[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1996, Book I)]
[March 17, 1996]
[Pages 465-470]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



Remarks to the United Jewish Appeal Young Leadership Conference
March 17, 1996

    The President. Thank you very much. Thank you.
    Audience members. Four more years! Four more years! Four more years!
    The President. You know, I've been trying to convince everyone else 
in Washington to delay the onset of this year's campaign, and you aren't 
helping very much. [Laughter] But you have my permission to vary from 
the official line. [Laughter]
    I thank you so much. I want to thank my friend David Hermelin for 
his wonderful remarks and his remarkable service. I don't know that I've 
ever known anybody that had such a remarkable combination of energy and 
commitment to the common good. He is indefatigable, and all of his 
energies seem to me to be directed toward good causes, including my own. 
[Laughter] And I thank him for that.
    To Ambassador Yaacobi, Mrs. Rabinovich--Efrat--members of the Young 
Leadership cabinet, and all of you, thank you for giving me the 
opportunity to come by tonight. And let me begin by saying that a lot of 
people speak about trying to advance the cause of humanity, but you 
actually do something about it. So I want to begin simply by thanking 
you for everything you do, from the hot meals for the homebound to 
wheelchairs for the disabled to shelter for refugees to comfort for 
victims of Alzheimer's and AIDS. And thank you, of course, for your many 
services to the cause of Israel.
    You know, I was trying to think of something I could say tonight, 
just one line that would capture our country's rich diversity and the 
common commitment we should all feel to the cause of peace and standing 
up against terrorism everywhere in the world. And it seems to me the 
best line I could give all of you at this great Jewish event tonight is 
``Happy Saint Patrick's Day.'' [Laughter]
    Let me say that the 2 days and 9 hours I spent going from here to 
Sharm al-Sheikh to Tel Aviv and Jerusalem and back to Tel Aviv again and 
then home were a remarkable experience for me. I am grateful that the 
United States is a friend of Israel and a friend of the cause of peace. 
I am grateful that the United States is an implacable opponent of 
terrorism. And I am grateful that at this moment I was able to go on 
behalf of all the American people to stand with the people of Israel in 
their time of pain and sorrow and challenge to express the outrage of 
our people at the latest campaign of terror and to show our solidarity.
    All of you know this, but it bears repeating that the terrorist 
attacks claimed not only Israeli lives but also those of Palestinians--
and some of the most gripping tales I heard when I was there came from 
their family members, who also long for peace--and two young Americans, 
Sarah Duker and Matthew Eisenfeld.
    Now, it is important, quite apart from the peace process, that we 
once again say to the world, we know no country is safe from terror. We 
have seen it in the World Trade Center and in Oklahoma City in the 
United States. We know our friends in Japan have suffered it in the 
terrible attack of sarin gas in the Tokyo subway. But we know that in 
the Middle East it has too often been employed as an instrument of 
politics. And it is wrong. We stand against it now. We redouble our 
efforts against it, and we will be against it forever.

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    The symbol of our solidarity on this trip was perhaps best conveyed 
by the stone from the South Lawn of the White House that I was 
privileged to place on the grave of my friend Prime Minister Rabin, 
along with all of his family members. That is the place where the first 
accord with the Palestinians was signed. It represents our hope for 
progress, our belief in the chances of peace, and our unwavering 
solidarity.
    As you know, we have resolved to strengthen our cooperation with all 
those who will stand against terror in the Middle East. We are 
committing more than $100 million to the task. We are increasing our 
intelligence sharings, and we are developing new methods to combat 
violence there. We are convinced that ultimately fear will overcome the 
adversity of terror, because overcoming that kind of adversity is the 
genius of the Jewish people and the history of the State of Israel. No 
nation on Earth has experienced more often the painful truth that the 
path of triumph often passes through tragedy. No people knows better 
that we must deny victory to oppressors. The Jewish people have overcome 
every one of their would-be destroyers, denying them their goal, and in 
so doing reaffirming that what is good in human nature can prevail.
    It may be that until the end of time there will always be some group 
that will seek to do harm to others for their own advantage. We cannot 
rid the world of evil. It may be that until the end of time there will 
always be some group that will seek to distort the meaning of a 
religion, to demonize those who are different from them. But it should 
be heartening to you to know that today more nations than ever have 
risen up with Israel to oppose the destroyers of the present day, to 
oppose those who would kill and maim and who seek to destroy the peace 
through violence.
    That really was the message of the meeting at Sharm al-Sheikh, that 
Israel is no longer alone. The Summit of Peacemakers was the largest and 
highest level meeting of its kind ever held. At the urging of Israel's 
neighbors, 29 nations, including 13 from Arab States, came to 
demonstrate their support for peace and their opposition to terrorism.
    I believe that that summit marked the beginning of a truly unified 
regional effort to root out those responsible for the bloodshed. It 
produced concrete results. And soon there will be a followup conference 
here in Washington within the month, at which representatives of all the 
nations will be present. And we will press ahead to implement the 
commitments that all made at Sharm al-Sheikh.
    Just think about it. A meeting like this would have been unthinkable 
just a few years ago. But for the first time, Arab nations in the region 
are beginning to realize that pain in Israel is a danger to them as 
well. Large majorities of Palestinians and Jordanians and Egyptians know 
that the destruction of innocent life in Israel is a threat to the 
peaceful future they have declared as their goal for themselves and 
their own children.
    They understood that security must not lie only at the end of the 
road for peace. There must be security every step of the way, or there 
can be no peace. No one seriously believes anymore it is fair to ask 
Israel to give up its security until the peace is made. That is wrong, 
and we will not support it.
    When I read the story of the Palestinian nurse who was killed in the 
bombing and what her son said about her loss, it convinced me that what 
I see in Bosnia and what I see in Northern Ireland is also true now in 
Israel and in the Middle East. And it is a great cause for hope and a 
sobering reminder of the dimension of our challenge, and that is that 
the great division today in the Middle East is not between those of 
different religions or ethnic groups just as it is no longer between 
Croatian, Serb, and Muslim in Bosnia or between Catholic and Protestant 
in Northern Ireland. It really is between those who are reaching for a 
better tomorrow and those who have retreated into the pointless, bloody 
hostility of yesterday; those who are willing to open their arms to 
their neighbors and those who want to remain with their fist clenched; 
those who are willing to raise their children based on what kind of 
people they are inside and what they stand for and what their character 
is and those who wish to continue to raise their children based on who 
they are not and whom they can hate.
    That is the clear decision that all peoples of the world confronted 
with these kind of conflicts have to make. And even though this is a 
time of mourning it is also a time of hope, for the rest of the world is 
coming to know what America has long understood: Israel must be strong 
and secure and confident if we want peace and justice for every person 
in the Middle East. And I assure you we will continue to support

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those who take risks for peace in the Middle East, in Bosnia, and around 
the world.
    The fight against terrorism must be a national security priority for 
the American people. Last year when I announced the stronger steps we in 
the United States were prepared to take alone against Iran because of 
their policies, many of my colleagues around the world declined to join 
in. Some of them, my friends and freedom-loving people, openly said I 
was wrong. I didn't hear that so much in Sharm al-Sheikh. People are 
beginning to see the truth. You cannot, you must not countenance people 
who believe it is legitimate to fund and arm others to kill innocent 
civilians, no matter where they are.
    Let me remind my fellow Americans that we have challenges here at 
home and that if we want to truly be effective in the transnational 
fight against terrorism, we must have the tools to deal with terrorism 
here at home. Well over a year ago I sent to Congress a bill to improve 
our ability to investigate, to prosecute, to punish terrorist activity. 
After our own tragedy in Oklahoma City I made that legislation even 
stronger and challenged the Congress to pass it.
    Last June the Senate passed the counterterrorism legislation. Until 
last week, the House of Representatives, letting more than a half-year 
go by, had not acted. Then last week when it did act, unbelievably it 
acted to destroy the bill, to gut it, indeed to mock it. The House 
voted, for example, to delete a provision of the bill that would allow 
us to tag explosive materials so that if a bomb is exploded somewhere in 
America, it will be marked and we can trace it back to its source. Now, 
if you have your car stolen in Washington, DC, tonight and somebody 
drives it to West Virginia--I hope it doesn't happen--[laughter]--but 
think about it, and you call the police and you tell them your name and 
the serial--and the license plate of your car and the car has any serial 
numbers on it, and it's found tomorrow morning in a parking lot of a 
grocery store in West Virginia, under the national computer network 
system we have, within 30 seconds it can be identified as your car. And 
you can be told that it's your car.
    We have serial numbers on guns that are sold in America, unless 
they're filed off. Now why in the world the Washington gun lobby is 
opposed to our tagging explosives which could be used to blow apart the 
bodies of innocent civilians is beyond me. If people want to use the 
explosives for appropriate construction work, they can still do it. 
Their civil liberties are not going to be impaired. But as soon as the 
objection was raised, the House says, thank you very much, we'll take it 
right out.
    We had a provision in that bill that would allow us to deport more 
quickly people who come into this country and are obviously involved in 
raising funds for terrorist organizations. They took that out. We had 
other provisions that would enable us to move more aggressively against 
organizations that clearly engage in terrorism. They took those out.
    And they imposed a commission not to study terrorism within our 
borders or beyond our borders but to study the Federal law enforcement 
officials whose primary job it is to combat this kind of terrorist 
activities. That is the wrong response, and it sends a terrible signal 
to people throughout the world who believe that if they can just get the 
right kind of extremist opposition to standing up to terrorism in 
America, it will weaken our resolve. They are wrong about that, and we 
should pass a good antiterrorism bill immediately.
    I just want to say, if I might, one more word about why you're here 
in this leadership conference and to say I admire this organization for 
many things, but not the least of it is always trying to develop a new 
generation of leaders.
    I sought this office more than 4 years ago because I believe that 
our country had to change direction if we were going to achieve the 
objectives that I feel are important for America. One is to guarantee 
the American dream for every person who is willing to work for it. 
Second, to maintain America's leadership in the cause of peace and 
freedom and security and prosperity throughout the world, we cannot 
withdraw; we must continue to lead. And third is to continue to build 
the American community, to forge a new unity amidst all of our diversity 
based on shared values and genuine honest respect for diversity. Now, if 
we can do those three things, this country is going to be just fine, and 
the world will be a better place.
    As I have said many times, in order to achieve those objectives, we 
have to grow the economy in a way that gives everybody a chance to 
participate. We have to squarely face our shared social challenges, from 
a high crime rate to abject poverty rates among our young people to teen 
pregnancy rates and other problems that make childhood more difficult. 
We have to work

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hard to overcome the impulses that so many Americans understandably feel 
to withdraw from the world at the end of the cold war, and to try to 
chart a new course. And we have to continue to try to inspire more faith 
and trust in the American people in their Government.
    Now, in each of those areas we're better off than we were, but we 
have significant challenges ahead. We should be grateful that we have 
8.4 million more jobs than we did in 1992, because a lot of our other 
competitors have no new jobs. And we should be glad that every year for 
the last 3 years we set a record in the number of new businesses. We 
should be glad that businesses owned by women alone have hired more 
people than the Fortune 500 have laid off. We should be glad about that.
    But that should not make us insensitive to the fact that there are 
pockets in the inner cities and isolated rural areas of America that 
have felt no economic recovery. It should not make us insensitive to the 
fact that the educational divide in the new economy into which we're 
moving has become so great that about half the hourly wage earners in 
America in the bottom half are earning about the same wages as their 
counterparts were 20 years ago, once you adjust for inflation. We should 
be sensitive to the fact that even though we're creating far more high-
tech jobs than we're losing, if you happen to be one of those 50-year-
old people who gets downsized about the time you're trying to send your 
kids to college, there needs to be an answer for you as well. So we're 
better off than we were, but we have to build on our successes and face 
our challenges.
    If you look at the fabric of American society, we should be grateful 
for the fact that as compared with 4 years ago, the crime rate is down, 
the welfare rolls are down, the poverty rolls are down, and the teen 
pregnancy rate is dropping. But we should also say, compared to any 
appropriate standard for a civilized, disciplined, orderly hope for 
society, all these problems are still far too great. And we must keep 
going until we have literally wiped them from our concerns.
    We can be grateful for the progress that's been made in political 
reform. The rules on lobbying, for example, are much more open and much 
stricter than they were when I became President. Now Congress has to 
apply to itself the laws it imposes on the private sector. Those are 
good things; we can be glad about that.
    But we also know that there are other things that have to be done, 
not the least of which is a legitimate, genuine campaign finance reform 
bill that gives every citizen the opportunity to run for office and all 
citizens the same influence in the electoral process. Until that is done 
we will not have finished our work.
    And while the world is clearly a safer place not only for Americans 
but for virtually all other people than it was 4 years ago, we know that 
we have to keep going. We have to keep going not only in the Middle East 
and in Northern Ireland and in Bosnia, we have to keep going until 
children everywhere no longer fear that their legs will be blown off by 
landmines when they're walking in fields. We have to keep going until we 
know that we have done everything that can be humanly done to remove 
from people everywhere the threat of biological or chemical or small-
scale nuclear weapons. We have to keep going until we have concluded all 
possible agreements to ban nuclear testing, so that that will be the 
beginning of the end of any nuclear threat for the people of the world.
    And we have to remember that nations are like children. You can't 
just say that they should say no to bad things; you have to give them 
some good things to say yes to. And therefore, it is right and decent 
and in our self-interest to keep expanding the frontiers of economic 
opportunity and not to forget that all those people in Latin America 
that still worry about whether their children will even grow to be 
adults deserve to be part of a new economy, and if we do it right, 
they'll be our best customers; that all those people in Africa we long 
to see free of the kind of carnage we see in Rwanda and Burundi deserve 
to have some hope for a better future if they work hard and do the right 
thing; that the people who live in India and Pakistan that we long to 
see walk away from their old, bitter conflicts have to also be able to 
walk toward a future of brighter hope; and that for America to do well 
we have to continue to be committed to creating that kind of future. 
It's in our people's interest to do what is right in the world.
    And so that brings me to you. For except for those of us who are, in 
effect, hired by you to tend for a little while to the public interest, 
all other Americans necessarily have to be preoccupied with their own 
interests, with the work they must do and the children they're trying to 
raise and the things within their imme-


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diate reach. But we must--we must--reassert in this country a commitment 
to citizen leadership among the younger generation of Americans.
    You know, when I was in Israel I spoke in Tel Aviv to a large number 
of young people. And afterward the Prime Minister asked me if I would 
take questions. And I was fairly apprehensive, but I said okay. 
[Laughter] And a young person said, ``Well, what advice would you give 
to someone my age who wanted to be involved in a position of leadership 
and responsibility? What would you tell me if I wanted to go into public 
life; what should I do?''
    And I said, ``Well, in my country when young people ask me that 
question I tell them to do three things: One, to get the best education 
you can, so that you'll be able to learn for a lifetime. Because the 
world is growing more complex, there is more to know, there is more to 
understand, and more importantly, there are more connections to be made. 
You can't just isolate one body of knowledge or one experience from 
another.''
    The second thing you have to do is to develop a genuine interest in 
people. You know, I hear a lot of people in my line of work talking, and 
it's hard to imagine from the anger in their voices that they like 
people very much. You don't have to give up on your own heritage to try 
to stand in another person's shoes.
    In one county in America alone there are over 150 different racial 
and ethnic groups. And that is a great gift for our country in a global 
society. It is a gift, one we should cherish and treasure and nourish. 
But unless we realize that curious blend of human reality that gives 
something common to human nature across all the racial and ethnic 
divides and still demands of us to respect each other's honestly held 
differences, we will not meet the challenges of the future. And our 
inability to do that and our tendency here in America to use elections 
as an excuse to divide one another, so that we choose up sides based on 
the belief that our opponents are aliens--and we learn that they're 
aliens from 30-second ads that tell us how evil and bad they are--that 
is a very dangerous tendency in a global society when we need to be 
pulling together and when we can only solve our problems by pulling 
together. There is no other way to solve the people problems that human 
societies everywhere face and that the United States has in abundance 
except by working together, by reaching across the divides.
    And the third thing I tell young people is that they should figure 
out what they believe, stand up for it, and work for it and not be 
deterred.
    To be perfectly honest, the thing I like best about your cheering 
tonight is that you were cheering for me. [Laughter] The thing I like 
second best about it was your energy, your belief, your conviction, your 
passion.
    You know, I see all these surveys that say Americans are cynical. My 
friends, that's a great luxury. If you worried about whether every bus 
you boarded was loaded with a bomb, you wouldn't have the time to be 
cynical. If you lived in a tiny village in the Andes where you didn't 
know where your child's next meal was coming from, you wouldn't have the 
time to be cynical. If you lived in a country in Africa where you were 
trying to save your wife's life because she belonged to a different 
tribe than you do and your tribe had the army and they were going 
through one little village after another with machetes, you wouldn't 
have the option of being cynical.
    You live in a country with the strongest economy, the greatest 
potential, the widest diversity, the largest amount of opportunities on 
Earth. And you are not cynical or you wouldn't be here at this 
conference and you wouldn't have stood up and you wouldn't have 
exhibited all that energy. But a lot of the people that you work and 
live with back in your communities are. And they say, ``Aw, it doesn't 
matter who wins, all the politicians''--you've heard all that stuff. I'm 
telling you, it's a bunch of bull. [Laughter] It's a bunch of bull. It's 
not true.
    You know, before we had to stop them for the election season of the 
other party--[laughter]--they have to hold their elections; I'm not 
complaining. But before we had to stop them for the election season of 
the other party, the Vice President and I spent over 50 hours with the 
leaders of the Republicans and Democrats in Congress. And we spent the 
time in private. And most of what we said I don't think I should talk 
about in any great detail; it wasn't all that different from what you've 
already heard in public. But after you spend 50 hours with other people 
and you talk through and you express your really--what you think and 
what you feel, you develop a certain relationship to people even if 
they're very different from you.

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    And the point I want to make to you is that the leaders of the 
majority in Congress and I really do view the world in different ways. 
But that is not a cynical statement. And it has nothing to do with 
campaign tactics, about which I spoke earlier. It is a plain fact. And 
that's why I say to young people, you have to decide what you believe 
and take sides and stand up. But there's nothing to be cynical about. 
These differences are real and deep and profound and they matter. And 
they're honestly held by all the parties.
    And I just want to say to you that this is a very great country, but 
if you want your country--when those of you who are younger are my age, 
and I'm nearly eligible to join AARP--[laughter]--I hate it, but it's 
true--[laughter]--if you want this country when you're 50, when you're 
60, when you're 65 to be the beacon of hope for the world, to be 
Israel's best friend, to stand up for freedom and against terrorism, if 
that's what you want, if you want every child who grows up in this 
country to believe that he or she can live out their dreams if they'll 
work for it, then cynicism and inaction and passivity have no place in 
your future or the future of your friends and neighbors back home where 
you live. You have to lead. And that's what I want you to do.
    Thank you, and God bless you all.

Note: The President spoke at 8:12 p.m. in the ballroom of the Washington 
Hilton and Towers Hotel. In his remarks, he referred to David Hermelin, 
national vice chair, United Jewish Appeal; Gad Yaacobi, Israeli 
Ambassador to the United Nations; Efrat Rabinovich, wife of Itamar 
Rabinovich, Israeli Ambassador to the United States; and Prime Minister 
Shimon Peres of Israel. A portion of these remarks could not be verified 
because the tape was incomplete.