DODIK: ONE CANNOT PUT SURVIVAL IN SOMEONE ELSE'S HANDS

BANJA LUKA, SEPTEMBER 17 /SRNA/ - If someone thinks that a small political community cannot be an actor in the world – let them look at Israel, and, by watching them, we will learn and do our job, the President Milorad Dodik said.

"Republika Srpska is small when it comes to the territory, but not by history, identity and friends. And when you have a friend like the State of Izrael by your side – you have already defeated those who wrote you off," President Dodik noted in his column for the Media System of Republika Srpska – SRNA, which we are publishing in its entirety:

There are relations that start because of the interest in the moment, and there are ties with roots that are much deeper than the daily politics. The ties between the Serbs and the Jews are of the latter kind.

The recent visit of Iddo Netanyahu to Banja Luka opened that subject again. He came to speak about his brother Yoni – a commander who died in 1976 while leading the operation of freeing the Israeli hostages in Entebbe.

The story about Yoni Netanyahu is much more than a story about a military operation. That is a story about what a small nation must be ready to do when it realizes that it cannot put its survival in someone else's hands. The Serbs understand that kind of stories – not because we read about it in books, but because we carry them in our own experience.

Jasenovac and Auschwitz are not just distant by geography – they are parts of the same dark book and same vow: not to forget and not to happen again. When a Jew says, "never more," a Serb knows the weight of those words. That solidarity is not learned. That is a solidarity carved in sacrifice and historical memory. That is why a Serbian-Jewish friendship is not made up in diplomacy offices.

But a memory is not enough on its own. The most important is what peoples do with the history that they inherited.

From its own tragedy, Israel drew a conclusion that one cannot let others' good will to decide about his survival. It built a state capable to defent itself, an economy based on knowledge and a political culture in which awareness of survival is part of state thinking.

In a country smaller than a half of Republika Srpska live people who made gardens out of the desert, innovation out of siege, and invincibility out of constant treat.

That is exactly the reason why conversations with Benjamin Netanyahu are more important than a protocol photography. Netanyahu is not just a prime minister – he is a leader who stays at the first line of defense of his people. Republika Srpska understands and respects that kind of leaders.

At the meeting in Jerusalem, he thanked representatives of Republika Srpska on years-long support to Israel, and both sides expressed readiness to deepen the ties further. That is where the serious politics starts. Because a friend is someone with is someone with whom you can build something.

The attitude towards Israel in recent years has shown how different civilizational views of the Jewish state exist within BiH. And there is no more room for diplomatic twists.

When the meeting of the Conference of European Rabbis was supposed to be held in Sarajevo in 2025, the meeting had to be moved to Munich after political pressure. The city, which canceled a gathering of religious leaders of a nation in 48 hours, under pressure, has no right to call for tolerance.

Only a few months later, around fifty Israeli citizens in Sarajevo were left without passports. On top of all this comes public messages of support for Hamas and hate posters directed against Israel.

While slogans of support for Hamas are being pasted in Sarajevo, the Chamber of Commerce of Israel is opening in Banja Luka. Two cities, two civilization orientations. And let the world see the difference.

And then they told us everything. Enver Kazas, one of the ideologists of Bosniaks’ policy, publicly mourned the death of Iranian Ayatollah Hamenei and ask for prayers dedicated to him in the entire BiH. And it's not just that – he admitted that Iran was the key ally of the Bosniaks in the war against Serbs. Publicli. On television. Without a single shred of shame.

This is the same Iran that armed the Mujahideen during the war while they beheaded the Serbs. The same Iran that today pays Hamas to slaughter civilians in Israel. The same Iran that announced a blackmail of ten million dollars for the death of Baron Trump on state television. It is not an ideology - it is a generator of death. Bosniaks themselves chose it as their ally.

There is no tolerance in places where killers are celebrated. There is no coexistence where the allies of those who slaughtered Serbs and are slaughtering Jews today are glorified.

Banja Luka sends a different message. That a Jew who comes to Republika Srpska knows that he is coming among people who respect his identity, his right to security and the State of Israel.

We do not wear double glasses: terror is terror, Hamas is a terrorist organization, Israel is a sovereign state and our friend - and we say this loudly and openly.

HAGGADAH AND THE TRUTH THAT IS BIGGER THAN ONE BOOK

The Sarajevo Haggadah is one of the most precious pieces of Jewish culture in Europe. It was created in medieval Spain, and today it is a national monument of BiH. One day, its place should be in Israel - not because the history of Sarajevo can be erased, but because that book belongs to the people whose suffering it preserved.

The State of Israel is the only place where Jewish memory lives as an organism and not as a museum exhibit for political use.

An example was given by Serbia. The mortal remains of Teodor Herzl's grandparents were transferred from Belgrade to Israel and buried on Mount Herzl in Jerusalem, with state honors and the presence of President Isaac Herzl and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

That is an example of how historical friendship is transformed into an act of respect. It is an example that Sarajevo cannot and does not want to follow - not because it cannot, but because it will not.

That is why it is deeply hypocritical when a city in which the Jewish community was nearly fully destroyed under the NDH now uses that same Haggadah as an alibi for its own moral purity.

A thousand-year-old book cannot conceal the truth about what happened in just four years. People are more important than objects. When the proceeds from that Jewish relic are directed toward political purposes against the State of Israel - it is no longer culture. It is cynicism without precedent.

IRAN NOT DISTANT GEOGRAPHY

The weapons, money and advisers that came from Iran to the Bosniak side of the front were not humanitarian aid. They were part of the same policy that today arms Hezbollah, finances Hamas and threatens every morning to wipe Israel off the map. Whoever stood on that side then is recognizable today as well - Enver Kazaz himself confirmed this.

It is important to say: Islam is a religion. Islamist radicalism is a political ideology that abuses religion to justify violence. But when that ideology receives state support from Iran, it very quickly ceases to be a distant issue.

Republika Srpska and Israel are not accidentally targeted by the same ideological project. Some told us that we had no right to a state; others tell them that they have no right to exist. A Serb mother who lost her child in Kravica and a Jewish mother who lost her daughter on a street in Tel Aviv - their pain has the same origin. That is why this is not someone else's war. This is our common battlefield.

ISRAEL AS LESSON

The most important part of the relationship with Israel is not the story about enemies, but the question of what Republika Srpska can learn. Israel shows that territorial size is not the same as political strength: how to make a small community capable enough that its size ceases to be a weakness, how to retain people, attract capital, connect universities with the economy, and combine knowledge with land and energy.

When you combine Jewish technology and innovation with Serb land, water and workforce - that is not a sum. It is a force. Not a relationship between a protector and a protected party, but a partnership in which people learn, do business and create ties that last longer than a single term in office.

TWO FLAGS, ONE VOW

Two flags. One three thousand years old, the other carrying centuries of memory. Both have survived attempts to be burned. Flags do not burn when held by hands that refuse to give up.

Two peoples who were predicted to disappear - and here they are, signing agreements, building bridges and developing their economies. "Unbreakable" is not a poetic image. It is a historical fact. Let those who think we are finished look at them.

Because true friendship is not only a shared memory of the dead - it is also a shared investment in those who are yet to come. Republika Srpska does not count its friends by who is fashionable, but by who stood by us when things were difficult. Israel has always belonged to that circle. That is why this is not a diplomatic episode - it is a strategic commitment.

Serbs and Jews are brothers through history and brothers through the future. Behind both peoples stands one word: struggle. The struggle for the right to exist, to remember, and not to apologize for our own survival.

Today we are writing a new chapter. Once, we were dying together. Today, we are building together. Tomorrow we will bear witness that small peoples who do not kneel are, in fact, the greatest.

If someone believes that a small political community cannot be a stakeholder in the world, let them look at Israel. We, by looking at them, will learn and do our own work. Republika Srpska is small in territory, but it is not small in history, identity or friendships. When you have a friend such as the State of Israel beside you - you have already defeated those who wrote you off.

Two peoples whom history has told many times would not survive, but are still here. Not because someone gave them the right to exist as a gift. But because they learned the hardest lesson: survival cannot be left to others.