    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1995, Book I)]
    [April 9, 1995]
    [Pages 508-511]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks at the United Jewish Fund Luncheon in Los Angeles
    April 9, 1995

        Thank you very much, Peter, for your very fine introduction. To you
    and Gloria; to Irwin and Helgar Field; to our good friends Senator Boxer
    and Congressman Berman and his wife, Janice; Lew and Edie Wasserman; and
    Barbra Streisand and all the others who have come here to be with us
    today and mostly to all of you for inviting Hillary and me to share this
    moment with you, I thank you.
        The terrible incident of violence upon the people of Israel, which
    reached today also to some Americans who were also affected, gives me a
    way of beginning what I came here to say to you. I offer my condolences
    and the condolences of the American people to the people of Israel and
    the Government of Israel as well as to the American citizens and their
    families who were affected by this attack.
        Once more, the enemies of peace have sought to abuse the opportunity
    peace presents, to kill it, to kill hope, to kill all possibility of a
    normal life for the people of Israel, for the Palestinians who are
    struggling to do the right thing there, and for, indeed, people
    throughout the Middle East who can see a permanent and lasting peace
    within their grasp.
        As we give our sympathies to those who have suffered and died and
    their families, let us stiffen our resolve to say to those who seek to
    abuse human life so that they can continue to kill and continue to keep
    peace from people who want it: You will not succeed. You must not
    succeed.
        I ask you to think today for a few moments about the connection
    between what you hope will happen in the Middle East--what I have worked
    for as your President in terms of peace in the Middle East and Northern
    Ireland and South Africa and Haiti, worked for to reduce the nuclear
    threat in North Korea and to be able to say that this is the first time
    since the dawn of the nuclear age when no Russian missiles are pointed
    at the children of America--what is the connection between all of this
    and the work you have done here at home? The literally tens of millions
    of dollars that you have raised for any number of worthy public purposes
    and the partnerships that you have had with our Government, our
    National, State, and local governments, serving families, resettling
    refugees, helping the elderly and the sick, promoting education, and of
    course, as Mr. Gold said, dealing with the aftermath of the terrible
    earthquake; even the help you sent to the people of Rwanda and those who
    were affected by the Kobe earthquake--what is the connection between
    these two things?
        You have a sense of mission and purpose. You know that it is for all
    of us to make the most of our God-given capacities, but that we can only
    do it if we work together with some common purpose. I believe that the
    role of our Government must be as a partner to people like you, people
    who are willing to give of your time and your money and your heart and
    soul to try to solve the problems of other people because you think your
    life will be richer and stronger as well, not--to use your phrase, sir--
    not because it's a matter of charity but because it's a matter of
    justice.
        I have done what I could to be a good partner, and I thank you for
    what you said about the earthquake. We worked hard there. And we
    continue to work hard to make sure that all the consequences of the
    quake will be overcome and that the future will be bright.
        What I want to say to you today is that if you look at the economic
    problems and the social problems tearing America apart, if you look at
    the level of violence and gangs and drugs

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    among our children, the number of children who are born out of wedlock,
    if you look at the problems we have with stagnant incomes, and then you
    look on the other side of the ledger at the fact that we are creating
    new businesses at a record rate, we are creating new millionaires at a
    record rate, our country has the lowest combined rate of unemployment
    and inflation that we've had in 25 years, you might ask yourself, how
    can this global economy, how can the end of the cold war, how can the
    transfer from the industrial age to the information age bring us so much
    good and leave so many problems in its wake?
        If you look at the Middle East, you see that the very act of making
    peace has made it possible to have more violence. Look at what happened
    in Gaza. If peace is made and the PLO has a government there and the
    borders are open and the people are more integrated, then the incomes of
    the Palestinians go up, prosperity increases, the love of peace deepens.
    But if the borders are open, then that means there is also a greater
    possibility for terrorism, violence, murder, and killing the peace.
        I want to make this common point. I believe the greatest challenge
    to civilization at the end of this century, with the globalization of
    the economy and the revolution of information and technology we're
    seeing, is that all of the forces of integration, which give us the hope
    of building people up and having untold dreams fulfilled, seem to be
    accompanied by seeds of disintegration, which threaten our most basic
    human decency. And our job as citizens of our country and as human
    beings is to try to stabilize and shape and humanize those forces so
    that we can allow all the wonderful things of this new age to lift our
    people up and, at the same time, beat back the demons that would destroy
    us.
        Now, I could give you a lot of examples of that. The financial
    crisis in Mexico: We signed NAFTA; everything looked great. The world
    financial markets are integrated. Money rushes into Mexico. Mexico grows
    more rapidly than ever could have happened 15 years ago. Errors were
    made, and instead of a mid-course correction, there is a huge flow of
    capital out of Mexico. The same speed that brought the country up
    threatened to bring it down, which is why I moved in to try to stabilize
    the situation. Overreaction, integration, disintegration.
        Japan becomes a great industrial power by developing an incredible
    ability to fill different little market niches and do specific things,
    smaller and smaller things with bigger and bigger impacts. And the
    miniaturization and openness and rapid moving of that society also makes
    it possible for a religious fanatic to walk into a subway with a little
    piece of poison gas in a little vial and kill 60 people and hospitalize
    hundreds more.
        Russia throws off the shackles of communism, gets rid of
    totalitarianism. No more oppression. Free enterprise banks. The first
    thing you know, the biggest problem is organized crime taking over the
    banks.
        In the Baltics--Hillary and I went to the Baltics, and people were
    cheering us on, saying the United States got Russian troops out of the
    Baltics for the first time since before World War II, thank you very
    much. We had this moving ceremony. Everybody was in tears. We walked
    into a room to have a private meeting, and the first thing the leader of
    the country asked me for was an FBI office, because now that they were
    free they were going to be vulnerable to organized crime and drug
    transit.
        Closer to home, the more free and open we are, the more the free
    markets can lift us up, the more people who have great skills will be
    rewarded. That's why education is more important than ever before. But
    things are happening so fast, people who are willing to work hard but
    don't know a lot and can't learn a lot or don't have access to learning
    are going to be far more punished than they have been in the past; which
    is why, in the last 15 years, you see a dramatic departure from all
    previous years before World War II, when the middle class is splitting
    apart. The forces of integration are giving people who can triumph in
    the information age untold opportunities in America, but there are
    forces of disintegration for those who don't have them. They're not as
    obvious and tangible as the disintegration that comes from an
    earthquake, but they are happening nonetheless.
        And you have stepped into the breach. The generosity you have shown
    by raising this money and working in partnership with public agencies
    and dealing with all these problems is of more historic importance than
    at ever before, at least in the latter half of the 20th century. Because
    we have to find a way to push for peace in the Middle East and not let
    the forces of dis-

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     integration destroy it. We have to find a way to help people overcome
    the horrible legacy of totalitarianism and build the institutions of
    freedom and not let them be destroyed by people who abuse freedom.
        We have to find a way in this country to lift up all people in the
    technological and information revolution, which gives us the potential
    of liberating poor people at a more rapid rate than ever before, without
    instead creating a huge class of new poor who are working all the time
    and cannot get ahead. That is what is fueling all the cauldron of
    feelings around immigration. It's what's fueling all the cauldron of
    feelings around the affirmative action debate in this State. It is the
    force of integration running smack dab against the force of economic
    disintegration.
        And because you have a social conscience, because you understand
    that as a country and as a community we must go up or down together,
    because you know that our diversity, our freedom, our openness will
    ensure America's greatness indefinitely if we can solve this problem,
    you are critical to our future.
        Now, in Washington today, we are having an unprecedented debate
    about what the role of the Government should be in this time. And it is
    fashionable now, as it once was fashionable to say that there were
    people in Washington who never met a Government program they didn't
    like, now you see people who never met one they did like. Where once the
    problem was people who wanted to spend more money on everything, today
    the problem is people want to spend less money on everything, who make
    no distinctions.
        We cannot live without a public purpose and institutions to bring us
    together in public endeavors so that the forces of integration can
    triumph over the forces of disintegration, so that the people who are
    lifting us up can prevail.
        I believe in the forces of the free market. I have done everything I
    could to unshackle them from destructive Government interference. I have
    done everything I could to expand trading opportunities for the American
    private sector. But the market alone, in a time when the forces of
    disintegration are powerful, will not solve all of our problems.
        And so you must work with us to define the mission of your
    Government and the level of partnership we will have as we move toward
    the end of this century and into the next. But as you go home today, I
    want you to think about it. Think about the terrible burden that the
    people of Israel bear. The more risks they take for peace, the more at
    risk they are from openness.
        And the same is true of the Palestinians proceeding in good faith.
    They never had to run a police force before. They never had to turn the
    lights on before or run the water systems or make the trains run on
    time, to use the American slogan. They don't have the infrastructure to
    deal with this. And so their enemies say, ``I liked it the other way. I
    could get plenty of money for making bombs. I could get plenty of
    ammunition for my uzi. I do not want to live in peace.''
        And peace requires openness and interchange so that the more risks
    you take, the more at risk you are because disintegration becomes an
    option as you try to integrate people and bring them together. In this
    kind of a world, we must have strong institutions devoted to preserving
    responsibility, family, work, community, to giving everybody a chance to
    imagine that their tomorrows can be better than their yesterdays.
        Now, we could take every last issue being debated in Washington and
    every last issue being debated in the global community, and it all comes
    down to that. And I ask you not to forget that some of the forces who
    are arguing that we don't need any kind of Government are also arguing
    that we should withdraw from the United Nations, turn our back on
    peacekeeping, not be involved in the rest of the world. That would be a
    disaster for the future of our country and this globe. And we must not
    do it.
        This is not a partisan issue. At the end of this century, at the
    dawn of the next, we must have public institutions working in
    partnership with public-spirited citizens to enhance our security, to
    enhance opportunity, to insist on more responsibility, and to empower
    people through continuous education to make the most of their own lives
    and to develop the self-confidence to believe that they can live good
    lives without hurting other people, that they don't have to define their
    success in life by someone else's failure. And that is the common
    element in all destructive behavior.
        Why do people blow up buses in Israel? There are people who believe
    they can only be successful in life if someone else is dying. And in a
    much more pedestrian way, how many

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    times do we see conflicts within our own borders from people who believe
    they can only be successful if someone else is failing?
        You have believed, always, there was a public interest, there were
    shared values, there were common goals, we could go up together. That is
    what America needs now. We need it in thinking about our own problems.
    We need it in looking out to the world. We need to behave as citizens
    the way you behave as members of this organization. We need to give,
    because when we give, we get; because we're better off if we're all
    doing better. We dare not define our success in life by someone else's
    failure.
        So I say to you, keep doing what you're doing. But when you go home
    and when you continue this conversation, think about how many examples
    there are of the point I have made to you today. And think about all the
    wonderful opportunities the world affords us. I believe America's best
    days are still ahead. We have only to figure out how to get the benefits
    of these fantastic new changes without bearing the burdens of the forces
    of disintegration. It will not happen unless we believe in the public
    interest, unless we believe in the human ties that bind us, and unless
    we join hands to work together. That is the wisdom you have to give to
    the rest of America, and I ask you to do your very best to impart it.
        Thank you, and God bless you all.

    Note: The President spoke at 12:10 p.m. at the Beverly Wilshire Regent.
    In his remarks, he referred to Peter Gold, 1995 Jewish Federation
    campaign chairman, and his wife, Gloria; Irwin Field, Jewish Federation
    president, and his wife, Helgar; Lew Wasserman, chairman and CEO, MCA,
    Inc., and his wife, Edie; and entertainer Barbra Streisand.