[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 197 (Tuesday, December 12, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H14256-H14257]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




ADDRESS BY HIS EXCELLENCY, SHIMON PERES, PRIME MINISTER OF THE STATE OF 
                                 ISRAEL

  Prime Minister PERES. Mr. Speaker, Mr. Vice President, Members of 
Congress, my very dear friends, I stand before you stunned and humbled. 
It was but a year ago that on this very podium there stood before you, 
in a partnership of hope, King Hussein and Prime Minister Yitzhak 
Rabin. And Rabin is no more.
  It was only 2 years ago that President Bill Clinton hosted Chairman 
Arafat and Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, and we all witnessed a 
historic handshake. And Yitzhak has gone.
  Two weeks and twenty years ago Lyndon Baines Johnson stood on this 
very spot and said, ``All I have, I would have given gladly not to be 
standing here today.''
  Mr. Speaker, all I have, I would have given gladly not to be standing 
here today. My senior partner is gone.
  Now, he belongs to the ages. He will enter them as a great leader, as 
a great soldier, a captain of peace who was assassinated because he was 
right. That was the reason.
  I shared with him days of worry and grief. I shared with him hours of 
reflection and decision. We complemented each other in a determined 
pursuit of the only objective worthy of the task bestowed upon us by 
the people of Israel: to carve a new era of security in peace, to build 
bridges across an Arab-Israeli divide, an impossible divide. And he, 
the captain, is no more.
  You, dear friends, have honored him in life with an intimate, 
bipartisan friendship to the man, to the land, to the cause he 
represented. You have honored him in death with your unprecedented 
presence which moved our hearts.
  May I tell you that the fact that the President, two former 
Presidents, a Secretary of State, two former Secretaries of State, the 
leaders of the Senate and the House and many of the Members came on 
this very sad day to stand at our side is an unforgettable experience 
in our life. We really thank you. It was great on your part; it will be 
unforgettable in our history.
  Hence, I stand before you with one assignment: In the shadowy light 
of those candles, in the tearful eyes of our young generation, I heard 
their appeal, nay, the order, ``Carry on. Carry on.''
  This is my task.
  I stand before you with one overriding commitment: to yield to no 
threats, to stop at no obstacle in negotiating the hurdles ahead, in 
seeking security for our people, peace for our land and tranquility for 
our region. And in so doing, I ask you, ladies and gentlemen, for your 
support, and first and foremost, your moral support. That is what 
counts mostly.
  Nothing but your own conscience is your guide. Your faith in the 
Almighty and the moral imperative that guides you.
  Yitzhak and I were always firm believers in the greatness of America, 
in the ethic and generosity inherent in your history, in your people. 
For us, the United States of America is a commitment to values before 
an expression of might.
  For us, the vast discovery of America is its Constitution even more 
than its continent, the Constitution enriched by its biblical 
foundation.
  From our school days we remembered the proposal of John Adams that 
the imagery of ancient Israel captivated the Constitutional Congress in 
1776.
  We recalled Benjamin Franklin's idea to incorporate in the Great Seal 
of the new Confederation the image of Moses raising his staff, dividing 
the Red Sea.
  We remembered Thomas Jefferson suggesting that the image of the 
children of Israel struggling through the wilderness, led by a pillar 
of cloud by day, by a pillar of fire by night, that this image be the 
symbol of the young Republic, to become the Great Republic.
  History did not stop there. The cloud and the fire have accompanied 
the human experience in this, the most difficult century in the annals 
of mankind.
  As the end of the 20th century is nearing, it could verily be 
described as the American century, yes, the century of America.
  America nurtured a way of life that has made competitive creativeness 
the engine of economic development practically in every corner of the 
world. The United States has built strength, has used strength to save 
the globe from three of its greatest menaces: the Nazi tyranny, the 
Japanese militarism, and the Communist challenge.
  You did it. You brought freedom. You defended it.
  Even in this very day, as Bosnia reels in agony, you offered a 
compass and a lamp to a confused situation like in the Middle East. 
Nobody else was able or was ready to do it.
  You enabled many nations to save their democracies even as you strive 
now to assist nations to free themselves from their nondemocratic past.
  Your sons and daughters fought many wars. Your great armies won many 
victories. Yet wars did not cause you to lose heart, just as triumphs 
did not corrupt your system.
  America remains unspoiled because she has rejected the spoils of 
victory.
  You have a great Constitution, a vast land, a pluralistic 
civilization. Israel is a small land, 47 years young, 4,000 years deep.
  Thanks to the support you have given and to the aid you have 
rendered, we have been able to overcome wars and tragedies thrust upon 
us and feel today strong enough to take measured risks to wage a 
campaign for peace together with you.
  Let me assure you that never shall we ask your sons and daughters to 
fight instead of us, just as we have never asked you to do so in the 
past. We shall do our task; we shall enjoy your support.
  Indeed, even as I speak before you now, Israeli troops are parting 
from Palestinian towns and villages in a historic departure, intending 
never to return there as occupiers. We do not want to occupy anybody.

  This, for us, is a victory of moral commitment and for the 
Palestinians a victory of self-respect. For the first time, they are 
governing themselves and we are governing ourselves too.
  Nobody forced us to do so. Nobody forced us to take these measures, 
and Israel is neither weak nor afraid. Our choice was freely made.
  What we have accomplished, in resonance of your own tradition, we 
have given, like you, preference to a biblical ethic. We are true to 
the old pages.
  Yet like you, we have rejected the temptation to rule over another 
people, even though we possess the force to do so.
  Before coming here, I visited King Hussein, a real friend of the 
United States. We discussed the possibilities of transforming the 
Jordan Rift Valley, which is in fact an elongated, extended desert, 
into a Tennessee Valley. We learned from you again.
  In a single bold sweep, we are and remain resolved to turn back the 
desert, 

[[Page H14257]]
to stop the war, and to end the hatred once and forever.
  I then met with President Mubarak in a highly congenial atmosphere. 
We agreed to put aside certain bitter memories and to postpone certain 
disputed issues for a future date. We have time in the future to 
disagree; now we have to agree.
  Then I met Chairman Arafat, and his expression of condolence had the 
ring of a sincere desire for peace. May I tell you that nothing 
convinced the Israeli people about the sincerity of the Arabs seeking 
peace more than the sympathy and condolence they expressed when they 
learned about the assassination of Rabin, a sad event, a revealing 
sentiment.
  Arafat is engaged in the new realities of his people and he has 
conveyed to me the solemn promise to intensify his fight against 
terror, which is, today, as much a danger to him as it is to the peace 
we are committed together to achieve.
  I, on my part, have promised to release prisoners in our custody, as 
we did agree, so as to enable them to participate in free elections 
scheduled for the first time in history, to take place on January 20, 
1996.
  As far as we are concerned, democracy, and that includes Palestinian 
democracy, is the best and probably the only guarantee for a real and 
durable peace. Freedom supports this.
  I believe in this prospect. Three years ago, such a prospect would 
have been considered a fantasy; that was part of the accusation against 
me. Now reality is on our side.
  All this would hardly have been attainable were it not for the 
American involvement and the support of those efforts. President 
Clinton and his administration, the leadership and the Members of the 
Congress, practically all of them, the American people at large, have 
made possible the dawn of peace to rise again over the ancient horizon, 
over the ancient skies of the Promised Land, to bring promise again to 
the land.
  And by so doing, you have removed the terrifying prospect of evil 
hands grabbing hold of unconventional weapons.
   Mr. Speaker, Members of Congress, international terrorism is a 
threat to us all. Fundamentalism with a nuclear bomb is the nightmare 
of our age. We have to stop it.
  We understood that in order to ready ourselves to confront the new 
dangers, we would have to put a stop to the enmity with our neighbors. 
In our time, more than there are new enemies, there are new dangers. 
The dangers of our days are not confined to borders; they are common to 
all of us, Moslems, Christians, and Jews alike. Therefore, we have to 
try to achieve a comprehensive peace.
  Peace with Syria and Lebanon, the two remaining adversaries on our 
borders, may well prove to be the greatest contribution to the 
construction of a new Middle East, of a new era in the Middle East.
  I must admit that the hurdles are many. We have to negotiate 
mountains of suspicion. We have to traverse chasms of prejudice. We 
have to find solutions to an array of genuinely conflicting interests. 
They are not artificial.
  Israel, for its part, is ready to go, to try and do it.
  In October next year Israel will go to elections. I here declare that 
the decision to strive for peace shall be pursued regardless of it. To 
win peace is more important than to win elections.
  We shall try wholeheartedly, we shall try to forge the peace with 
Syria and Lebanon expeditiously so that before the curtain of the 20th 
century shall fall, we shall see, all of us, the emergence of a Middle 
East of peace.

  Mr. Speaker, with your permission, therefore, I would like to use 
this podium, with your permission, ladies and gentlemen, to turn to 
President Assad of Syria and say to him:
  ``Without forgetting the past, let us not look back. Let fingertips 
touch a new untested hope.''
  Let each party yield to the other, each giving consideration to the 
respective needs of the other, mutually so, him to us, we to him. 
Without illusion, but with resolve, we shall stand ready to make 
demanding decisions if you are, if Assad is.
  We shall negotiate relentlessly until all gaps are bridged, if you 
are, if Assad is.
  I believe we face a historic opportunity, perhaps of galloping pace. 
If we shall find the language of peace between us, we can bring peace 
to all of us. Surely nothing would capture the imagination of young 
people everywhere more than a gathering of all of us standing together 
and declaring, and when I say all of us, I mean all of the leaders of 
the Middle East, all the 20 of them, not one-by-one, but together, and 
declaring the end of war, the end of conflict, carrying the message to 
our forefathers and to our grandchildren that we are again, all of us, 
the sons and daughters of Abraham, living in a tent of peace again. We 
shall tell them, together as partners, we are going to build a new 
Middle East, a prosperous economy, that we are going to raise the 
standard of living, not the standard of violence. We have enough 
violence, not enough the-right-way-to-live.
  What we are going to introduce is light and hope to our people, to 
their destinies.
  Mr. Speaker, permit me a personal word. In my country I have 
shouldered almost every responsibility. I have tasted almost every 
title. I have served almost in every position. Today I wish only one 
thing: to bear the burden of peacemaking.
  In the last moment of his life, we stood together to the very last 
moment, his happiest moment of life, Yitzhak Rabin stood in the Tel 
Aviv square, me standing on his side and singing, he was singing the 
song of peace.
  The singer, alas, is not with us. The song remains. You cannot kill 
the song of peace.
  Now, distinguished Members of the Congress, I say it sincerely, that 
I have come here for your advice and consent. I hazard the thought that 
the world cannot permit itself to be without American leadership in 
these trying times. Not in the Middle East or in other places.
  America, in my judgment, cannot escape what history has laid on your 
shoulders, on the shoulders of each of you. You cannot escape that 
which America alone can do. America alone can keep the world free and 
assist nations to assume the responsibility for their own fate.
  Please continue. Go ahead and do it as you did for the whole century; 
the next century is awaiting your leadership was well.
  In this spirit, I can do no better than quote what Yitzhak Rabin said 
to you when he stood on this rostrum a year ago and he said:
  ``No words can express our gratitude to you for the years of your 
generous support, understanding and cooperation which are all but 
beyond compare in modern history.'' And Then he said, ``Thank you, 
America.''
  I, too, say it: Thank you, America, for what you are, for what you 
have been, for what you shall be. And in so doing, I shall conclude 
with a prayer:
  May the Almighty spread His wings of loving kindness and His 
tabernacle of peace over the Land of Israel. May He grant His light and 
truth to all of the leaders of our region, to all of the leaders of 
America, to the leaders of our time. And You give peace in the land and 
eternal joy for its habitants.
  Mr. Speaker, thank you very much.
  [Applause, the Members rising.]
  At 11 o'clock and 45 minutes a.m., the Prime Minister of Israel, 
accompanied by the committee of escort, retired from the Hall of the 
House of Representatives.
  The assistant to the Sergeant at Arms escorted the invited guests 
from the Chamber in the following order:
  The Members of the President's Cabinet.
  The Associate Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States.
  The Ambassadors, Ministers, and Charges d'Affaires of foreign 
governments.

                          ____________________