: Number one, that the government of Israel -- and let me add, fully supported by the opposition in Israel -- has declared that of course, Israel reserves the right to respond in any way it would deem fit without going at the present time into particulars what the decision of the Israeli government in that respect will be.

My final comment is, that Israel took a very tough decision, knowingly to risk a first strike on it. We knew that we might be hit. I, myself, was often asked on TV do we take these threats seriously? I did say -- we all did -- we take these threats very, very seriously. There is no reason, whatsoever, to doubt these threats.

Nevertheless, the Israeli government, supporting America's political aims and complying with the United States government requests, decided to refrain from a preemptive attack on those launching pads, on those missile launchers from which we were threatened. We knew that this was a calculated risk. We have now, unfortunately, been forced to give the proof that this actually happened. So far, the state of Israel and the people of Israel -- and thank G-d, the casualties were not more numerous -- but so far, the state of Israel has paid the dearest price of any of the countries in the Middle East which have faced Iraqi aggression except Kuwait itself. And Israel, as I said in the beginning, was not a party to this conflict at all.

This is all that I have to say. Thank you very much. And goodnight.