    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1994, Book II)]
    [October 27, 1994]
    [Pages 1890-1893]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks to the Knesset in Jerusalem, Israel
    October 27, 1994

        Mr. President, Mr. Prime Minister, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Netanyahu,
    ladies and gentlemen of the Knesset: Let me begin by thanking the Prime
    Minister and the people of Israel for welcoming me to your wonderful
    country, and thanking all of you for giving me the opportunity to
    address this great democratic body where, clearly, people of all
    different views are welcome to express their convictions. I feel right
    at home. [Laughter]
        Yesterday Israel took a great stride toward fulfilling the ancient
    dream of the Jewish people, the patriarchs' dream of a strong and
    plentiful people living freely in their own land, enjoying the fruits of
    peace with their neighbors. Nearly 17 years after President Sadat came
    to this Chamber to seek peace and Prime Minister Begin reached out in
    reconciliation, and just over a year after Israel and the PLO declared a
    pathway to peace on the South Lawn of the White House, Israel and Jordan
    have now written a new chapter.
        Tonight we praise the courage of the leaders who have given life to
    this treaty, Prime Minister Rabin and Foreign Minister Peres. They have
    shown the vision and the tenacity of other leaders of Israel's past
    whose names will be remembered always for their devotion to your cause
    and your people: Ben Gurion, Meir, Begin.
        In your life, Prime Minister, we see the life of your country. As a
    youth, you wished to fulfill the commandment to farm the land of Israel,
    but instead you had to answer the call to defend the people of Israel.
    You have devoted your life to cultivating strength so that others could
    till the soil in safety. You have fought many battles and won many
    victories in war. Now, in strength, you are fighting and winning battles
    for peace. Indeed, you have shown your people that they can free
    themselves from siege, that for the first time they can make real a
    peace for the generations.
        For the American people, too, this peace is a blessing. For decades,
    as Israel has struggled to survive, we have rejoiced in your triumphs
    and shared in your agonies. In the years since Israel was founded,
    Americans of every faith

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    have admired and supported you. Like your country, ours is a land that
    welcomes exiles, a nation of hope, a nation of refuge. From the Orient
    and Europe and now from the former Soviet Union, your people have come,
    Ashkenazim and Sephardim, Yemenites and Ethiopians, all of you committed
    to living free, to building a common home. One of nearly four of the
    citizens of this country is an Arab, something very few people know
    beyond your borders. Even without the blessings of secure borders, you
    have secured for your own people the blessings of democracy. With all of
    its turmoil and debate, it is still the best of all systems.
        In times of war and times of peace, every President of the United
    States since Harry Truman and every Congress has understood the
    importance of Israel. The survival of Israel is important not only to
    our interests, but to every single value we hold dear as a people. Our
    role in war has been to help you defend yourself by yourself. That is
    what you have asked. Now that you are taking risks for peace, our role
    is to help you to minimize the risks of peace.
        I am committed to working with our Congress to maintain the current
    levels of military and economic assistance. We have taken concrete steps
    to strengthen Israel's qualitative edge. The U.S.-Israel Science and
    Technology Commission, unprecedented Israeli access to the U.S. high-
    technology market, and acquisition of advanced computers, all these keep
    Israel in the forefront of global advances and competitive in global
    markets.
        I have also taken steps to enhance Israel's military and your
    capacity to address possible threats not only to yourselves but to the
    region. F-15 aircraft are being provided and F-16's transferred out of
    U.S. stocks. We work closely with you to develop the Arrow missile, to
    protect against the threat of ballistic missiles.
        As we help to overcome the risks of peace, we also are helping to
    build a peace that will bring with it the safety and security Israel
    deserves. That peace must be real, based on treaty commitments arrived
    at directly by the parties, not imposed from outside. It must be secure.
    Israel must always be able to defend itself by itself. And it must be
    comprehensive. We have worked hard to end the Arab boycott, and we've
    had some success. But we will not stop until it is completely lifted.
    There is a treaty with Jordan and an agreement with the PLO. But we must
    keep going until Syria and Lebanon close the circle of states entering
    into peace and the other nations of the Arab world normalize their
    relations with Israel.
        This morning in Damascus I discussed peace with President Asad. He
    repeated at our press conference what he had earlier said to his own
    Parliament: Syria has made a strategic choice for peace with Israel. He
    also explained that Syria is ready to commit itself to the requirements
    of peace through the establishment of normal peaceful relations with
    Israel. His hope, as he articulated it, is to transform the region from
    a state of war to a state of peace that enables both Arabs and Israelis
    to live in security, stability, and prosperity.
        We have been urging President Asad to speak to you in a language of
    peace that you can understand. Today he began to do so. Of course, it
    would take more than words, much more than words. Yet I believe
    something is changing in Syria. Its leaders understand that it is time
    to make peace. There will still be a good deal of hard bargaining before
    a breakthrough, but they are serious about proceeding.
        Just as we have worked with you from Camp David to Wadi Araba to
    bring peace with security to your people, so too we will walk with you
    on the road to Damascus for peace with security.
        There are those who see peace still as all too distant. Surely, they
    include the families of those burned in the rubble of the community
    center in Buenos Aires, those in the basement of New York's World Trade
    Center, the loved ones of the passengers on bus number 5, and of course,
    two people who, as been noted, are in this Chamber with us tonight. And
    we honor the parents of Corporal Nahshon Waxman, a son of your nation
    and, I proudly say, a citizen of ours.
        We grieve with the families of those who are lost and with all the
    people of Israel. So long as Jews are murdered just because they are
    Jews or just because they are citizens of Israel, the plague of anti-
    Semitism lives, and we must stand against it. We must stand against
    terror as strongly as we stand for peace, for without an end to terror
    there can be no peace.
        The forces of terror and extremism still threaten us all. Sometimes
    they pretend to act in the name of God and country. But their deeds
    violate their own religious faith and make a mockery of any notion of
    honorable patriotism.

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        As I said last night to the Parliament in Jordan, we respect Islam.
    Millions of American citizens every day answer the Moslem call to
    prayer. But we know that the real fight is not about religion or
    culture. It is about a worldwide conflict between those who believe in
    peace and those who believe in terror, those who believe in hope and
    those who believe in fear.
        Those who stoke the fires of violence and seek to destroy the peace,
    make no mistake about it, have one great goal. Their goal is to make the
    people of Israel, who have defeated all odds on the field of battle, to
    give up inside on the peace by giving in to the doubts that terror
    brings to every one of us. But having come so far, you cannot give up or
    give in. Your future must lie in the words of a survivor of the carnage
    of bus number 5 who said, ``I want the peace process to continue. I want
    to live in peace. I want my children to live in peace.''
        So let us say to the merchants of terror once again: You cannot
    succeed. You must not succeed. You will not succeed. You are the past,
    not the future. The peacemakers are the future.
        I say to you, my friends, in spite of all the dangers and
    difficulties that still surround you, the circle of your enemies is
    shrinking. Their time has passed. Their increasing isolation is
    reflected in the desperation of their disgusting deeds.
        Once, in this area, you were shunned. Now, more and more, you are
    embraced. As you share the waters of the River Jordan and work with your
    neighbors, new crops will emerge where the soil is now barren. As you
    join together to mine the Dead Sea for its minerals, you will bring
    prosperity to all your people. As you roll up the barbed wire and cross
    the desert of Araba, the sands will yield new life to you. As you dock
    in each other's ports along the Gulf of Aqaba, more and more people will
    have the chance to experience the wonders of both your lands, and more
    and more children will share the joys of youth, not the dread of war.
        This is the great promise of peace. It is the promise of making sure
    that all those who have sacrificed their lives did not die in vain; the
    promise of a Sabbath afternoon not violated by gunfight, a drive across
    the plains to the mountains of Moab where Moses died and Ruth was born,
    a Yom Kippur of pure prayer without the rumble of tanks, voices of fear,
    or rumors of war. After all the bloodshed and all your tears, you are
    now far closer to the day when the clash of arms is heard no more and
    all the children of Abraham, the children of Isaac, the children of
    Israel will live side by side in peace.
        This was, after all, the message the prophet Mohammed himself
    brought to peoples of other faiths when he said, ``There is no argument
    between us and you. God will bring us together, and unto Him is the
    homecoming.'' And this was the message Moses spoke to the children of
    Israel, when for the last time he spoke to them as they gathered across
    the River Jordan into the Promised Land, when he said, ``I have set
    before you life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life so that you
    and your descendants may live.''
        This week, once again, the people of Israel made a homecoming. Once
    again, you chose life. Once again, America was proud to walk with you.
        The Prime Minister mentioned a story in his remarks that he never
    asked me about. Wouldn't it be embarrassing if it weren't true?
    [Laughter] The truth is that the only time my wife and I ever came to
    Israel before today was 13 years ago with my pastor on a religious
    mission. I was then out of office. I was the youngest former Governor in
    the history of the United States. [Laughter] No one thought I would ever
    be here; perhaps my mother, no one else. [Laughter] We visited the holy
    sites. I relived the history of the Bible, of your Scriptures and mine,
    and I formed a bond with my pastor. Later, when he became desperately
    ill, he said he thought I might one day become President. And he said,
    more bluntly than the Prime Minister did, ``If you abandon Israel, God
    will never forgive you.'' He said, ``It is God's will that Israel, the
    biblical home of the people of Israel, continue forever and ever.''
        So I say to you tonight, my friends, one of our Presidents, John
    Kennedy, reminded us that here on Earth, God's will must truly be our
    own. It is for us to make the homecoming, for us to choose life, for us
    to work for peace. But until we achieve a comprehensive peace in the
    Middle East and then after we achieve comprehensive peace in the Middle
    East, know this: Your journey is our journey, and America will stand
    with you now and always.
        Thank you, and God bless you.

    Note: The President spoke at 9:25 p.m. in the Chamber at the Knesset. In
    his remarks, he re-

    [[Page 1893]]

    ferred to Shevach Weiss, Speaker of the Knesset, and Beinyamin
    Netanyahu, Lekud Party leader. A tape was not available for verification
    of the content of these remarks.