Remarks on receiving the Peace Garden scroll and the Shalom Chaver Award for International Leadership

Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, March 22, 1999

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 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?