ADDRESS BY US PRESIDENT BILL CLINTON TO THE KNESSET
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.
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
reconciliation, 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
them committed to living free, to building their common home.
One in every 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 interest, 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 have taken the road of peace, our role is to help you to minimize
the risks of peace.
I am committed to working with our Congress to maintain 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, an acquisition of advanced computers. All these keep
Israel in the forefront of global advances, and competitive in 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 worked 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
the 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 Assad. He
repeated at our press conference what he had already 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 Israelis to live in
security, stability and prosperity.
We have been urging President Assad to speak to you in a language of peace
that you can understand. Today, he began to do so. Of course it will 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 the bus no. 5; and of course two
people who, as has been noted, are in this chamber with us tonight, and we
honor their presence - the parents of Corporal Nahshon Wachsman, 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 no.
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 Arava, 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 the Sabbath afternoon not violated by gunfire. A drive across the
plains to the mountains of Moab, where Moses died and Ruth war born. A Yom
Kippur of pure prayer, without the rumble of tanks, voice 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 Ishmael -
will live side by side in peace.
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 to cross 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? 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. No
one thought I would ever be here - perhaps my mother, no one else. 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 was God's will
that Israel, the biblical home of the people of Israel, continue for ever
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.