[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 175 (Tuesday, November 7, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S16720-S16721]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    DEDICATION TO THE PEACE PROCESS

  Mr. WELLSTONE. Thank you, Mr. President.

       Please excuse me for not wanting to talk about the peace. I 
     want to talk about my grandfather.
       You always awake from a nightmare, but since yesterday I 
     was continually awakening to a nightmare. It is not possible 
     to get used to the nightmare of life without you. The 
     television never ceases to broadcast pictures of you, and you 
     are so alive that I can almost touch you--but only almost, 
     and I won't be able to anymore.
       Grandfather, you were the pillar of fire in front of the 
     camp and now we are left in the camp alone, in the dark; and 
     we are so cold and so sad.
       I am not able to finish this; left with no alternative. I 
     say goodbye to you, hero, and ask you to rest in peace, and 
     think about us, and miss us, as down here we love you so very 
     much. I imagine angels are accompanying you now and I ask 
     them to take care of you, because you deserve their 
     protection.

  Mr. President, words of Noa Ben-Artzi Philosof, 17, granddaughter of 
Prime Minister Rabin, at yesterday's service in Israel.
  I ask unanimous consent that her statement at the service be printed 
as part of the Record of the U.S. Senate and therefore the record of 
our country.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                [From the New York Times, Nov. 7, 1995]

          Goodbye to a Grandfather: We Are So Cold and So Sad

(The granddaughter of Yitzhak Rabin, Noa Ben-Artzi Philosof, 17, spoke 
at his funeral. Her remarks were translated and transcribed by the New 
                              York Times)

       Please excuse me for not wanting to talk about the peace. I 
     want to talk about my grandfather.
       You always awake from a nightmare, but since yesterday I 
     was continually awakening to a nightmare. It is not possible 
     to get used to the nightmare of life without you. The 
     television never ceases to broadcast pictures of you, and you 
     are so alive that I can almost touch you--but only almost, 
     and I won't be able to anymore.
       Grandfather, you were the pillar of fire in front of the 
     camp and now we are left in the camp alone, in the dark; and 
     we are so cold and so sad.
       I know that people talk in terms of a national tragedy, and 
     of comforting an entire nation, but we feel the huge void 
     that remains in your absence when grandmother doesn't stop 
     crying.
       Few people really knew you. Now they will talk about you 
     for quite some time, but I feel that they really don't know 
     just how great the pain is, how great the tragedy is; 
     something has been destroyed.
       Grandfather, you were and still are our hero. I wanted you 
     to know that every time I did anything, I saw you in front of 
     me.
       Your appreciation and your love accompanied us every step 
     down the road, and our lives were always shaped after your 
     values. You, who never abandoned anything, are now abandoned. 
     And here you are, my ever-present hero, cold, alone, and I 
     cannot do anything to save you. You are missed so much.
       Others greater than I have already eulogized you, but none 
     of them ever had the pleasure I had to feel the caresses of 
     your warm, soft hands, to merit your warm embrace that was 
     reserved only for us, to see your half-smile that always told 
     me so much, that same smile which is no longer, frozen in the 
     grave with you.
       I have no feelings of revenge because my pain and feelings 
     of loss are so large, too large. The ground has been swept 
     out from below us, and we are groping now, trying to wander 
     about in this empty void, without any success so far.
       I am not able to finish this; left with no alternative. I 
     say goodbye to you, hero, and ask you to rest in peace, and 
     think about us, and miss us, as down here we love you so very 
     much. I imagine angels are accompanying you now and I ask 
     them to take care of you, because you deserve their 
     protection.

  Mr. WELLSTONE. Mr. President, I said to my wife, Sheila, this morning 
that there is nowhere on Earth I would have rather been than in 
Jerusalem yesterday for this service to honor a very courageous man, 
Yitzhak Rabin.
  Mr. President, I will never forget the long lines of the people in 
Jerusalem in Israel as we drove to the service, as I drove to the 
service with my colleagues--Democrats and Republicans--to look out of 
the window and to see the sadness of the people, to see the sadness of 
the people.
  Mr. President, I will never forget the words at the service, the 
words of our President, President Clinton, the words of the Prime 
Minister's granddaughter. Her words were heard and felt by people all 
over the world. Nor will I forget the words of King Hussein of Jordan 
who said, ``I remember my grandfather being assassinated''--the King as 
a little boy was next to his grandfather--``and now my brother''--my 
brother; he called Prime Minister Rabin his brother. He said, ``I am 
not afraid. I am not afraid. If I have to meet that fate,'' the King 
said, ``so be it, but I am committed to this peace process.''
  Mr. President, I just would like to say on the floor of the U.S. 
Senate that I owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to my State of 
Minnesota for giving me an opportunity to be a U.S. Senator and giving 
me an opportunity to be invited to be able to go and to be at that 
service.
  I believe that the way that I can honor Prime Minister Rabin--I 
believe the way that all of us can honor Prime Minister Rabin--whether 
we are Democrats or Republicans, as leaders in the U.S. Congress, is to 
dedicate our services to this peace process. 

[[Page S 16721]]

  Mr. President, the Prime Minister knew that the status quo was 
unacceptable. He knew that the status quo extended to the future would 
only mean that Israeli children and Palestinian children would be 
killing each other for generations to come.
  He gave his life for peace. He was a general. He defended his 
country. He was a military hero. But in the last analysis, at the very 
end, he gave his life for security for his country and for peace for 
the peoples of the Middle East.
  His loss is not only the loss of Israel, his loss is the loss of the 
peoples of the Middle East, and his loss is the loss to all of us--all 
of us--who live in this world.
  So, colleagues, I think that the way that we honor this man, Prime 
Minister Rabin, is by dedicating ourselves to the peace process. 
Whenever our country can facilitate negotiations, we should do so. 
Whenever our country can continue the work of Dennis Roth and others 
who have been so skillful in helping to mediate and keep these 
negotiations going, we should do so.
  When there are terms of the agreement that we are asked to follow 
through on such as financial aid, economic development, aid to 
Palestinian people, that the Prime Minister was so much for, we should 
support that.
  Mr. President, I hope this does not lead to a period of darkness. 
Certainly, it feels that way now. This is a nightmare of the world. Let 
us dedicate ourselves to the peace process. Let us do as public 
servants what the Prime Minister was able to do. He took the moral 
position. He did not know how the elections would turn out, but he did 
what he thought was the right thing.
  His example of leadership was an example of leadership not just for 
Israel but for all us that are in public service in all countries 
throughout the world.
  As a Senator from Minnesota, as the son of a Jewish immigrant from 
the Ukraine and Russia, Leon Wellstone, as the son of a daughter of 
Ukrainian immigrants, Mincha Daneshevsky, as a father, grandfather, a 
Senator from Minnesota, and an American Jew, I was so proud to be there 
yesterday.
  I hope I can live my life, with my family and in my community, and as 
a Senator, in such a way that I honor this man.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the order, the Senator from North Dakota 
has 10 minutes.

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