[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1999, Book I)]
[March 18, 1999]
[Pages 405-406]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



[[Page 405]]


Remarks on Receiving the Peace Garden Scroll and the Shalom Chaver Award 
for International Leadership
March 18, 1999

    Leah and Dahlia, Noa, Yuval, Tali, Rachel: Hillary and I are honored to welcome you here. We are 
honored by the Shalom Chaver Award and the Peace Garden and the power of 
your example. Thank you, Noa, for the beautiful 
song.
    I thank the members of the Cabinet who are here, the administration, 
especially Secretary Albright and Mr. 
Berger, and I want to say a special word of 
thanks to all those who have been on our peace team, now and for the 
last 6 years: Mr. Ross, Mr. Indyk; before them, Secretary Christopher, Mr. Lake, and others.
    I welcome the members of the diplomatic corps who are here. I think 
it would be worth noting, as a particular tribute to Prime Minister 
Rabin, that the members of the diplomatic corps who are here are the 
Ambassadors of Jordan, Egypt, Tunisia, 
Morocco, Qatar, Oman, 
and the PLO. Welcome.
    I thank Congressmen Lantos, Lewis, and Lowey for being here. We 
have many distinguished guests from Israel, including General and Mrs. Mordechai and 
Mrs. Barak. We thank you for being here, all of 
our guests from Israel, and all of our American guests. Thank you for 
coming, in the words of Prime Minister Rabin, to make a stand against 
violence and for peace.
    We are gratified to know that this Rabin Center will promote 
Yitzhak's legacy and his vision of a Middle East in a world where people 
do not have to die for peace but can actually live in peace and enjoy 
it.
    I still remember quite clearly the meeting we had in March of 1993, 
when the Oslo agreement was still months away, but he had already 
foreseen the bold steps he would have to take. He shared with me his 
assessment of the danger posed by the adversaries in the Middle East. As 
I recall, he called it a marriage of extremists and missiles. He 
understood that Israel needed a strategic peace, a circle of peace with 
others in the region to isolate and weaken extremists.
    All I could say to him then and all I can do now is to state again 
that as Israel takes risks for peace, the United States will do 
everything in its power to minimize those risks and advance that cause.
    Today I also thank Leah and Dahlia for remembering our friend His Majesty King 
Hussein. In a humorous moment in an otherwise profoundly somber day, at 
his funeral, I was standing with another leader of the Arab world whom I 
dare not mention for fear of embarrassing him, and we noticed standing 
there at the King's funeral Prime Minister Netanyahu, General Barak, and 
General Mordechai. And the leader looked at me, and he said, ``This is 
truly an amazing world. King Hussein is the only thing they agree on.'' 
[Laughter]
    Hussein and Yitzhak Rabin were brave soldiers who had the courage to 
tell the hard truth that there would be no security for any in the 
Middle East without fairness for all, that the time had come to lift 
people's hopes, not exploit their fears, to reach across the divide of 
history and hatred, to fulfill the true promise of the Promised Land. 
They knew well enough that extremists would try to derail the peace 
accord by keeping fear and frustration, mistrust and misery dominant in 
the lives of ordinary Palestinians and Israelis. But they were 
determined to turn back the tide, and so they did.
    How we gloried in those brilliant days in 1993 and 1995 when the 
leaders of the Middle East gathered here to grasp hands and pledged to 
build a safer and better future. How we enjoyed those first halting 
steps toward reconciliation. Even then there was humor: I will never 
forget when Yitzhak promised me in September of '93 that he would shake 
Mr. Arafat's hand as long as there was no kissing. [Laughter]
    But it wasn't long after that when they came here to sign all the 
maps to embody in concrete terms the accord which had been reached, when 
a dispute arose. And it was at the last minute, and no one knew how to 
resolve it. So I showed them back to my private dining room, and I said, 
``I believe I could find Jericho, but otherwise I don't know much about 
this map. You guys go in that room and solve it. We'll wait until it's 
done.'' And they sat there alone and resolved the problem.
    Today, the people of the Middle East still have a chance to build 
the secure peace of Prime Minister Rabin's dreams, to isolate the

[[Page 406]]

extremists, to weaken their ability to shatter the peace with terrorism 
or missiles or weapons of mass destruction. But it is just a chance.
    I can still hear the strong voices of Yitzhak Rabin and King Hussein 
speaking to us today and saying: Push ahead with the peace process. 
Build on Oslo and Wye River--before it is too late. But today, their 
voices must be embodied by others all across the Middle East. Tzarich 
chaverim li-shalom. We need friends of peace.
    The loss of Yitzhak Rabin, the premature death of His Majesty King 
Hussein make it time--and past time--for all in the Middle East to 
remember the wisdom of the ages: Life is fleeting. When we return to 
dust, our differences are as nothing. All that remains is our legacy. It 
must be an affirmation of our common humanity. Why is it we can only see 
the humanity we share when we lose someone we love?
    Long ago, Leah said it very well in 1975 at a women's conference in 
Mexico City. She said this: ``War solves nothing. Our area thirsts for 
peace, for the benefit of all peoples living there. Our true enemies are 
poverty, illiteracy, disease, and inequality of opportunity.''
    Leah, you and Yitzhak lived the history of 
Israel together, from your marriage in the year of your nation's birth, 
from the ashes of the Holocaust and the seeds of the Diaspora. You 
fought for independence and survival. You helped to build the 
enlightened, vibrant democratic society that Israel is today. And I want 
to say that we are very grateful to you for your sacrifices, for your 
contributions to help build an Israel that is strong and free, 
prosperous and at peace. We thank you.
    That is also America's cause in the Middle East; and in Central 
America, where I visited last week, and where longtime adversaries in 
civil wars now reach across great divides; and in Northern Ireland, the 
land of my ancestors, whose leaders I met with yesterday, where we are 
so close to finishing the job; and in the former Yugoslavia, where we 
are determined to avoid in Kosovo a repeat of the terrible senseless 
bloodshed of Bosnia; and in Africa, where too much blood still is being 
shed, but whose leaders came here this week in a remarkable display of 
unity to seek a partnership of freedom and opportunity with the United 
States.
    In all these places the struggle for peace continues. And we must 
continue it in the Middle East, between Israelis and Palestinians and 
all across the region, because every day we delay the process of peace 
strengthens the extremists and supports their violent designs.
    I would like to close with three admonitions. We must not grow 
weary. The psalmist says, ``Do good; seek peace, and pursue it.'' We 
must not harden our hearts in the face of all that has been lost. 
Shakespeare said it best:

    The quality of mercy is not strain'd,
    It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
    Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest:
    It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.

Let us give it and take it. And finally, we must not lose faith. Yitzhak 
Rabin once quoted these words from the poet Tchernichovsky: ``I believe 
in the future. That day will come when peace and blessings are borne 
from nation to nation.'' And he added, ``I want to believe that that day 
is not far off.''
    With the help of a merciful God, we will hasten the day of Yitzhak 
Rabin's dreams.
    Shalom. Salaam. Thank you, and God bless you.

Note: The President spoke at 6:49 p.m. on the South Lawn at the White 
House. In his remarks, he referred to the following members of Prime 
Minister Yitzhak Rabin's family: Leah Rabin, widow; Dahlia Rabin-
Pelossof, daughter; Noa Pelossof, granddaughter; Yuval Rabin, son, and 
his wife, Tali; and Rachel Jacob, sister. The President also referred to 
Ambassadors Marwan Muashir of Jordan, Ahmed Maher El-Sayed of Egypt, 
Noureddine Mejdoub of Tunisia, Mohamed Benaissa of Morocco, Saad 
Muhammad al-Kubaysi of Qatar, and Abdallah bin Muhammad bin Aqil al-
Dhahab of Oman; Hasan Abdel Rahman, the Palestine Liberation 
Organization representative in Washington, DC; Gen. Yitzhak Mordechai, 
and his wife, Cochi; Gen. Ehud Barak, chairman, Israeli Labor Party, and 
his wife, Nava; Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu of Israel; and 
Chairman Yasser Arafat of the Palestinian Authority. The scroll and the 
award were presented by the Yitzhak Rabin Center.