My wife and I visited Israel the first time before the 1967 war. Jerusalem was a divided city. A fence ran through it. We hired a guide. He was an Arab, a man of learning, bright and intelligent and able.

We climbed a little knoll, a high place in the city, and he pointed out his home, on the other side of the fence, which had been taken from him. He said something I have never forgotten: 'You belong to the greatest nation on the face of the earth. Yours is the only nation which has been victorious in war and never claimed any territory as a prize of conquest. Your people have given millions, even billions to the poor of the earth and never asked for anything in return. Rather, even after coming off as conqueror, you have poured in other billions to revive those who had been your enemies in bloody conflict.'


Gordon B. Hinckley, Keep Faith with America', Commencement address given at Weber State University, Ogden, Utah on 6 May 1999