Speech to the Palestine National Council & Other
Palestinian Organizations
(December 14, 1998)
Thank you. Mr. Speaker, Mr. Za'anoun, Chairman Arafat,
Mrs. Arafat, members of the Palestinian National Council, the Palestinian
Central Council, the Palestinian Executive Committee, Palestinian Council
Heads of ministries, leaders of business and religion; to all members
of the Palestinian community, and to my fellow Americans who come here
from many walks of life—Arab-American, Jewish-American—this
is a remarkable day. Today the eyes of the world are on you.
I am profoundly honored to be the first American President
to address the Palestinian people in a city governed by Palestinians.
I have listened carefully to all that has been said.
I have watched carefully the reactions of all of you to what has been
said. I know that the Palestinian people stand at a crossroads: behind
you a history of dispossession and dispersal, before you the opportunity
to shape a new Palestinian future on your own land.
I know the way is often difficult and frustrating,
but you have come to this point through a commitment to peace and negotiations.
You reaffirmed that commitment today. I believe it is the only way to
fulfill the aspirations of your people, and I am profoundly grateful
to have had the opportunity to work with Chairman Arafat for the cause
of peace, to come here as a friend of peace and a friend of your future,
and to witness you raising your hands, standing up tall, standing up
not only against what you believe is wrong but for what you believe
is right in the future.
I was sitting here thinking that this moment would
have been inconceivable a decade ago: no Palestinian Authority; no elections
in Gaza and the West Bank; no relations between the United States and
Palestinians; no Israeli troop redeployments from the West Bank and
Gaza; no Palestinians in charge in Gaza, Ramallah, Bethlehem, Hebron,
Tulkarem, Jenin, Nablus, Jericho, and so many other places; there was
no Gaza International Airport.
Today I had the privilege of cutting the ribbon on
the international airport. Hillary and I, along with Chairman and Mrs.
Arafat, celebrated a place that will become a magnet for planes from
throughout the Middle East and beyond, bringing you a future in which
Palestinians can travel directly to the far corners of the world; a
future in which it is easier and cheaper to bring materials, technology,
and expertise in and out of Gaza; a future in which tourists and traders
can flock here, to this beautiful place on the Mediterranean; a future,
in short, in which the Palestinian people are connected to the world.
I am told that just a few months ago, at a time of
profound pessimism in the peace process, your largest exporter of fruit
and flowers was prepared to plow under a field of roses, convinced the
airport would never open. But Israelis and Palestinians came to agreement
at Wye River, the airport has opened, and now I am told that company
plans to export roses and carnations to Europe and throughout the Gulf,
a true flowering of Palestinian promise.
I come here today to talk about that promise, to ask
you to rededicate yourselves to it, to ask you to think for a moment
about how we can get beyond the present state of things where every
step forward is like, as we say in America, pulling teeth. Where there
is still, in spite of the agreement at Wye—achieved because we
don't need much sleep, and we worked so hard, and Mr. Netanyahu worked
with us, and we made this agreement. But I want to talk to you about
how we can get beyond this moment, where there is still so much mistrust
and misunderstanding and quite a few missteps.
You did a good thing today in raising your hands. You
know why? It has nothing to do with the government in Israel. You will
touch the people of Israel.
I want the people of Israel to know that for many Palestinians,
5 years after Oslo, the benefits of this process remain remote, that
for too many Palestinians lives are hard, jobs are scarce, prospects
are uncertain, and personal grief is great. I know that tremendous pain
remains as a result of losses suffered from violence, the separation
of families, the restrictions on the movement of people and goods. I
understand your concerns about settlement activity, land confiscation,
and home demolitions. I understand your concerns and theirs about unilateral
statements that could prejudge the outcome of final status negotiations.
I understand, in short, that there's still a good deal of misunderstanding
5 years after the beginning of this remarkable process.
It takes time to change things and still more time
for change to benefit everyone. It takes determination and courage to
make peace and sometimes even more to persevere for peace. But slowly
but surely, the peace agreements are turning into concrete progress:
the transfer of territories, the Gaza industrial estate, and the airport.
These changes will make a difference in many Palestinian lives.
I thank you—I thank you, Mr. Chairman, for your
leadership for peace and your perseverance, for enduring all the criticism
from all sides, for being willing to change course, and for being strong
enough to stay with what is right. You have done a remarkable thing
for your people.
America is determined to do what we can to bring tangible
benefits of peace. I am proud that the roads we traveled on to get here
were paved, in part, with our assistance, as were hundreds of miles
of roads that knit together towns and villages throughout the West Bank
and Gaza.
Two weeks ago, in Washington, we joined with other
nations to pledge hundreds of millions of dollars toward your development,
including health care and clean water, education for your children,
rule of law projects that nurture democracy. Today I am pleased to announce
we will also fund the training of Palestinian health care providers
and airport administrators, increase our support to Palestinian refugees.
And next year I will ask the Congress for another several hundred million
dollars to support the development of the Palestinian people.
But make no mistake about it, all this was made possible
because of what you did, because 5 years ago you made a choice for peace,
and because through all the tough times since, when in your own mind
you had a hundred reasons to walk away, you didn't, because you still
harbor the wisdom that led to the Oslo accords that led to the signing
in Washington in September of '93—you still can raise your hand
and stand and lift your voice for peace.
Mr. Chairman, you said some profound words today in
embracing the idea that Israelis and Palestinians can live in peace
as neighbors. Again I say you have led the way, and we would not be
here without you.
I say to all of you, I can come here and work; I can
bring you to America, and we can work, but in the end, this is up to
you—you and the Israelis. For you have to live with the consequences
of what you do. I can help because I believe it is my job to do so;
I believe it is my duty to do so; because America has Palestinian-Americans,
Jewish-Americans, other Arab-Americans who desperately want us to be
helpful. But in the end, you have to decide what the understanding will
be, and you have to decide whether we can get beyond the present moment
where there is still, for all the progress we have made, so much mistrust.
And the people who are listening to us today in Israel, they have to
make the same decisions.
Peace must mean many things: legitimate rights for
Palestinians—[applause]—legitimate rights for Palestinians,
real security for Israel. But it must begin with something even more
basic: mutual recognition, seeing people who are different, with whom
there have been profound differences, as people.
I've had two profoundly emotional experiences in the
last less than 24 hours. I was with Chairman Arafat, and four little
children came to see me whose fathers are in Israeli prisons. Last night,
I met some little children whose fathers had been killed in conflict
with Palestinians, at the dinner that Prime Minister Netanyahu had for
me. Those children brought tears to my eyes. We have to find a way for
both sets of children to get their lives back and to go forward.
Palestinians must recognize the right of Israel and
its people to live safe and secure lives today, tomorrow, and forever.
Israel must recognize the right of Palestinians to aspire to live free
today, tomorrow, and forever.
And I ask you to remember these experiences I had with
these two groups of children. If I had met them in reverse order, I
would not have known which ones were Israeli and which Palestinian.
If they had all been lined up in a row and I had seen their tears, I
could not tell whose father was dead and whose father was in prison
or what the story of their lives were, making up the grief that they
bore. We must acknowledge that neither side has a monopoly on pain or
virtue.
At the end of America's Civil War, in my home State,
a man was elected Governor who had fought with President Lincoln's forces,
even though most of the people in my home State fought with the secessionist
forces. And he made his inaugural speech after 4 years of unbelievable
bloodshed in America, in which he had been on the winning side but in
the minority in our home. And everyone wondered what kind of leader
he would be. His first sentence was, "We have all done wrong."
I say that because I think the beginning of mutual respect, after so
much pain, is to recognize not only the positive characteristics of
people on both sides but the fact that there has been a lot—a
lot—of hurt and harm.
The fulfillment of one side's aspirations must not
come at the expense of the other. We must believe that everyone can
win in the new Middle East. It does not hurt Israelis to hear Palestinians
peacefully and pridefully asserting their identity, as we saw today.
That is not a bad thing. And it does not hurt Palestinians to acknowledge
the profound desire of Israelis to live without fear. It is in this
spirit that I ask you to consider where we go from here.
I thank you for your rejection fully, finally, and
forever of the passages in the Palestinian Charter calling for the destruction
of Israel. For they were the ideological underpinnings of a struggle
renounced at Oslo. By revoking them once and for all, you have sent,
I say again, a powerful message not to the Government but to the people
of Israel. You will touch people on the street there. You will reach
their hearts there.
I know how profoundly important this is to Israelis.
I have been there four times as President. I have spent a lot of time
with people other than the political leaders, Israeli schoolchildren
who heard about you only as someone who thought they should be driven
into the sea. They did not know what their parents or grandparents did
that you thought was so bad. They were just children, too. Is it surprising
that all this has led to the hardening of hearts on both sides, that
they refuse to acknowledge your existence as a people and that led to
a terrible reaction by you?
By turning this page on the past, you are taking the
lead in writing a new story for the future. And you have issued a challenge
to the Government and the leaders of Israel to walk down that path with
you. I thank you for doing that. The children of all the Middle East
thank you.
But declaring a change of heart still won't be enough.
Let's be realistic here. First of all, there are real differences. And
secondly, a lot of water has flowed under the bridge, as we used to
say at home. An American poet has written, "Too long a sacrifice
can make a stone of the heart." Palestinians and Israelis and their
pasts both share a history of oppression and dispossession; both have
felt their hearts turn to stone for living too long in fear and seeing
loved ones die too young. You are two great people of strong talent
and soaring ambition, sharing such a small piece of sacred land.
The time has come to sanctify your holy ground with
genuine forgiveness and reconciliation. Every influential Palestinian,
from teacher to journalist, from politician to community leader, must
make this a mission to banish from the minds of children glorifying
suicide bombers, to end the practice of speaking peace in one place
and preaching hatred in another, to teach schoolchildren the value of
peace and the waste of war, to break the cycle of violence. Our great
American prophet, Martin Luther King, once said, "The old law of
an eye for an eye leaves everybody blind."
I believe you have gained more in 5 years of peace
than in 45 years of war. I believe that what we are doing today, working
together for security, will lead to further gains and changes in the
heart. I believe that our work against terrorism, if you stand strong,
will be rewarded, for that must become a fact of the past. It must never
be a part of your future.
Let me say this as clearly as I can: No matter how
sharp a grievance or how deep a hurt, there is no justification for
killing innocents.
Mr. Chairman, you said at the White House that no Israeli
mother should have to worry if her son or daughter is late coming home.
Your words touched many people. You said much the same thing today.
We must invest those words with the weight of reality in the minds of
every person in Israel and every Palestinian.
I feel this all the more strongly because the act of
a few can falsify the image of the many. How many times have we seen
it? How many times has it happened to us? We both know it is profoundly
wrong to equate Palestinians, in particular, and Islam, in general,
with terrorism or to see a fundamental conflict between Islam and the
West. For the vast majority of the more than one billion Muslims in
the world, tolerance is an article of faith and terrorism a travesty
of faith.
I know that in my own country, where Islam is one of
the fastest growing religions, we share the same devotion to family
and hard work and community. When it comes to relations between the
United States and Palestinians, we have come far to overcome our misperceptions
of each other. Americans have come to appreciate the strength of your
identity and the depth of your aspirations. And we have learned to listen
to your grievances as well.
I hope you have begun to see America as your friend.
I have tried to speak plainly to you about the need to reach out to
the people of Israel, to understand the pain of their children, to understand
the history of their fear and mistrust, their yearning, gnawing desire
for security, because that is the only way friends can speak and the
only way we can move forward.
I took the same liberty yesterday in Israel. I talked
there about the need to see one's own mistakes, not just those of others;
to recognize the steps others have taken for peace, not just one's own;
to break out of the politics of absolutes; to treat one's neighbors
with respect and dignity. I talked about the profound courage of both
peoples and their leaders which must continue in order for a secure,
just, and lasting peace to occur; the courage of Israelis to continue
turning over territory for peace and security; the courage of Palestinians
to take action against all those who resort to and support violence
and terrorism; the courage of Israelis to guarantee safe passage between
the West Bank and Gaza and allow for greater trade and development;
the courage of Palestinians to confiscate illegal weapons of war and
terror; the courage of Israelis to curtail closures and curfews that
remain a daily hardship; the courage of Palestinians to resolve all
differences at the negotiating table; the courage of both peoples to
abandon the rhetoric of hate that still poisons public discourse and
limits the vision of your children; and the courage to move ahead to
final status negotiations together, without either side taking unilateral
steps or making unilateral statements that could prejudice the outcome,
whether governing refugee settlements, borders, Jerusalem, or any other
issues encompassed by the Oslo accord.
Now, it will take good faith, mutual respect, and compromise
to forge a final agreement. I think there will be more breakdowns, frankly,
but I think there will be more breakthroughs, as well. There will be
more challenges to peace from its enemies. And so I ask you today never
to lose sight of how far you have come. With Chairman Arafat's leadership
already you have accomplished what many said was impossible. The seemingly
intractable problems of the past can clearly find practical solutions
in the future. But it requires a consistent commitment and a genuine
willingness to change heart.
As we approach this new century, think of this, think
of all the conflicts in the 20th century that many people thought were
permanent that have been healed or are healing: two great World Wars
between the French and the Germans—they're best friends; the Americans
and the Russians, the whole cold war—now we have a constructive
partnership; the Irish Catholics and Protestants; the Chinese and the
Japanese; the black and white South Africans; the Serbs, the Croats,
and the Muslims in Bosnia—all have turned from conflict to cooperation.
Yes, there is still some distrust; yes, there's still some difficulty;
but they are walking down the right road together. And when they see
each other's children, increasingly they only see children, together.
When they see the children crying, they realize the pain is real, whatever
the child's story. In each case there was a vision of greater peace
and prosperity and security.
In Biblical times, Jews and Arabs lived side by side.
They contributed to the flowering of Alexandria. During the Golden Age
of Spain, Jews, Muslims, and Christians came together in an era of remarkable
tolerance and learning, a third of the population laid down its tools
on Friday, a third on Saturday, a third on Sunday. They were scholars
and scientists, poets, musicians, merchants, and statesmen setting an
example of peaceful coexistence that we can make a model for the future.
There is no guarantee of success or failure today, but the challenge
of this generation of Palestinians is to wage an historic and heroic
struggle for peace.
Again I say this is an historic day. I thank you for
coming. I thank you for raising your hands. I thank you for standing
up. I thank you for your voices. I thank you for clapping every time
I said what you were really doing was reaching deep into the heart of
the people of Israel. Chairman Arafat said he and Mrs. Arafat are taking
Hillary and Chelsea and me—we're going to Bethlehem tomorrow.
For a Christian family to light the Christmas tree in Bethlehem is a
great honor.
It is an interesting thing to contemplate that in this
small place, the home of Islam, Judaism, and Christianity, the embodiment
of my faith was born a Jew and is still recognized by Muslims as a prophet.
He said a lot of very interesting things. But in the end, He was known
as the Prince of Peace. And we celebrate at Christmastime the birth
of the Prince of Peace. One reason He is known as the Prince of Peace
is He knew something about what it takes to make peace. And one of the
wisest things He ever said was, "We will be judged by the same
standard by which we judge, but mercy triumphs over judgment."
In this Christmas season, in this Hanukkah season,
on the edge of Ramadan, this is a time for mercy and vision and looking
at all of our children together. You have reaffirmed the fact that you
now intend to share this piece of land without war, with your neighbors,
forever. They have heard you. They have heard you.
Now, you and they must now determine what kind of peace
you will have. Will it be grudging and mean-spirited and confining,
or will it be generous and open? Will you begin to judge each other
in the way you would like to be judged? Will you begin to see each other's
children in the way you see your own? Will they feel your pain, and
will you understand theirs?
Surely to goodness, after 5 years of this peace process
and decades of suffering and after you have come here today and done
what you have done, we can say, "Enough of this gnashing of teeth.
Let us join hands and proudly go forward together."
Thank you very much.
Sources: Public Papers of the President |