Rivlin on Memorial Day: ‘The price of our liberty is purchased in blood’

At the official state Memorial Day commemoration ceremony at the Western Wall in Jerusalem, President Reuven Rivlin tells the families of fallen IDF soldiers they have paid the ultimate price for Israel’s independence.

“By this wall of tears and of hopes, this evening, 50 years after the liberation of Jerusalem, we remember: our liberty is sacred, both sacred and hard,” the president says to an audience of IDF soldiers and families of the fallen. “We know that there is a price to be paid for our existence here, for our liberty. There is a price, and we, in awe and terror, are willing to pay that price.”

“Dear bereaved families, we are living that privilege. You paid the price. The price of our liberty purchased in blood,” Rivlin says.

The president also says efforts to return the bodies of IDF soldiers killed in operations outside of Israel must not be abandoned.

“The task of bringing home the missing and the fallen soldiers whose place of burial is unknown has not been completed,” he says. “Our commitment to those boys remains firm.”