[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 43 (Monday, April 14, 1997)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E648-E649]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




 ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER NETANYAHU'S ADDRESS TO THE ``VOICES UNITED FOR 
                          ISRAEL'' CONFERENCE

                                 ______
                                 

                        HON. BENJAMIN A. GILMAN

                              of new york

                    in the house of representatives

                         Monday, April 14, 1997

  Mr. GILMAN. Mr. Speaker, last week Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin 
Netanyahu gave a major address to the participants of the Voices United 
for Israel Conference in Washington, DC. Comprised of 200 Christian and 
Jewish organizations, Voices United for Israel collectively represents 
40 million Americans whose support for Israel and its security are 
strong.
  Because the Prime Minister's remarks were especially noteworthy, I 
would like to take this opportunity to share his speech with my 
colleagues, and therefore request that it be reprinted at this point in 
the Congressional Record.

   Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at ``Voices United for 
                           Israel'' Breakfast

                     (By Prime Minister Netanyahu)

       I may be 7,000 miles from Jerusalem, but I feel very much 
     at home here. And I think the main reason is that you, too, 
     feel that Jerusalem is your home too. Jerusalem is the home 
     of all of those who believe in our values--in our values of 
     freedom, in the dignity of man, in democracy, in peace, in 
     belief and faith in the Almighty. That is what Jerusalem is.
       Some describe it today as ``Arab East Jerusalem.'' This is 
     the place where David ruled. This is the place where Isaiah 
     prophesied his eternal prophesies. This is the place where I 
     walk and I feel my ancestors' footsteps on those stones, on 
     those paths, on that ground. Jerusalem was, is, and will 
     always be the capital of the Jewish people.
       Jerusalem is the City of David, the City on a Hill, the 
     city which the nation of Israel has cherished as its capital 
     for 3,000 years. And it is something that defies all rational 
     explanations. The connection of the Jewish people to its land 
     and to its eternal city has broken all the laws of history.
       It is more powerful than all the laws of history because it 
     expresses the deepest yearning of the human soul and of a 
     people to reach its salvation, to return once again to the 
     crucible in which it was formed, in which its most cherished 
     values were forged, and in which its future and its destiny 
     can be realized once again. That is what Jerusalem means for 
     all of us. (Applause.)
       So it's not just a city. It is a great city, but it is also 
     an ideal and, I think, an expression not only of the Jewish 
     people's but of mankind's loftiest aspirations.
       I know there are attempts to divide the city. It is done 
     sometimes directly, sometimes obliquely, sometimes by 
     challenging our rights to build apartments, for God's 
     sake, in our city--apartments. (Laughter, applause.) But I 
     want to assure you today, we will never allow Jerusalem to 
     be redivided again--ever, never. We will keep the city 
     united, and we will continue to do what we have done for 
     the last two decades--three decades--and that is to keep 
     it an open city, a city of peace, a city accessible to all 
     three great faiths.
       And it is only under Israel, in the close to 2,000 years 
     since our dispersion and exile, that we have enabled that 
     city to be open to every believer and every worshiper. That 
     was not the case--it was not the case when the city was ruled 
     by others. It was not the case in the 19 years from the start 
     of the state of Israel, when the city was conquered--that 
     eastern part of the city was conquered, and Jews were barred 
     from the holiest place for the Jewish people, the Western 
     Wall. And you know the fate of Christians in Jerusalem as 
     well. That has changed forever.
       We will keep Jerusalem united and we will keep Jerusalem 
     open and accessible for unfettered worship for all Christians 
     and Muslims and Jews. And we shall never resurrect those 
     ramparts.
       Now you have heard many things about Har Homa. You have 
     heard that it is an Arab-occupied land in East Jerusalem--a 
     settlement. Indeed. Well, first of all, it's not in East 
     Jerusalem, it's in the southern part of Jerusalem. Secondly, 
     it's not Arab-occupied land, it is land that is 75 percent 
     private Jewish land--by the way, expropriated by the Labor 
     government, god forbid. (Laughter.) The Likud didn't do this. 
     There must be something wrong with this model! (Laughter.) 
     And it is not, as was said, a settlement--not that I have 
     anything against settlements, as you know. But it happens to 
     be a neighborhood.
       You can go out of this hotel and you can see a 
     neighborhood: streets, apartments, groceries, supermarkets. 
     What's wrong with that? Nothing.
       This is what happens in cities; they grow. People get 
     married, they have children, they need apartments. And that's 
     what governments do. Preferably, they don't build; they allow 
     contractors to build. We call that private initiative. But 
     that's what we're doing.

[[Page E649]]

     We're allowing contractors to build in Har Homa for the 
     Jewish couples who need it. But we're also allowing 
     constructions and contracts to build, in 10 Arab 
     neighborhoods, actually a greater number of apartments, in 
     the next three years, than in Har Homa, for Palestinian 
     couples. Why not? That is what we do as a sovereign and a 
     united Jerusalem. We take care of all its residents; 
     Palestinians and Israelis; Moslems, Christians and Jews--
     everyone--and that is our right; that is our obligation. Now, 
     this simple act has been described as an ``act of 
     terrorism''--the terrorism of the walk-up rentals--
     (laughter)--the terrorism of the condominiums. (Laughter.) 
     Now you laugh; it's not a laughing matter. I'll explain to 
     you why; because people take this seriously. And this is used 
     to justify the most savage crimes that we can conjure up. And 
     a few weeks ago, this was used to justify the blowing up of a 
     cafe in downtown Tel Aviv, where three young women were 
     murdered, one of them carrying an unborn child and another 
     leaving a scarred baby, whose scars may get healed, one 
     hopes, but who will grow up never knowing her mother, who 
     died in that blast. And 50 others were wounded as well. 
     And this is justified.
       Well, it's explained; it's not justified. The line goes 
     like this: They say--because you have to say it--that nothing 
     justifies terrorism. ``But you have to understand,'' they 
     say, ``that these people had no remedy because of the 
     terrorism of the bulldozers. They felt they had to do 
     something to vent out their frustration.''
       Now this is a peculiar argument, because I want to give you 
     a corollary argument. If this is true, then we must 
     understand another individual who, seeing hundreds of his 
     countrymen being blown up in the streets of Tel Aviv and 
     Jerusalem and Haifa and everywhere a few years ago by 
     Palestinian terrorists, seeing that there was no recourse 
     from the government at the time, he said, ``I have to have a 
     remedy. I have to act!'' and he went into a mosque, into the 
     cave of the Tomb of the Patriarchs, the Machpela Cave, and he 
     gunned down 40 worshipers. Would anyone think of saying, ``We 
     have to understand it; he had no other recourse, he had to 
     remedy, he had to seek a remedy''? Of course not. We 
     condemned it--everyone in Israel. I condemned it, with the 
     greatest force that I could muster, because nothing justifies 
     the murder of innocent people--nothing, ever--nothing!
       If we accept, even in the insidious language that is used 
     to exculpate and explain and wash away these crimes--if we 
     accept that, we vitiate the whole notion of war crimes, 
     because what is a war crime? For centuries, indeed millennia, 
     there was no such thing as a war crime. We had savagery 
     perpetrated and savagery justified.
       But for the last 150 years, humanity is making an effort--
     difficult--we've seen in this century how difficult--to 
     define limits to conflict. And we say that even though 
     mankind has not yet reached Isaiah's peace--and, yes, we 
     still have swords that we haven't beaten into plowshares--we 
     cling to the dream. But even as we are living in this 
     imperfect world, we set limits to the use of swords. And we 
     say that we don't deliberately murder men, women, and 
     children--innocent people.
       We divide the world into two. On the one side are 
     combatants--soldiers. On the other side are civilians. We may 
     engage combatants, and we may, on occasion--not deliberately, 
     accidentally, in times of war--hurt and even kill civilians. 
     But we dare not deliberately cross the line and 
     systematically and purposefully murder civilians--men, women, 
     children, babies.
       And if we do, that is called a war crime. That means that 
     when you gas babies, that is a war crime. Not everything is 
     allowed. Terrorism is a war crime. And when we say that there 
     has to be a remedy, an understanding, an exculpation, a 
     justification, understand these people, you are saying, 
     ``Understand war criminals.'' We will never understand these 
     war criminals! We will always fight them. Nothing justifies 
     terrorism. Everything justifies a battle against terrorism--
     everything.
       And to create this monstrous equation, we are being told 
     that our building of these flats is a ``declaration of war.'' 
     What a concept of peace! What an inversion of language, what 
     a perversion of the basic concepts that guide our 
     civilization. I can't think of something more insidious.
       I think there is nothing more destructive of achieving a 
     real peace than doing such injury to the truth. And the truth 
     is simple; terrorism is incompatible with the peace process. 
     It's incompatible with peace. It's one or the other, but not 
     both. The whole idea of peace is that you live in peace. What 
     does peace mean? It's not being blown to pieces; it means 
     coming back home in one piece.
       Ant terrorism is that exact opposite of this. It's not only 
     not morally justified; it's practically impossible to seek 
     peace, to engage in the quest for peace and at the same time 
     sanction terrorism. And, therefore, we have put forward a 
     simple proposition; the other side took on obligations; we 
     took on obligations. And we didn't like this agreement, but 
     we said orderly governments keep their agreements; we keep 
     ours. Sometimes this mandates very difficult decisions on our 
     part, and I have taken them. But we expect the other side to 
     keep their part.
       For example, they have a covenant calling for the 
     destruction of Israel; they promised to annul it--annul it--
     finish it. This is an obligation. For another, they promised 
     to fight terrorism emanating from their own domains. Fight 
     terrorism; keep your obligation. Sadat came to Jerusalem; he 
     understood this very clearly. He said, ``No more war, no more 
     bloodshed.'' He didn't say: ``Oh, well, we now have 
     protracted negotiations. And if you don't do what I want, 
     there'll be bloodshed.'' He said, ``Once we enter the path of 
     peace, we leave the path of bloodshed.''
       This is what we expect from our negotiating partners. This 
     is what they have to demand of themselves, if they want to be 
     accepted as genuine partners for peace--peace--and not 
     terror.
       Now there has been some talk about our giving something, 
     making a concession in return for a real crackdown by the 
     Palestinian Authority on the terrorist organization. And this 
     means, pure and simple, surrender to terrorism. We are being 
     told to pay for the privilege of not being killed. We are not 
     going to do that.
       We demand, as is our right, 100 percent effort against 
     terrorism. We know there can't be 100 percent success, 
     although I must tell you, that another government right now 
     is negotiating, under somewhat analogous conditions--all 
     analogies are imperfect--but the British government is 
     negotiating with the Sinn Fein right now, and they are 
     saying, ``A complete cessation of terrorism; otherwise, we 
     don't talk.''
       Well, we're in a different process. We have inherited it. 
     We don't say that, because we also know that there are 
     fanatics around who could upset the process, if they operate 
     against the wishes of our negotiating partners. Now that, 
     on occasion, can happen.
       It happened two weeks ago--three weeks ago--in a terrible 
     incident along the Jordan. And the Jordan--the Jordan's water 
     was stained with the blood of seven young girls, 12- and 13-
     year-olds. And a Jordanian soldier broke ranks fired at them, 
     killed them, in an act of savage terrorism.
       We didn't blame Jordan. We didn't blame the army of Jordan; 
     we know it's doing all it can to fight terrorism.
       We didn't blame the security forces of Jordan; we know 
     they're doing all they can to fight terrorism. We didn't 
     blame the king of Jordan because we know he's doing all he 
     can to fight terrorism. Indeed, you saw him coming to the 
     families, and therein lies the difference. They are making a 
     hundred-percent effort; it, however, there can't be a 
     hundred-percent success.
       But look at what is happening on the other side. A hundred-
     percent effort? Almost zero effort, and at times zero and 
     worse than zero, because a few weeks ago they gave the green 
     light to terrorism. We know they have a capacity to control 
     the terrorists. They have shown it for the last year. Fearing 
     the consequences, they kept tight--a very tight lid on these 
     terrorists. They incarcerated them; they took action against 
     them. But now, witnessing a first impasse, understanding that 
     this is a different government that will not redivide 
     Jerusalem, will not go back to the '67 boundaries, will not 
     establish an armed Palestinian state on our borders, they 
     understand that now.
       They want to bend our will by giving the green light to 
     these people, to these criminals, and this will not do; not 
     merely because we will bend--that's obvious--but also because 
     we cannot have peace this way. And if we want peace, they 
     must fight terrorism. That is their obligation. We will fight 
     terrorism, too, I assure you, and we do. And there are many, 
     many successes of which you don't hear because it never comes 
     to pass. But we have every right to demand from our partners 
     for peace, to be partners for peace. And this is what I have 
     come to say here in Washington, and this is what I say also 
     back home in Israel. And this is what I want you to say, far 
     and wide in this country, because we have not only a struggle 
     for peace, we have a struggle for the truth. And I need your 
     help to get the truth out. We have no greater friend and no 
     greater ally than the truth. And we have no greater friends 
     and no greater allies than the people sitting today in this 
     room. And I salute you, and I thank you for helping us pursue 
     this goal.
       I think we can convince the world of our justice, the 
     justice of our cause. And I think that you can play an 
     immeasurable role in that part. You can make it clear to the 
     American people, of all persuasions, that the road through 
     peace or to peace goes through the negotiating table, not 
     through the slaughter of women and children. You can convince 
     all fair-minded people that if we allow terrorism to prevail, 
     that if we make concessions to appease terrorists, we will be 
     like those of whom the prophet Jeremiah said, they--he 
     described them as saying, ``Peace, peace,'' when there is no 
     peace. Well, we want there to be peace, and you can tell our 
     friends, your friends and ours, that together we can achieve 
     such a peace, a peace that will last, a peace that will bring 
     prosperity and progress and, above all, security to the 
     people of the Middle East. It is time for that kind of peace. 
     It is time that the children of Israel and the children of 
     the Palestinians will be free to live free of violence, free 
     to enjoy the fruits of God's Earth. It is time for that 
     genuine peace. And that is the peace we aim to achieve and 
     which, I believe, that with your help and with God's help, we 
     will bring to our part of the Earth. Thank you.

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