Leaders mark pivotal WWI battle
Netanyahu honors ANZAC troops’ liberation of Beersheba
Israeli, Australian and New Zealand leaders gathered in southern Israel on Tuesday to mark the 100th anniversary of a key cavalry charge that helped clear the way to Jerusalem during World War I.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was joined by his Australian counterpart Malcolm Turnbull and New Zealand Governor-General Patsy Reddy in Beersheba, where the Australia and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) defeated Ottoman troops to gain control of a strategic crossroads.
Netanyahu hailed the battle as eventually helping lead to the creation of the state of Israel.
“Nearly 4,000 years ago Abraham came to Beersheba, the city of seven wells,” Netanyahu said at the ceremony, held in the city’s Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery.
“Exactly 100 years ago brave ANZAC soldiers liberated Beersheba for the sons and daughters of Abraham and opened the gateway for the Jewish people to reenter the stage of history,” Netanyahu said.
“Israel salutes the sacrifice of these brave soldiers. We will never forget them. We will forever honour and treasure their memory.”
To Australians, “the battle has become part of our history, part of our psyche,” Turnbull said.
The audacious assault on entrenched Ottoman forces enabled the British advance into Palestine and “secured the victory that did not create the state of Israel, but enabled its creation,” Turnbull said.
“Had the Ottoman rule in Palestine and Syria not been overthrown by the Australians and the New Zealanders, the Balfour Declaration would have been empty words,” the Australian premier said.
Britain’s Balfour Declaration on November 2, 1917 said it viewed “with favor the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.”
New Zealand’s Reddy said the battle “changed political conditions in this region in the most profound way.”
Organizers said 3,000 tourists from Australia and New Zealand came for the ceremonies, which saw the normally tranquil Beersheba, dubbed the capital of the Negev desert region, astir with dignitaries, security forces and media.