Speech at an Israel Policy Forum Dinner
in New York City
(January 7, 2001)
Thank you very much. Thank you. I want to thank all
of you for making me feel so welcome tonight and also for making Hillary
and Chelsea feel welcome. I thank Michael Sonnenfeldt, who, like me,
is going out after 8 years--[laughter]--and will doubtless find some
other useful activity. But he has done a superb job, and I'm very grateful
to him.
I thank my friend Jack Bendheim for his many kindnesses
to me and to Hillary. Yesterday he had a birthday, and now, like me,
he's 54. Unlike me, he has enough children to be elected President of
the United States. [Laughter] And he's had a wonderful family and a
wonderful life, and I'm delighted that he's so active in the Israel
Policy Forum. I'd like to thank Judith Stern Peck for making me feel
so welcome and for her leadership.
I thank Lesley Stahl. It's good to see you, and thank
you for your kind remarks. I thank the many Members of Congress who
are here and also the members of my Middle East peace team. Secretary
Albright and Sandy Berger and others have been introduced, but Secretary
Dan Glickman is here, and Kerry Kennedy Cuomo is here, and I thank them
for being here.
I want to thank the New York officials who are here--Carl
McCall, Mark Green, and any others who may be in the crowd--for your
many kindnesses to me over the last 8 years. New York has been great
to me and Al Gore and even greater to my wife on election day, so I
thank you for that.
We just reenacted her swearing-in at Madison Square
Garden. And I was reminded of one of the many advantages of living in
New York: Jessye Norman sang; Toni Morrison read; and Billy Joel sang.
Meanwhile, at least at half time, the Giants were ahead. [Laughter]
And so I said, I felt sort of like Garrison Keillor did about Lake Wobegon.
I was glad to be in New York where all the writers, artists, and sports
teams were above average--[laughter]--and all the votes were always
counted. [Laughter]
Let me also say a word of warm welcome and profound
respect to the Speaker of the Knesset, Speaker Burg, for his wonderful
and kind comments to me, and to Cabinet Secretary Herzog, for his message
from the Government of Israel. I want to say a little more about that
in a moment.
I want to congratulate Dwayne Andreas, my good friend--I
wish he were here tonight--and thank him for his many kindnesses to
me. Congratulations, Louis Perlmutter; Susan Stern, who has been such
a great friend to Hillary, and you gave a good talk tonight. I think
you've got a real future in this business. And your mother sat by me,
and she gave you a good grade, too. [Laughter]
And Alan Solomont, who has done as much for me as,
I suppose, any American, and he and Susan and their children have been
great friends, and I thank you for what you've done, sir. I thank all
of you.
I'd also like to say how much I appreciated and was
moved by the words of Prime Minister Barak. He was dealt the hard hand
by history. And he came to office with absolute conviction that in the
end, Israel could not be secure unless a just and lasting peace could
be reached with its neighbors, beginning with the Palestinians; that
if that turned out not to be possible, then the next best thing was
to be as strong as possible and as effective in the use of that strength.
But his knowledge of war has fed a passion for peace. And his understanding
of the changing technology of war has made him more passionate, not
because he thinks the existence of Israel is less secure--if anything,
it's more secure--but because the sophisticated weapons available to
terrorists today mean even though they still lose, they can exact a
higher price along the way.
I've been in enough political fights in my life to
know that sometimes you just have to do the right thing, and it may
work out, and it may not. Most people thought I had lost my mind when
we passed the economic plan to get rid of the deficit in 1993. And no
one in the other party voted for it, and they just talked about how
it would bring the world to an end and America's economy would be a
disaster. I think the only Republican who thought it would work was
Alan Greenspan. [Laughter] He was relieved of the burden of having to
say anything about it.
But no dilemma I have ever faced approximates in difficulty
or comes close to the choice that Prime Minister Barak had to make when
he took office. He realized that he couldn't know for sure what the
final intentions of the Palestinian leadership were without testing
them. He further realized that even if the intentions were there, there
was a lot of competition among the Palestinians and from outside forces,
from people who are enemies of peace because they don't give a rip how
the ordinary Palestinians have to live and they're pursuing a whole
different agenda.
He knew nine things could go wrong and only one thing
could go right. But he promised himself that he would have to try. And
as long as he knew Israel in the end could defend itself and maintain
its security, he would keep taking risks. And that's what he's done,
down to these days. There may be those who disagree with him, but he
has demonstrated as much bravery in the office of Prime Minister as
he ever did on the field of battle, and no one should ever question
that.
Now, I imagine this has been a tough time for those
of you who have been supporting the IPF out of conviction for a long
time. All the dreams we had in '93 that were revived when we had the
peace with Jordan, revived again when we had the Wye River accords--that
was, I think, the most interesting peace talk I was ever involved in.
My strategy was the same used to break prisoners of war: I just didn't
let anybody sleep for 9 days, and finally, out of exhaustion, we made
a deal--just so people could go home and go to bed. [Laughter] I've
been looking for an opportunity to employ it again, ever since.
There have been a lot of positive things, and I think
it's worth remembering that there have been positive developments along
the way. But this is heartbreaking, what we've been through these last
few months, for all of you who have believed for 8 years in the Oslo
process, all of you whose hearts soared on September 13, 1993,* when
Yasser Arafat and Yitzhak Rabin signed that agreement.
* White House correction.
For over 3 months, we have lived through a tragic cycle
of violence that has cost hundreds of lives. It has shattered the confidence
in the peace process. It has raised questions in some people's minds
about whether Palestinians and Israelis could ever really live and work
together, support each other's peace and prosperity and security. It's
been a heartbreaking time for me, too. But we have done our best to
work with the parties to restore calm, to end the bloodshed, and to
get back to working on an agreement to address the underlying causes
that continuously erupt in conflicts.
Whatever happens in the next 2 weeks I've got to serve,
I think it's appropriate for me tonight, before a group of Americans
and friends from the Middle East who believe profoundly in the peace
process and have put their time and heart and money where their words
are, to reflect on the lessons I believe we've all learned over the
last 8 years and how we can achieve the long sought peace.
From my first day as President, we have worked to advance
interests in the Middle East that are long standing and historically
bipartisan. I was glad to hear of Senator Hagel's recitation of President-elect
Bush's commitment to peace in the Middle East. Those historic commitments
include an ironclad commitment to Israel's security and a just, comprehensive,
and lasting agreement between the Palestinians and the Israelis.
Along the way, since '93, through the positive agreements
that have been reached between those two sides, through the peace between
Israel and Jordan, through last summer's withdrawal from Lebanon in
which Israel fulfilled its part of implementing U.N. Security Counsel
Resolution 425--along this way we have learned some important lessons,
not only because of the benchmarks of progress, because of the occasional
eruption of terrorism, bombing, death, and then these months of conflict.
I think these lessons have to guide any effort, now
or in the future, to reach a comprehensive peace. Here's what I think
they are. Most of you probably believed in them, up to the last 3 months.
I still do.
First, the Arab-Israeli conflict is not just a morality
play between good and evil; it is a conflict with a complex history,
whose resolution requires balancing the needs of both sides, including
respect for their national identities and religious beliefs.
Second, there is no place for violence and no military
solution to this conflict. The only path to a just and durable resolution
is through negotiation.
Third, there will be no lasting peace or regional stability
without a strong and secure Israel, secure enough to make peace, strong
enough to deter the adversaries which will still be there, even if a
peace is made in complete good faith. And clearly that is why the United
States must maintain its commitment to preserving Israel's qualitative
edge in military superiority.
Fourth, talks must be accompanied by acts--acts which
show trust and partnership. For good will at the negotiating table cannot
survive forever ill intent on the ground. And it is important that each
side understands how the other reads actions. For example, on the one
hand, the tolerance of violence and incitement of hatred in classrooms
and the media in the Palestinian communities, or on the other hand,
humiliating treatment on the streets or at checkpoints by Israelis,
are real obstacles to even getting people to talk about building a genuine
peace.
Fifth, in the resolution of remaining differences,
whether they come today or after several years of heartbreak and bloodshed,
the fundamental, painful, but necessary choices will almost certainly
remain the same whenever the decision is made. The parties will face
the same history, the same geography, the same neighbors, the same passions,
the same hatreds. This is not a problem time will take care of.
And I would just like to go off the script here, because
a lot of you have more personal contacts than I do with people that
will be dealing with this for a long time to come, whatever happens
in the next 2 weeks.
Among the really profound and difficult problems of
the world that I have dealt with, I find that they tend to fall into
two categories. And if I could use sort of a medical analogy, some are
like old wounds with scabs on them, and some are like abscessed teeth.
What do I mean by that? Old wounds with scabs eventually
will heal if you just leave them alone. And if you fool with them too
much, you might open the scab and make them worse. Abscessed teeth,
however, will only get worse if you leave them alone, and if you wait
and wait and wait, they'll just infect the whole rest of your mouth.
Northern Ireland, I believe, is becoming more like
the scab. There are very difficult things. If you followed my trip over
there, you know I was trying to help them resolve some of their outstanding
problems, and we didn't get it all done. But what I really wanted to
do was to remind people of the benefits of peace and to keep everybody
in a good frame of mind and going on so that all the politicians know
that if they really let the wheel run off over there, the people will
throw them out on their ears.
Now, why is that? Because the Irish Republic is now
the fastest growing economy in Europe, and Northern Ireland is the fastest
growing economy within the United Kingdom. So the people are benefiting
from peace, and they can live with the fact that they can't quite figure
out what to do about the police force and the reconciliation of the
various interests and passions of the Protestants and Catholics, and
the other three or four things, because the underlying reality has changed
their lives. So even though I wish I could solve it all, eventually
it will heal, if it just keeps going in the same direction.
The Middle East is not like that. Why? Because there
are all these independent actors--that is, independent of the Palestinian
Authority and not under the direct control of any international legal
body--who don't want this peace to work. So that even if we can get
an agreement and the Palestinian Authority works as hard as they can
and the Israelis work as hard as they can, we're all going to have to
pitch in, send in an international force like we did in the Sinai, and
hang tough, because there are enemies of peace out there, number one.
Number two, because the enemies of peace know they
can drive the Israelis to close the borders if they can blow up enough
bombs. They do it periodically to make sure that the Palestinians in
the street cannot enjoy the benefits of peace that have come to the
people in Northern Ireland. So as long as they can keep the people miserable
and they can keep the fundamental decisions from being made, they still
have a hope, the enemies of peace, of derailing the whole thing. That's
why it's more like an abscessed tooth.
The fundamental realities are not going to be changed
by delays. And that's why I said what I did about Ehud Barak. I know
that--I don't think it's appropriate for the United States to deal with
anybody else's politics, but I know why--you can't expect poll ratings
to be very good when the voters in the moment wonder if they're going
to get peace or security and think they can no longer have both and
may have to choose one. I understand that.
But I'm telling you, the reason he has continued to
push ahead on this is that he has figured out, this is one of those
political problems that is like the abscessed tooth. The realities are
not going to change. We can wait until all these handsome young people
at this table are the same age as the honorees tonight, and me. We can
wait until they've got kids their age and we've got a whole lot more
bodies and a lot more funerals, a lot more crying and a lot more hatred,
and I'll swear the decisions will still be the same ones that will have
to be made that have to be made today.
That's the fundamental deal here. And this is a speech
I have given, I might add, to all my Israeli friends who question what
we have done, and to the Palestinians, and in private--God forgive me,
my language is sometimes somewhat more graphic than it has been tonight.
But anybody that ever kneeled at the grave of a person who died in the
Middle East knows that what we've been through these last 3 months is
not what Yitzhak Rabin died for and not what I went to Gaza 2 years
ago to speak to the Palestinian National Council for either, for that
matter.
So those are the lessons I think are still operative,
and I'm a little concerned that we could draw the wrong lessons from
this tragic, still relatively brief, chapter in the history of the Middle
East. The violence does not demonstrate that the quest for peace has
gone too far or too fast. It demonstrates what happens when you've got
a problem that is profoundly difficult and you never quite get to the
end, so there is no settlement, no resolution, anxiety prevailed, and
at least some people never get any concrete benefits out of it.
And I believe that the last few months demonstrate
the futility of force or terrorism as an ultimate solution. That's what
I believe. I think the last few months show that unilateralism will
exacerbate, not abate, mutual hostility. I believe that the violence
confirms the need to do more to prepare both publics for the requirements
of peace, not to condition people for the so-called glory of further
conflict.
Now, what are we going to do now? The first priority,
obviously, has got to be to drastically reduce the current cycle of
violence. But beyond that, on the Palestinian side, there must be an
end to the culture of violence and the culture of incitement that, since
Oslo, has not gone unchecked. Young children still are being educated
to believe in confrontation with Israel, and multiple militia-like groups
carry and use weapons with impunity. Voices of reason in that kind of
environment will be drowned out too often by voices of revenge.
Such conduct is inconsistent with the Palestinian leadership's
commitment to Oslo's nonviolent path to peace, and its persistence sends
the wrong message to the Israeli people and makes it much more difficult
for them to support their leaders in making the compromises necessary
to get a lasting agreement.
For their part, the Israeli people also must understand
that they're creating a few problems, too; that the settlement enterprise
and building bypass roads in the heart of what they already know will
one day be part of a Palestinian state is inconsistent with the Oslo
commitment that both sides negotiate a compromise.
And restoring confidence requires the Palestinians
being able to lead a normal existence and not be subject to daily, often
humiliating reminders that they lack basic freedom and control over
their lives.
These, too, make it harder for the Palestinians to
believe the commitments made to them will be kept. Can two peoples with
this kind of present trouble and troubling history still conclude a
genuine and lasting peace? I mean, if I gave you this as a soap opera,
you would say they're going to divorce court. But they can't, because
they share such a small piece of land with such a profound history of
importance to more than a billion people around the world. So I believe
with all my heart not only that they can, but that they must.
At Camp David I saw Israeli and Palestinian negotiators
who knew how many children each other had, who knew how many grandchildren
each other had, who knew how they met their spouses, who knew what their
family tragedies were, who trusted each other in their word. It was
almost shocking to see what could happen and how people still felt on
the ground when I saw how their leaders felt about each other and the
respect and the confidence they had in each other when they were talking.
The alternative to getting this peace done is being
played out before our very eyes. But amidst the agony, I will say again,
there are signs of hope. And let me try to put this into what I think
is a realistic context.
Camp David was a transformative event, because the
two sides faced the core issue of their dispute in a forum that was
official for the first time. And they had to debate the tradeoffs required
to resolve the issues. Just as Oslo forced Israelis and Palestinians
to come to terms with each other's existence, the discussions of the
past 6 months have forced them to come to terms with each other's needs
and the contours of a peace that ultimately they will have to reach.
That's why Prime Minister Barak, I think, has demonstrated
real courage and vision in moving toward peace in difficult circumstances
while trying to find a way to continue to protect Israel's security
and vital interests. So that's a fancy way of saying, we know what we
have to do and we've got a mess on our hands.
So where do we go from here? Given the impasse and
the tragic deterioration on the ground a couple of weeks ago, both sides
asked me to present my ideas. So I put forward parameters that I wanted
to be guide toward a comprehensive agreement; parameters based on 8
years of listening carefully to both sides and hearing them describe
with increasing clarity their respective grievances and needs.
Both Prime Minister Barak and Chairman Arafat have
now accepted these parameters as the basis for further efforts, though
both have expressed some reservations. At their request, I am using
my remaining time in office to narrow the differences between the parties
to the greatest degree possible--[applause]--for which I deserve no
applause. Believe me, it beats packing up all my old books. [Laughter]
The parameters I put forward contemplate a settlement
in response to each side's essential needs, if not to their utmost desires.
A settlement based on sovereign homelands, security, peace and dignity
for both Israelis and Palestinians. These parameters don't begin to
answer every question; they just narrow the questions that have to be
answered.
Here they are. First, I think there can be no genuine
resolution to the conflict without a sovereign, viable, Palestinian
state that accommodates Israeli's security requirements and the demographic
realities. That suggests Palestinian sovereignty over Gaza, the vast
majority of the West Bank, the incorporation into Israel of settlement
blocks, with the goal of maximizing the number of settlers in Israel
while minimizing the land annex for Palestine to be viable must be a
geographically contiguous state.
Now, the land annexed into Israel into settlement blocks
should include as few Palestinians as possible, consistent with the
logic of two separate homelands. And to make the agreement durable,
I think there will have to be some territorial swaps and other arrangements.
Second, a solution will have to be found for the Palestinian
refugees who have suffered a great deal--particularly some of them--
a solution that allows them to return to a Palestinian state that will
provide all Palestinians with a place they can safely and proudly call
home. All Palestinian refugees who wish to live in this homeland should
have the right to do so. All others who want to find new homes, whether
in their current locations or in third countries, should be able to
do so, consistent with those countries' sovereign decisions, and that
includes Israel.
All refugees should receive compensation from the international
community for their losses and assistance in building new lives.
Now, you all know what the rub is. That was a lot of
artful language for saying that you cannot expect Israel to acknowledge
an unlimited right of return to present day Israel and, at the same
time, to give up Gaza and the West Bank and have the settlement blocks
as compact as possible, because of where a lot of these refugees came
from. We cannot expect Israel to make a decision that would threaten
the very foundations of the state of Israel and would undermine the
whole logic of peace. And it shouldn't be done.
But I have made it very clear that the refugees will
be a high priority, and that the United States will take a lead in raising
the money necessary to relocate them in the most appropriate manner.
If the Government of Israel or a subsequent Government of Israel ever--will
be in charge of their immigration policy, just as we and the Canadians
and the Europeans and others who would offer Palestinians a home would
be, they would be obviously free to do that, and I think they've indicated
that they would do that, to some extent. But there cannot be an unlimited
language in an agreement that would undermine the very foundations of
the Israeli state or the whole reason for creating the Palestinian state.
So that's what we're working on.
Third, there will be no peace and no peace agreement
unless the Israeli people have lasting security guarantees. These need
not and should not come at the expense of Palestinian sovereignty, or
interfere with Palestinian territorial integrity. So my parameters rely
on an international presence in Palestine to provide border security
along the Jordan Valley and to monitor implementation of the final agreement.
They rely on a non-militarized Palestine, a phased Israeli withdrawal
to address Israeli security needs in the Jordan Valley, and other essential
arrangements to ensure Israel's ability to defend itself.
Fourth, I come to the issue of Jerusalem, perhaps the
most emotional and sensitive of all. It is a historic, cultural, and
political center for both Israelis and Palestinians, a unique city sacred
to all three monotheistic religions. And I believe the parameters I
have established flow from four fair and logical propositions.
First, Jerusalem should be an open and undivided city
with assured freedom of access and worship for all. It should encompass
the internationally recognized capitals of two states, Israel and Palestine.
Second, what is Arab should be Palestinian, for why would Israel want
to govern in perpetuity the lives of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians?
Third, what is Jewish should be Israeli. That would give rise to a Jewish
Jerusalem, larger and more vibrant than any in history. Fourth, what
is holy to both requires a special care to meet the needs of all. I
was glad to hear what the Speaker said about that. No peace agreement
will last if not premised on mutual respect for the religious beliefs
and holy shrines of Jews, Muslims, and Christians.
I have offered formulations on the Haram al-Sharif,
and the area holy to the Jewish people, an area which for 2,000 years,
as I said at Camp David, has been the focus of Jewish yearning, that
I believed fairly addressed the concerns of both sides.
Fifth and, finally, any agreement will have to mark
the decision to end the conflict, for neither side can afford to make
these painful compromises, only to be subjected to further demands.
They are both entitled to know that if they take the last drop of blood
out of each other's turnip, that's it. It really will have to be the
end of the struggle that has pitted Palestinians and Israelis against
one another for too long. And the end of the conflict must manifest
itself with concrete acts that demonstrate a new attitude and a new
approach by Palestinians and Israelis toward each other, and by other
states in the region toward Israel, and by the entire region toward
Palestine, to help it get off to a good start.
The parties' experience with interim accords has not
always been happy--too many deadlines missed, too many commitments unfulfilled
on both sides. So for this to signify a real end of the conflict, there
must be effective mechanisms to provide guarantees of implementation.
That's a lot of stuff, isn't it? It's what I think is the outline of
a fair agreement.
Let me say this. I am well aware that it will entail
real pain and sacrifices for both sides. I am well aware that I don't
even have to run for reelection in the United States on the basis of
these ideas. I have worked for 8 years without laying such ideas down.
I did it only when both sides asked me to and when it was obvious that
we had come to the end of the road, and somebody had to do something
to break out of the impasse.
Now, I still think the benefits of the agreement, based
on these parameters, far outweigh the burdens. For the people of Israel,
they are an end to conflict, secure and defensible borders, the incorporation
of most of the settlers into Israel, and the Jewish capital of Yerushalayim,
recognized by all, not just the United States, by everybody in the world.
It's a big deal, and it needs to be done.
For the Palestinian people, it means the freedom to
determine their own future on their own land, a new life for the refugees,
an independent and sovereign state with Al-Quds as its capital, recognized
by all. And for America, it means that we could have new flags flying
over new Embassies in both these capitals.
Now that the sides have accepted the parameters with
reservations, what's going to happen? Well, each side will try to do
a little better than I did. [Laughter] You know, that's just natural.
But a peace viewed as imposed by one party upon the other, that puts
one side up and the other down, rather than both ahead, contains the
seeds of its own destruction.
Let me say those who believe that my ideas can be altered
to one party's exclusive benefit are mistaken. I think to press for
more will produce less. There can be no peace without compromise. Now,
I don't ask Israelis or Palestinians to agree with everything I said.
If they can come up with a completely different agreement, it would
suit me just fine. But I doubt it.
I have said what I have out of a profound lifetime
commitment to and love for the state of Israel; out of a conviction
that the Palestinian people have been ignored or used as political footballs
by others for long enough, and they ought to have a chance to make their
own life with dignity; and out of a belief that in the homeland of the
world's three great religions that believe we are all the creatures
of one God, we ought to be able to prove that one person's win is not,
by definition, another's loss; that one person's dignity is not, by
definition, another's humiliation; that one person's worship of God
is not, by definition, another's heresy.
There has to be a way for us to find a truth we can
share. There has to be a way for us to reach those young Palestinian
kids who, unlike the young people in this audience, don't imagine a
future in which they would ever put on clothes like this and sit at
a dinner like this. There has to be a way for us to say to them, struggle
and pain and destruction and self-destruction are way overrated and
not the only option. There has to be a way for us to reach those people
in Israel who have paid such a high price and believe, frankly, that
people who embrace the ideas I just outlined are nuts, because Israel
is a little country and this agreement would make it smaller; to understand
that the world in which we live and the technology of modern weaponry
no longer make defense primarily a matter of geography and of politics;
and the human feeling and the interdependence and the cooperation and
the shared values and the shared interests are more important and worth
the considered risk, especially if the United States remains committed
to the military capacity of the state of Israel.
So I say to the Palestinians: There will always be
those who are sitting outside in the peanut gallery of the Middle East,
urging you to hold out for more or to plant one more bomb. But all the
people who do that, they're not the refugees languishing in those camps;
you are. They're not the ones with children growing up in poverty whose
income is lower today than it was the day we had the signing on the
White House Lawn in 1993; you are.
All the people that are saying to the Palestinian people:
Stay on the path of no, are people that have a vested interest in the
failure of the peace process that has nothing to do with how those kids
in Gaza and the West Bank are going to grow up and live and raise their
own children.
To the citizens of Israel who have returned to an ancient
homeland after 2,000 years, whose hopes and dreams almost vanished in
the Holocaust, who have hardly had one day of peace and quiet since
the state of Israel was created, I understand, I believe, something
of the disillusionment, the anger, the frustration that so many feel
when, just at the moment peace seemed within reach, all this violence
broke out and raised the question of whether it is ever possible.
The fact is that the people of Israel dreamed of a
homeland. The dream came through, but when they came home, the land
was not all vacant. Your land is also their land. It is the homeland
of two people. And therefore, there is no choice but to create two states
and make the best of it.
If it happens today, it will be better than if it happens
tomorrow, because fewer people will die. And after it happens, the motives
of those who continue the violence will be clearer to all than they
are today.
Today, Israel is closer than ever to ending a 100-year-long
era of struggle. It could be Israel's finest hour. And I hope and pray
that the people of Israel will not give up the hope of peace.
Now, I've got 13 days, and I'll do what I can. We're
working with Egypt and the parties to try to end the violence. I'm sending
Dennis Ross to the region this week. I met with both sides this week.
I hope we can really do something. And I appreciate, more than I can
say, the kind, personal things that you said about me.
But here's what I want you to think about. New York
has its own high-tech corridor called Silicon Alley. The number one
foreign recipient of venture capital from Silicon Alley is Israel. Palestinians
who have come to the United States, to Chile, to Canada, to Europe,
have done fabulously well in business, in the sciences, in academia.
If we could ever let a lot of this stuff go and realize
that a lot of--that the enemies of peace in the Middle East are overlooking
not only what the Jewish people have done beyond Israel but what has
happened to the state of Israel since its birth, and how fabulously
well the people of Palestinian descent have done everywhere else in
the world except in their homeland, where they are in the grip of forces
that have not permitted them to reconcile with one another and with
the people of Israel. Listen, if you guys ever got together, 10 years
from now we would all wonder what the heck happened for 30 years before.
And the center of energy and creativity and economic
power and political influence in the entire region would be with the
Israelis and the Palestinians because of their gifts. It could happen.
But somebody has got to take the long leap, and they have to be somebodies
on both sides.
All I can tell you is, whether you do it now or whether
you do it later, whether I'm the President or just somebody in the peanut
gallery, I'll be there, cheering and praying and working along the way.
And I think America will be there. I think America will always be there
for Israel's security. But Israel's lasting security rests in a just
and lasting peace. I pray that the day will come sooner, rather than
later, where all the people of the region will see that they can share
the wisdom of God in their common humanity and give up their conflict.
Thank you, and God bless you.
Sources: Public Papers of the President |