Israel celebrates 67 years of independence on Wednesday night and Thursday, and will usher in the festivities with the traditional torch-lighting ceremony at 8:00 pm at Mount Herzl in Jerusalem.
The ceremony will be led by the Speaker of the Knesset Yuli Edelstein (Likud). Ministers, MKs, and bereaved families will also be in attendance.
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu gave a special televised Independence Day address, thanking the IDF soldiers – without them, "we would not be here," he said – and the torch-lighting honorees for their groundbreaking work toward advancing the State of Israel.
Edelstein then addressed the crowd, calling on the people of Israel to put aside their differences after the tense elections season.
"Recently, increased feeling among many, perhaps too many, that life is unbearable in this country," he began. "Unfortunately, several agencies also contributed to deliberately strengthen this feeling. There is no room for this discourse! I regret that there are those among us, who sought frequently to slander Israel, to wail over us and blacken our reputation – and had a real obsessive preoccupation with it."
"God! I love this country," he continued. "But more than that, I love this nation! The residents of central Israel and the periphery, the people of the kibbutzim and moshavim, the settlers in Judea and Samaria, the minorities; the intellectuals and the People of the Book, the academics and the artists [. . .] we are equal!"
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