[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 30, Number 43 (Monday, October 31, 1994)]
[Pages 2176-2179]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
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 
rec- 

[[Page 2177]]

onciliation, 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 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 and 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

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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.
    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.

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