Speech: President Clinton Addresses the Opening of the Saban Forum 2005 in Jerusalem

A Discussion of the U.S - Israeli Dialogue

November 14, 2005
King David Hotel, Jerusalem

Thank you.

Thank you very much Haim.

Ladies and gentlemen, it is an enormous honor for Hillary, Chelsea, and me, for all of us to be here. I am profoundly grateful to Haim and Sheryl for their personal friendship to me -- to you Haim for your abiding loyalty to Israel, to your many contributions to your adopted home in the United States, and especially for the Saban Forum, which gives us a chance to continue to talk as friends in an open and honest way.

I thank you for your continuing search for security and peace as embodied by the trip that so many took to Ramallah today.

President and Mrs. Katzav; Mr. President, thank you for being here, I thought you gave a wonderful address and I applaud your courage.

Mr. Wolfensohn, thank you for your commitment to redeeming the full promise of Prime Minister Sharon's withdrawal from Gaza, and I hope we will be able to support you.

I thank the members of the United States Congress, Mr. Lantos and Mr. Shays, my old friends, and the other officials. And Mr. Justice Breyer thank you for being here.

It is nice to know that at least one person has a lifetime job.

I have to tell you, I once made a crack like that not long ago, in the presence of an African American bishop.

And I looked at them and said I am really glad to be around someone who is not totally term limited.

And he said to me 'Oh, Mr. President, we are all term limited but it is just that most of us do not know when our term expires.'

I say that to interject some levity into the situation, but also to remind us all that our time on Earth is limited and we had best make the most use of it we can.

I want to talk a little bit today about yesterday, today and tomorrow.

It has been unbelievably ten years since that dark day that we lost Yitzhak Rabin, and what I think was our best chance for a lasting and comprehensive peace.

Not a week has gone by in those ten years that I haven't thought of him, his family, his allies, Israel's struggle -- and it has been five years since I left office and since Mr. Arafat committed what I consider to be a colossal historical blunder in walking away from the peace proposal I made at that time, which then Prime Minister Mr. Barak accepted. It was the last chance we had up to this point for a comprehensive peace.

I was thinking today about 1993, when I became President and Yitzhak Rabin had just been elected prime minister of Israel, and when the Accords with the Palestinians were signed in Washington in September, and the world was so full of hope in the sense that we could make a new beginning.

We felt that way at home too in America, and I had laid out this great scheme to make our country more prosperous, just, and secure, a plan to make America in the aftermath of the cold War the world's leading force for peace, security and prosperity. Including, of course, a just and lasting peace in the Middle East and with Israel secure, with normal relations with its neighbors, and a genuine partnership with the Palestinians against terror, and for a brighter future.

I felt quite good about that then, and in so many ways we came quite close. Those were good years for America, and a lot of the world's problems seemed to be giving way to human effort. There was a slew of international agreements from the Chemical Weapons Ban, to the extension of the Non Proliferation Treaty, the International Criminal Accord, and many others.

Ethnic cleansing was ended in Bosnia and peace was reached in Northern Ireland; the war between Ethiopia and Eritrea had ended; and for seven and a half years there was progress in Israel and the Middle East, through a succession of leaders, even after Yitzhak Rabin was killed, including the Wye River agreement under the then Prime Minister Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Sharon.

In 1998, the only year in the history of Israel when no Israeli died from a terrorist attack, there was a remarkable anti-terror conference in Egypt, with then Prime Minister Peres, and all the Arab leaders. There was a serious effort on Syria and the efforts of comprehensive peace from Camp David to Tabah, and the withdrawal from Lebanon under Prime Minister Barak, and of course, the United States concluded a remarkable, and I hope prophetic, trade agreement with Jordan, the first trade agreement that we ever made with another country that included in the body of the trade agreement environmental and labor conditions, something that I think is important. I do not think that we can build a global economy without a global social contract, and it is a great tribute to the King of Jordan that he embraced and understood that concept.

Since 2001, I have been on the outside looking in, except for my occasional work as a caseworker for the junior senator from New York. You know I love being out of office, I can just say whatever I want; of course, nobody cares what I say any more, but it is fun to be able to say, and I do try to avoid doing anything that complicates Hillary's life. There has been some progress in the larger world and in the region towards what I take to be our shared objectives. We have seen people that most of us will never know, all over the world, in intelligence and law enforcement, working together to shut down terror cells and terrorist attacks; we have seen a dramatic increase in the world to fight against common problems that disproportionately affect the poor, like AIDS and malaria; we have seen growing demands for action on climate change, even in the United States.

We have seen, in the aftermath of the Tsunami, improved relations between America and the world's largest Moslem country, Indonesia, and also achieved a peace in Atria. We have even seen some breaking of the ice in the attitudes of the hardliner Muslims in the Kashmir region of Pakistan in the aftermath of the horrible earthquake, because so many people from around the world came in as human beings and were seen as human beings, and, for the first time since 1971, there was free movement of Indians and Pakistanis across the line of control.

We have seen progress in Colombia against the narcotic traffickers, where 13,000 terrorists have laid down their arms and rejoined civil society, and the production of cocaine and opium is down, and we have seen the election of a genuine and moderate leader in Afghanistan in the aftermath of 9/11, and the overthrow of the Taliban.

In the region, we have seen the election of Abu Mazen, if I may, without disrespect, continue to call him that, and a commitment and platform for peace for the end of terror and fighting terror.

We have seen President Bush's roadmap, and the acceptance of that roadmap by Israel. We have seen two efforts from Israeli and Palestinian citizens to flesh out the details of what a comprehensive peace might look like.We have seen the liberation of Lebanon from Syrian influence after the horrible murder of Mr. Hariri, who was a friend of many people in this room including me.

We have seen 58% of the Iraqis voting in a presidential election after the deportation of Saddam Hussein. I always like to tell my fellow Americans, we patted ourselves on the back, Republicans and Democrats alike, because we had an enormous turnout, 54%, and the Iraqis did better with their lives at stake, and so it gives us some hope that that enterprise still might genuinely be a representative Government, capable of defending itself.

And we have seen Prime Minister Sharon's courageous withdrawal from Gaza, along with continuing constructive relations with Jordan, whose King has developed a modern economic and social policy, which I honestly hope and pray will prevail.

Having said that, we have also suffered some in the world since 2001. Bin Laden and Mr. Zarqawi are still at large, four years after September 11th, and Al Qaeda has a base of operations in Iraq, with horrible consequences for our brothers and sisters in Jordan. Most of those who were killed cruelly were Muslims, people who believe they are true to their faith. Iran is now saddled with a conservative government who made those outrageous remarks against Israel and the West. I do think that it is worth pointing out, in another one of the twists, that he was not elected because of his hatred for Israel or the West; he was elected because of the economic distress of ordinary Iranians, which he promised to relieve by giving them financial assistance, or in the modern words of American politics, he promised to cut them a check, despairing of any other way of getting out of their situation, having twice voted for a president who was moderate, by 66 -- 70 percent margins, and instead of giving this guy a chance to write out a check, he wound up by further isolating the Iranians in a disgraceful way.

And in the region, the Palestinians, after Mr. Arafat's historic errors, first in stoking the second Intifada, walking away from the peace proposal which in another cruel irony, a year and a half later, he said that he would like to have, after he had an Israeli public who did not trust him any more, and a government who would not give it to him.

The Palestinians have elected a leader who will fight terror, but may not be able to stop it, and may not be able to provide a government able to have the capacity to maintain the confidence of his people. In a classic example in the old adage that no good deed will go unpunished, Prime Minister Sharon's astonishingly courageous withdrawal from Gaza, has placed his governance in question, and he has lost his partner Shimon Peres, one of the most brilliant leaders of this or any age, because the Labor party wants to pursue an economic and social agenda more vigorously -- independent of the constraints of a coalition government.

And they have chosen a leader who quite admirably, in his lifetime, tried to advance the welfare of Israel's working families and thankfully has promised to pursue and support reasonable efforts for peace. So what are we supposed to make of all of this?

No Israeli artist in history could have written a political satire with as many twists and turns, ironies and dead ends, highs and lows, heartbreak and hilarity as the present reality in the last few years.

If you want me to say exactly where we are, I am sorry, I cannot do that.

I do not know enough about the range of options available, especially now without the authority of high office. However, since I love this country and have spent a lifetime trying to persuade people despite their fear, their hurt, their insecurity, to find common ground and common humanity, I do have some observations which I offer as friend.

You cannot kill, jail or occupy those all of who oppose you. True peace and security is based on shared responsibilities and shared benefits. If you work for peace and fail, fewer people will die.

Since 2001, four times as many Israelis have perished as in the eight years when we were all struggling. Eight years which included 1998. Four times that many Palestinians have died in that same period.

If we fail to find a way forward, the geographic and political logic that drove Yitzhak Rabin to sign the accords in the first place will reassert itself with vengeance. The territories Israel has controlled since 1967, Rabin believed, do not protect it from missiles from without.

The Palestinians will continue to grow in population at a more rapid rate than the Jewish Israelis; confronting Israel with the Hobsbaum’s choice of permanently disenchanting their neighbors, thus compromising or losing its Jewish majority, and conceivably putting in peril the ancient dream of a homeland.

If all this happens, the United States will still stand by Israel and Israel will survive, but in a permanent state of constant violence in varying degrees of intensity, in a region and a world where more and more terror and twisted theology are used by unscrupulous demagogues to justify the continued slaughter of the innocents.

Now, if you believe these observations are true, then it seems to me that no matter how difficult, three things have to be done.

First, the Palestinians have to use their opportunity in Gaza to do a better job of fighting terror and working with the Israeli security and military forces. And they have to do a better job of giving their own people an honest government, so that they can win genuine elections.

Second, the leaders and the people of Israel have to find a way to organize their politics so that their search for peace can continue no matter what the domestic policies are, and the differences of detail are in international affairs and in particular the negotiations with the Palestinians. Much remains to be done but everyone knows what the end will be.

Third and most important, the Jewish Diaspora and the friends of Israel and in the United States, Europe and throughout the world, have a special responsibility to give financial and technical help so the Gaza gamble can succeed. And to the Israelis to give them time to sort through their political situation.

In Israel today there is a genuine debate given the fact that Israel unilaterally withdrew from Lebanon under Prime Minister Barak, which led to a whole series of developments that gave Lebanon a chance to be free and independent of Syria and a genuine partner of Israel in the future.

Given the fact that under Prime Minister Ariel Sharon there was a unilateral withdrawal from Gaza, and the Palestinian government has at least some range of authority in an area where it has to cooperate and prove the governance of its citizens, there is a genuine debate whether this policy should continue.

As a tactic, perhaps it should. I cannot make that judgment that is a judgment for the people here.

But as a strategy for the long term, the idea that Israel can proceed unilaterally forever, without a cooperative relationship with a successful Palestinian state, it seems to me highly premature to make that concession for two reasons.

First of all, the Palestinians also have a Diaspora. I have met them all over the world. Outside the territories, I have not ever met a Palestinian who is not a millionaire or a college professor.

Now, we can laugh about this, but they dominate in Chile, and they are the highest group in Ecuador. They have made terrific contributions to the United States. If there were partnerships committed to fighting terror, it would not surprise me a bit if the economic power in the Middle East would shift to the mind-producing mind-triumphing place here. Amen.

The second thing I want to say is, if rather than a tactic, it would require a very high wall, and other good deeds may not go unpunished. So where does this leave us?

On this occasion, where Hillary, Chelsea, and I have come to a place we love to honor the man who, for all his eloquence, valued deeds far more than words. I respectfully suggest that it is time for Israel and for it supporters, more than any other group of people, grieve the losses and laugh in the face of the impossible difficulties of the present moment.

Remember in this life God gives no guarantees.