[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: WILLIAM J. CLINTON (2000-2001, Book III)]
[January 7, 2001]
[Pages 2838-2846]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]
Remarks at an Israel Policy Forum Dinner in New York City
January 7, 2001
Thank you very much. Thank you. I want to thank all of you for
making me feel so welcome tonight and also for making Hillary and Chelsea feel
welcome. I thank Michael Sonnenfeldt,
who, like me, is going out after 8 years--[laughter]--and will doubtless
find some other useful activity. But he has done a superb job, and I'm
very grateful to him.
I thank my friend Jack Bendheim for his
many kindnesses to me and to Hillary. Yesterday he had a birthday, and
now, like me, he's 54. Unlike me, he has enough children to be elected
President of the United States. [Laughter] And he's had a wonderful
family and a wonderful life, and I'm delighted that he's so active in
the Israel Policy Forum. I'd like to thank Judith Stern Peck for making me feel so welcome and for her
leadership.
I thank Lesley Stahl. It's good to see you,
and thank you for your kind remarks. I thank the many Members of
Congress who are here and also the members of my Middle East peace team.
Secretary Albright and Sandy
Berger and others have been introduced, but
Secretary Dan Glickman is here, and Kerry
Kennedy Cuomo is here, and I thank them
for being here.
I want to thank the New York officials who are here--Carl
McCall, Mark Green,
and any others who may be in the crowd--for your many kindnesses to me
over the last 8 years. New York has been great to me and Al Gore and
even greater to my wife on election day, so I thank you for that.
We just reenacted her swearing-in at Madison Square Garden. And I
was reminded of one of the many advantages of living in New York: Jessye
Norman sang, Toni Morrison read, and
[[Page 2839]]
Billy Joel sang. Meanwhile, at least at half
time, the Giants were ahead. [Laughter] And so I said, I felt sort of
like Garrison Keillor did about Lake Wobegon. I was glad to be in New
York where all the writers, artists, and sports teams were above
average--[laughter]--and all the votes were always counted. [Laughter]
Let me also say a word of warm welcome and profound respect to the
Speaker of the Knesset, Speaker Burg, for his
wonderful and kind comments to me, and to Cabinet Secretary
Herzog, for his message from the Government
of Israel. I want to say a little more about that in a moment.
I want to congratulate Dwayne Andreas,
my good friend--I wish he were here tonight--and thank him for his many
kindnesses to me. Congratulations, Louis Perlmutter; Susan Stern, who has been such
a great friend to Hillary, and you
gave a good talk tonight. I think you've got a real future in this
business. And your mother sat by me, and she gave you a good grade, too.
[Laughter]
And Alan Solomont, who has done as much
for me as, I suppose, any American, and he and Susan and their children have been great friends, and I thank
you for what you've done, sir. I thank all of you.
I'd also like to say how much I appreciated and was moved by the
words of Prime Minister Barak. He was dealt the
hard hand by history. And he came to office with absolute conviction
that in the end, Israel could not be secure unless a just and lasting
peace could be reached with its neighbors, beginning with the
Palestinians; that if that turned out not to be possible, then the next
best thing was to be as strong as possible and as effective in the use
of that strength. But his knowledge of war has fed a passion for peace.
And his understanding of the changing technology of war has made him
more passionate, not because he thinks the existence of Israel is less
secure--if anything, it's more secure--but because the sophisticated
weapons available to terrorists today mean even though they still lose,
they can exact a higher price along the way.
I've been in enough political fights in my life to know that
sometimes you just have to do the right thing, and it may work out, and
it may not. Most people thought I had lost my mind when we passed the
economic plan to get rid of the deficit in 1993. And no one in the other
party voted for it, and they just talked about how it would bring the
world to an end and America's economy would be a disaster. I think the
only Republican who thought it would work was Alan Greenspan. [Laughter]
He was relieved of the burden of having to say anything about it.
But no dilemma I have ever faced approximates in difficulty or comes
close to the choice that Prime Minister Barak had
to make when he took office. He realized that he couldn't know for sure
what the final intentions of the Palestinian leadership were without
testing them. He further realized that even if the intentions were
there, there was a lot of competition among the Palestinians and from
outside forces, from people who are enemies of peace because they don't
give a rip how the ordinary Palestinians have to live and they're
pursuing a whole different agenda.
He knew nine things could go wrong and only
one thing could go right. But he promised himself that he would have to
try. And as long as he knew Israel in the end could defend itself and
maintain its security, he would keep taking risks. And that's what he's
done, down to these days. There may be those who disagree with him, but
he has demonstrated as much bravery in the office of Prime Minister as
he ever did on the field of battle, and no one should ever question
that.
Now, I imagine this has been a tough time for those of you who have
been supporting the IPF out of conviction for a long time. All the
dreams we had in '93 that were revived when we had the peace with
Jordan, revived again when we had the Wye River accords--that was, I
think, the most interesting peace talk I was ever involved in. My
strategy was the same used to break prisoners of war: I just didn't let
anybody sleep for 9 days, and finally, out of exhaustion, we made a
deal--just so people could go home and go to bed. [Laughter] I've been
looking for an opportunity to employ it again, ever since.
There have been a lot of positive things, and I think it's worth
remembering that there have been positive developments along the way.
But this is heartbreaking, what we've been through these last few
months, for all of you who have believed for 8 years in the Oslo
process, all of you whose hearts soared on September 13,
[[Page 2840]]
1993,* when Yasser Arafat and Yitzhak Rabin signed that agreement.
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*White House correction.
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For over 3 months, we have lived through a tragic cycle of violence
that has cost hundreds of lives. It has shattered the confidence in the
peace process. It has raised questions in some people's minds about
whether Palestinians and Israelis could ever really live and work
together, support each other's peace and prosperity and security. It's
been a heartbreaking time for me, too. But we have done our best to work
with the parties to restore calm, to end the bloodshed, and to get back
to working on an agreement to address the underlying causes that
continuously erupt in conflicts.
Whatever happens in the next 2 weeks I've got to serve, I think it's
appropriate for me tonight, before a group of Americans and friends from
the Middle East who believe profoundly in the peace process and have put
their time and heart and money where their words are, to reflect on the
lessons I believe we've all learned over the last 8 years and how we can
achieve the long-sought peace.
From my first day as President, we have worked to advance interests
in the Middle East that are long standing and historically bipartisan. I
was glad to hear of Senator Hagel's recitation
of President-elect Bush's commitment to peace
in the Middle East. Those historic commitments include an ironclad
commitment to Israel's security and a just, comprehensive, and lasting
agreement between the Palestinians and the Israelis.
Along the way, since '93, through the positive agreements that have
been reached between those two sides, through the peace between Israel
and Jordan, through last summer's withdrawal from Lebanon in which
Israel fulfilled its part of implementing U.N. Security Counsel
Resolution 425--along this way we have learned some important lessons,
not only because of the benchmarks of progress, because of the
occasional eruption of terrorism, bombing, death, and then these months
of conflict.
I think these lessons have to guide any effort, now or in the
future, to reach a comprehensive peace. Here's what I think they are.
Most of you probably believed in them, up to the last 3 months. I still
do.
First, the Arab-Israeli conflict is not just a morality play between
good and evil; it is a conflict with a complex history, whose resolution
requires balancing the needs of both sides, including respect for their
national identities and religious beliefs.
Second, there is no place for violence and no military solution to
this conflict. The only path to a just and durable resolution is through
negotiation.
Third, there will be no lasting peace or regional stability without
a strong and secure Israel, secure enough to make peace, strong enough
to deter the adversaries which will still be there, even if a peace is
made in complete good faith. And clearly that is why the United States
must maintain its commitment to preserving Israel's qualitative edge in
military superiority.
Fourth, talks must be accompanied by acts--acts which show trust and
partnership. For good will at the negotiating table cannot survive
forever ill intent on the ground. And it is important that each side
understands how the other reads actions. For example, on the one hand,
the tolerance of violence and incitement of hatred in classrooms and the
media in the Palestinian communities, or on the other hand, humiliating
treatment on the streets or at checkpoints by Israelis, are real
obstacles to even getting people to talk about building a genuine peace.
Fifth, in the resolution of remaining differences, whether they come
today or after several years of heartbreak and bloodshed, the
fundamental, painful, but necessary choices will almost certainly remain
the same whenever the decision is made. The parties will face the same
history, the same geography, the same neighbors, the same passions, the
same hatreds. This is not a problem time will take care of.
And I would just like to go off the script here, because a lot of
you have more personal contacts than I do with people that will be
dealing with this for a long time to come, whatever happens in the next
2 weeks.
Among the really profound and difficult problems of the world that I
have dealt with, I find that they tend to fall into two categories. And
if I could use sort of a medical analogy, some are like old wounds with
scabs on them, and some are like abscessed teeth.
What do I mean by that? Old wounds with scabs eventually will heal
if you just leave them alone. And if you fool with them too much, you
might open the scab and make them worse. Abscessed teeth, however, will
only get worse if you leave them alone, and if you wait and
[[Page 2841]]
wait and wait, they'll just infect the whole rest of your mouth.
Northern Ireland, I believe, is becoming more like the scab. There
are very difficult things. If you followed my trip over there, you know
I was trying to help them resolve some of their outstanding problems,
and we didn't get it all done. But what I really wanted to do was to
remind people of the benefits of peace and to keep everybody in a good
frame of mind and going on so that all the politicians know that if they
really let the wheel run off over there, the people will throw them out
on their ears.
Now, why is that? Because the Irish Republic is now the fastest
growing economy in Europe, and Northern Ireland is the fastest growing
economy within the United Kingdom. So the people are benefiting from
peace, and they can live with the fact that they can't quite figure out
what to do about the police force and the reconciliation of the various
interests and passions of the Protestants and Catholics, and the other
three or four things, because the underlying reality has changed their
lives. So even though I wish I could solve it all, eventually it will
heal, if it just keeps going in the same direction.
The Middle East is not like that. Why? Because there are all these
independent actors--that is, independent of the Palestinian Authority
and not under the direct control of any international legal body--who
don't want this peace to work. So that even if we can get an agreement
and the Palestinian Authority works as hard as they can and the Israelis
work as hard as they can, we're all going to have to pitch in, send in
an international force like we did in the Sinai, and hang tough, because
there are enemies of peace out there, number one.
Number two, because the enemies of peace know they can drive the
Israelis to close the borders if they can blow up enough bombs. They do
it periodically to make sure that the Palestinians in the street cannot
enjoy the benefits of peace that have come to the people in Northern
Ireland. So as long as they can keep the people miserable and they can
keep the fundamental decisions from being made, they still have a hope,
the enemies of peace, of derailing the whole thing. That's why it's more
like an abscessed tooth.
The fundamental realities are not going to be changed by delays. And
that's why I said what I did about Ehud Barak. I
know that--I don't think it's appropriate for the United States to deal
with anybody else's politics, but I know why--you can't expect poll
ratings to be very good when the voters in the moment wonder if they're
going to get peace or security and think they can no longer have both
and may have to choose one. I understand that.
But I'm telling you, the reason he has continued to push ahead on
this is that he has figured out, this is one of those political problems
that is like the abscessed tooth. The realities are not going to change.
We can wait until all these handsome young people at this table are the
same age as the honorees tonight, and me. We can wait until they've got
kids their age and we've got a whole lot more bodies and a lot more
funerals, a lot more crying and a lot more hatred, and I'll swear the
decisions will still be the same ones that will have to be made that
have to be made today.
That's the fundamental deal here. And this is a speech I have given,
I might add, to all my Israeli friends who question what we have done,
and to the Palestinians, and in private--God forgive me, my language is
sometimes somewhat more graphic than it has been tonight. But anybody
that ever kneeled at the grave of a person who died in the Middle East
knows that what we've been through these last 3 months is not what
Yitzhak Rabin died for, and not what I went to Gaza 2 years ago to speak
to the Palestinian National Council for either, for that matter.
So those are the lessons I think are still operative, and I'm a
little concerned that we could draw the wrong lessons from this tragic,
still relatively brief, chapter in the history of the Middle East. The
violence does not demonstrate that the quest for peace has gone too far
or too fast. It demonstrates what happens when you've got a problem that
is profoundly difficult and you never quite get to the end, so there is
no settlement, no resolution, anxiety prevailed, and at least some
people never get any concrete benefits out of it.
And I believe that the last few months demonstrate the futility of
force or terrorism as an ultimate solution. That's what I believe. I
think the last few months show that unilateralism will exacerbate, not
abate, mutual hostility. I believe that the violence confirms the need
to do more to prepare both publics for the requirements of peace, not to
condition people for the so-called glory of further conflict.
[[Page 2842]]
Now, what are we going to do now? The first priority, obviously, has
got to be to drastically reduce the current cycle of violence. But
beyond that, on the Palestinian side, there must be an end to the
culture of violence and the culture of incitement that, since Oslo, has
not gone unchecked. Young children still are being educated to believe
in confrontation with Israel, and multiple militia-like groups carry and
use weapons with impunity. Voices of reason in that kind of environment
will be drowned out too often by voices of revenge.
Such conduct is inconsistent with the Palestinian leadership's
commitment to Oslo's nonviolent path to peace, and its persistence sends
the wrong message to the Israeli people and makes it much more difficult
for them to support their leaders in making the compromises necessary to
get a lasting agreement.
For their part, the Israeli people also must understand that they're
creating a few problems, too; that the settlement enterprise and
building bypass roads in the heart of what they already know will one
day be part of a Palestinian state is inconsistent with the Oslo
commitment that both sides negotiate a compromise.
And restoring confidence requires the Palestinians being able to
lead a normal existence and not be subject to daily, often humiliating
reminders that they lack basic freedom and control over their lives.
These, too, make it harder for the Palestinians to believe the
commitments made to them will be kept.
Can two peoples with this kind of present trouble and troubling
history still conclude a genuine and lasting peace? I mean, if I gave
you this as a soap opera, you would say they're going to divorce court.
But they can't, because they share such a small piece of land with such
a profound history of importance to more than a billion people around
the world. So I believe with all my heart not only that they can, but
that they must.
At Camp David I saw Israeli and Palestinian negotiators who knew how
many children each other had, who knew how many grandchildren each other
had, who knew how they met their spouses, who knew what their family
tragedies were, who trusted each other in their word. It was almost
shocking to see what could happen and how people still felt on the
ground when I saw how their leaders felt about each other and the
respect and the confidence they had in each other when they were
talking.
The alternative to getting this peace done is being played out
before our very eyes. But amidst the agony, I will say again, there are
signs of hope. And let me try to put this into what I think is a
realistic context.
Camp David was a transformative event, because the two sides faced
the core issue of their dispute in a forum that was official for the
first time. And they had to debate the tradeoffs required to resolve the
issues. Just as Oslo forced Israelis and Palestinians to come to terms
with each other's existence, the discussions of the past 6 months have
forced them to come to terms with each other's needs and the contours of
a peace that ultimately they will have to reach.
That's why Prime Minister Barak, I think, has
demonstrated real courage and vision in moving toward peace in difficult
circumstances while trying to find a way to continue to protect Israel's
security and vital interests. So that's a fancy way of saying, we know
what we have to do, and we've got a mess on our hands.
So where do we go from here? Given the impasse and the tragic
deterioration on the ground a couple of weeks ago, both sides asked me
to present my ideas. So I put forward parameters that I wanted to be a
guide toward a comprehensive agreement, parameters based on 8 years of
listening carefully to both sides and hearing them describe with
increasing clarity their respective grievances and needs.
Both Prime Minister Barak and Chairman
Arafat have now accepted these parameters as
the basis for further efforts, though both have expressed some
reservations. At their request, I am using my remaining time in office
to narrow the differences between the parties to the greatest degree
possible--[applause]--for which I deserve no applause. Believe me, it
beats packing up all my old books. [Laughter]
The parameters I put forward contemplate a settlement in response to
each side's essential needs, if not to their utmost desires; a
settlement based on sovereign homelands, security, peace, and dignity
for both Israelis and Palestinians. These parameters don't begin to
answer every question; they just narrow the questions that have to be
answered.
Here they are. First, I think there can be no genuine resolution to
the conflict without a sovereign, viable, Palestinian state that
accommodates Israeli's security requirements and the demographic
realities. That suggests Palestinian
[[Page 2843]]
sovereignty over Gaza, the vast majority of the West Bank; the
incorporation into Israel of settlement blocks, with the goal of
maximizing the number of settlers in Israel while minimizing the land
annexed. For Palestine, to be viable, must be a geographically
contiguous state. Now, the land annexed into Israel into settlement
blocks should include as few Palestinians as possible, consistent with
the logic of two separate homelands. And to make the agreement durable,
I think there will have to be some territorial swaps and other
arrangements.
Second, a solution will have to be found for the Palestinian
refugees who have suffered a great deal--particularly some of them--a
solution that allows them to return to a Palestinian state that will
provide all Palestinians with a place they can safely and proudly call
home. All Palestinian refugees who wish to live in this homeland should
have the right to do so. All others who want to find new homes, whether
in their current locations or in third countries, should be able to do
so, consistent with those countries' sovereign decisions, and that
includes Israel. All refugees should receive compensation from the
international community for their losses and assistance in building new
lives.
Now, you all know what the rub is. That was a lot of artful language
for saying that you cannot expect Israel to acknowledge an unlimited
right of return to present-day Israel and, at the same time, to give up
Gaza and the West Bank and have the settlement blocks as compact as
possible, because of where a lot of these refugees came from. We cannot
expect Israel to make a decision that would threaten the very
foundations of the state of Israel and would undermine the whole logic
of peace. And it shouldn't be done.
But I have made it very clear that the refugees will be a high
priority, and that the United States will take a lead in raising the
money necessary to relocate them in the most appropriate manner, and
that if the government of Israel, or a subsequent government of Israel
ever there--will be in charge of their immigration policy, just as we
and the Canadians and the Europeans and others who would offer
Palestinians a home would be, they would be obviously free to do that,
and I think they've indicated that they would do that, to some extent.
But there cannot be an unlimited language in an agreement that would
undermine the very foundations of the Israeli state or the whole reason
for creating the Palestinian state. So that's what we're working on.
Third, there will be no peace and no peace agreement unless the
Israeli people have lasting security guarantees. These need not and
should not come at the expense of Palestinian sovereignty or interfere
with Palestinian territorial integrity. So my parameters rely on an
international presence in Palestine to provide border security along the
Jordan Valley and to monitor implementation of the final agreement. They
rely on a nonmilitarized Palestine, a phased Israeli withdrawal to
address Israeli security needs in the Jordan Valley, and other essential
arrangements to ensure Israel's ability to defend itself.
Fourth, I come to the issue of Jerusalem, perhaps the most emotional
and sensitive of all. It is a historic, cultural, and political center
for both Israelis and Palestinians, a unique city sacred to all three
monotheistic religions. And I believe the parameters I have established
flow from four fair and logical propositions.
First, Jerusalem should be an open and undivided city with assured
freedom of access and worship for all. It should encompass the
internationally recognized capitals of two states, Israel and Palestine.
Second, what is Arab should be Palestinian, for why would Israel want to
govern in perpetuity the lives of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians?
Third, what is Jewish should be Israeli. That would give rise to a
Jewish Jerusalem larger and more vibrant than any in history. Fourth,
what is holy to both requires a special care to meet the needs of all. I
was glad to hear what the Speaker said about that. No peace agreement
will last if not premised on mutual respect for the religious beliefs
and holy shrines of Jews, Muslims, and Christians.
I have offered formulations on the Haram al-Sharif and the area holy
to the Jewish people, an area which for 2,000 years, as I said at Camp
David, has been the focus of Jewish yearning, that I believed fairly
addressed the concerns of both sides.
Fifth and finally, any agreement will have to mark the decision to
end the conflict, for neither side can afford to make these painful
compromises only to be subjected to further demands. They are both
entitled to know that if they take the last drop of blood out of each
other's turnip, that's it. It really will have to
[[Page 2844]]
be the end of the struggle that has pitted Palestinians and Israelis
against one another for too long. And the end of the conflict must
manifest itself with concrete acts that demonstrate a new attitude and a
new approach by Palestinians and Israelis toward each other, and by
other states in the region toward Israel, and by the entire region
toward Palestine, to help it get off to a good start.
The parties' experience with interim accords has not always been
happy--too many deadlines missed, too many commitments unfulfilled on
both sides. So for this to signify a real end of the conflict, there
must be effective mechanisms to provide guarantees of implementation.
That's a lot of stuff, isn't it? It's what I think is the outline of
a fair agreement.
Let me say this. I am well aware that it will entail real pain and
sacrifices for both sides. I am well aware that I don't even have to run
for reelection in the United States on the basis of these ideas. I have
worked for 8 years without laying such ideas down. I did it only when
both sides asked me to and when it was obvious that we had come to the
end of the road, and somebody had to do something to break out of the
impasse.
Now, I still think the benefits of the agreement, based on these
parameters, far outweigh the burdens. For the people of Israel, they are
an end to conflict, secure and defensible borders, the incorporation of
most of the settlers into Israel, and the Jewish capital of
Yerushalayim, recognized by all, not just the United States, by
everybody in the world. It's a big deal, and it needs to be done.
For the Palestinian people, it means the freedom to determine their
own future on their own land, a new life for the refugees, an
independent and sovereign state with Al-Quds as its capital, recognized
by all.
And for America, it means that we could have new flags flying over
new Embassies in both these capitals.
Now that the sides have accepted the parameters with reservations,
what's going to happen? Well, each side will try to do a little better
than I did. [Laughter] You know, that's just natural. But a peace viewed
as imposed by one party upon the other, that puts one side up and the
other down, rather than both ahead, contains the seeds of its own
destruction.
Let me say, those who believe that my ideas can be altered to one
party's exclusive benefit are mistaken. I think to press for more will
produce less. There can be no peace without compromise. Now, I don't ask
Israelis or Palestinians to agree with everything I said. If they can
come up with a completely different agreement, it would suit me just
fine. But I doubt it.
I have said what I have out of a profound lifetime commitment to and
love for the state of Israel; out of a conviction that the Palestinian
people have been ignored or used as political footballs by others for
long enough, and they ought to have a chance to make their own life with
dignity; and out of a belief that in the homeland of the world's three
great religions that believe we are all the creatures of one God, we
ought to be able to prove that one person's win is not by definition
another's loss, that one person's dignity is not by definition another's
humiliation, that one person's worship of God is not by definition
another's heresy.
There has to be a way for us to find a truth we can share. There has
to be a way for us to reach those young Palestinian kids who, unlike the
young people in this audience, don't imagine a future in which they
would ever put on clothes like this and sit at a dinner like this. There
has to be a way for us to say to them, struggle and pain and destruction
and self-destruction are way overrated and not the only option.
There has to be a way for us to reach those people in Israel who
have paid such a high price and believe, frankly, that people who
embrace the ideas I just outlined are nuts, because Israel is a little
country and this agreement would make it smaller; to understand that the
world in which we live and the technology of modern weaponry no longer
make defense primarily a matter of geography and of politics; and the
human feeling and the interdependence and the cooperation and the shared
values and the shared interests are more important and worth the
considered risk, especially if the United States remains committed to
the military capacity of the state of Israel.
So I say to the Palestinians: There will always be those who are
sitting outside in the peanut gallery of the Middle East, urging you to
hold out for more or to plant one more bomb. But all the people who do
that, they're not the refugees languishing in those camps; you are.
They're not the ones with children growing up in poverty, whose income
is lower today than
[[Page 2845]]
it was the day we had the signing on the White House Lawn in 1993; you
are.
All the people that are saying to the Palestinian people, ``Stay on
the path of no,'' are people that have a vested interest in the failure
of the peace process that has nothing to do with how those kids in Gaza
and the West Bank are going to grow up and live and raise their own
children.
To the citizens of Israel who have returned to an ancient homeland
after 2,000 years, whose hopes and dreams almost vanished in the
Holocaust, who have hardly had one day of peace and quiet since the
state of Israel was created: I understand, I believe, something of the
disillusionment, the anger, the frustration that so many feel when, just
at the moment peace seemed within reach, all this violence broke out and
raised the question of whether it is ever possible.
The fact is that the people of Israel dreamed of a homeland. The
dream came through, but when they came home, the land was not all
vacant. Your land is also their land. It is the homeland of two peoples.
And therefore, there is no choice but to create two states and make the
best of it.
If it happens today, it will be better than if it happens tomorrow,
because fewer people will die. And after it happens, the motives of
those who continue the violence will be clearer to all than they are
today.
Today, Israel is closer than ever to ending a 100-year-long era of
struggle. It could be Israel's finest hour. And I hope and pray that the
people of Israel will not give up the hope of peace.
Now, I've got 13 days, and I'll do what I can. We're working with
Egypt and the parties to try to end the violence. I'm sending Dennis
Ross to the region this week. I met with both
sides this week. I hope we can really do something. And I appreciate,
more than I can say, the kind, personal things that you said about me.
But here's what I want you to think about. New York has its own
high-tech corridor called Silicon Alley. The number one foreign
recipient of venture capital from Silicon Alley is Israel. Palestinians
who have come to the United States, to Chile, to Canada, to Europe have
done fabulously well in business, in the sciences, in academia. If we
could ever let a lot of this stuff go and realize that a lot of--that
the enemies of peace in the Middle East are overlooking not only what
the Jewish people have done beyond Israel but what has happened to the
state of Israel since its birth, and how fabulously well the people of
Palestinian descent have done everywhere else in the world except in
their homeland, where they are in the grip of forces that have not
permitted them to reconcile with one another and with the people of
Israel.
Listen, if you guys ever got together, 10 years from now we would
all wonder what the heck happened for 30 years before. And the center of
energy and creativity and economic power and political influence in the
entire region would be with the Israelis and the Palestinians because of
their gifts. It could happen. But somebody has got to take the long
leap, and they have to be somebodies on both sides.
All I can tell you is, whether you do it now or whether you do it
later, whether I'm the President or just somebody in the peanut gallery,
I'll be there, cheering and praying and working along the way. And I
think America will be there. I think America will always be there for
Israel's security. But Israel's lasting security rests in a just and
lasting peace. I pray that the day will come sooner rather than later,
where all the people of the region will see that they can share the
wisdom of God in their common humanity and give up their conflict.
Thank you, and God bless you.
Note: The President spoke at 9:45 p.m. in the Grand Ballroom at the
Waldorf Astoria Hotel. In his remarks, he referred to Michael W.
Sonnenfeldt, chair, Jack Bendheim, president, and Susan Stern, vice
president, Israel Policy Forum; Judith Stern Peck, former chair, United
Jewish Appeal Federation of New York; dinner emcee Lesley Stahl; Kerry
Kennedy Cuomo, wife of Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Andrew
M. Cuomo; New York State Comptroller H. Carl McCall; Mark Green, New
York City public advocate; musicians Jessye Norman and Billy Joel;
author Toni Morrison; Garrison Keillor, host of ``Prairie Home
Companion''; Speaker of the Knesset Avraham Burg, Cabinet Secretary
Yitzhak Herzog, and Prime Minister Ehud Barak of Israel; dinner honorees
Dwayne O. Andreas, chair, Archer Daniels Midland Co., Louis Perlmutter,
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former chair, Brandeis University, and Alan D. Solomont, chair and
founder, A.D.S. Group; Mr. Solomont's wife, Susan; Chairman Yasser
Arafat of the Palestinian Authority; President-elect George W. Bush; and
Ambassador David Ross, Special Middle East Coordinator. A portion of
these remarks could not be verified because the tape was incomplete.