CLINTON: 1996-03-14 President's remarks at Tel Aviv Arts Center
The White House
Document-Id: PDI://OMA.EOP.GOV.US/1996/3/14/3.TEXT.1
THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
(Jerusalem, Israel)
______________________________________________________________________
For Immediate Release March 14, 1996
REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT
TO THE PEOPLE OF ISRAEL
Tel Aviv Center
Tel Aviv, Israel
5:43 P.M. (L)
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you, Liad, for your introduction
and for your fine remarks. She did a good job representing the young
people of Israel, didn't she? You did a great job. Thank you.
(Applause.)
Mr. Mayor, thank you for your welcome and your vigorous
and important statement. My friend, Prime Minister Peres, thank you
for your many wonderful words. I hope that in our common pursuit of
peace I can be worthy of them.
I want to thank all of you for making me feel so welcome
here today, and I would like to say a special word of thanks to the
people who provided the wonderful music, the Sheba Choir, the Moran
Choir, the Tel Aviv-Yafo Youth Orchestra, Danny Robias (phonetic) --
thank you all very much. (Applause.)
You have made me feel very welcome here today, in this
time of pain and sorrow, also a time of challenge for all of Israel,
and especially for the young people of this great nation. Only a few
blocks from this hall, only days ago, 13 Israelis were murdered as they
went about their daily business -- the latest victims of the latest
campaign of terror. Four bombs in nine days in Jerusalem, Ashquelon,
Tel Aviv -- dozens murdered, scores wounded. Your neighbors, your
friends, your classmates.
Here every death is a death in the family. But let me
say to the mothers and fathers, the brothers and sisters, the
grandparents and children, the friends of those who have died, we know
your pain is unimaginable and, to some extent, unshareable, but America
grieves with you and prays that you will be comforted among the
mourners of Zion and Jerusalem.
Indeed, America lost its own children in these attacks.
Three weeks ago in Jerusalem, Sara Duker and Matthew Eisenfeld; before
them, Joan Devenny and Alyssa Flatow and Nachshon Wachsman, a young
American who was also a soldier and whose grave, along with those of
soldiers of the IDF killed in recent bombings I recently visited, just
a few hours ago in Har Herzl.
I'm glad there are many American students here today
because we must stand together, and you must stand together.
America knows also the wounds of terror because of
experience on our own soil, in the tragedies of Oklahoma City and the
World Trade Center in New York. One of terrorist's greatest
consequences is the awful persistence of fear -- fear that the bus is
not safe, that a shopping center might be a target, that there is no
haven from danger, that friends or family will be taken in an instant,
that the fear itself will never end. But fear must be conquered,
security must be restored and peace must be pursued. (Applause.)
I wanted to have this opportunity to speak with you,
the young people of this country, because it is vital that you
believe that fear can and will be defeated, for you are the
future and your response to these cowardly acts will shape your
nation's future.
I spend a lot of time at home going around America
telling the young people of my country that they and this whole
generation of young people all across the world are growing up in
the age of greatest possibility ever known -- a time when more
people will be able to fill out their dreams in life than ever
before; a time when the information and technology revolution is
literally bringing things to the doorstep and the fingertips of
young people that only a couple of years ago were unimaginable.
Indeed, this is the greatest period of change in economics in
society in at least 100 years, since the Industrial Revolution.
And our country's great computer magnate, Bill Gates, says that
the digital chip is bringing about the greatest revolution in
world communications in 500 years -- since Gutenberg printed the
first Bible in Europe.
If that is true, it seems especially painful that a
country like Israel, full of people with such great intellect and
energy, with such a great devotion to learning and hard work and
to exploring all of life's possibilities, should still be in the
grip of such ancient hatred. It must seem to you an enormous
burden, and at least a great paradox. But I am afraid it is part
of human nature.
It seems that there is always some war going on in
the history of humankind between hope and fear, and that within
each of us there is some balance scale of hope and fear that is
rooted in human nature. And each of us has to decide whether we
will live for our dream, whether we will define our lives in
terms of what we are and what we wish to become, or whether we
will live by our fears and our hatred, defining ourselves by what
we are not and what we are against.
Those who still pursue the terror here, in the face
of unbelievable opportunities for learning, for prosperity, for
growth, for living in harmony, for enriching their lives by
living with people who are other than they are, they are in the
group of that ancient fear that life can only be lived if you're
looking down on someone else, if you're hating someone else, if
you're grateful just for the fact that you're not like someone
else.
It is the great challenge of your generation to
become those fears in perhaps the hardest place in the world to
do it. For you can live out your dreams only if you can convince
others to lay down their fear and to find themselves in terms of
what they can become, not who they can hate.
We are determined to stand with you in that effort.
We know that overcoming adversity is the genius of the Jewish
people and the history of the state of Israel. No nation on
Earth knows better that the paths of triumph often passes through
tragedy. No people know better through millennia of exile and
persecution, inquisition and pogrom, the ultimate evil of the
Holocaust, that you must deny victory to oppressors; that you
must flourish -- indeed flourish, not just endure -- against all
the odds.
And Israel is proof of your extraordinary
resilience. Here in modern times, an ancient people have
performed a miracle, forged a great and prosperous democracy,
caused the desert to bloom and given rise to great cities. Tel
Aviv -- a hill of spring and rebirth, a vibrant culture and
thriving business, has grown up where not so very long ago there
was only a hill of sand.
Against overwhelming danger and war, through the
ordeal of isolation, for more than four decades of bloody
struggle, Israel has not only persisted, Israel has flourished.
Your achievements in the face of this adversity have inspired
free men and women the world over. We all draw strength from
your example, and you teach us anew the power of the human spirit
to build realities out of dreams.
At this time of year we are reminded especially of
the resilience of Jewish people, for in only a few weeks it will
be Passover, time for retelling the story of the Exodus, the
story of the struggle for freedom, the story that has inspired
the world for so many centuries. And at Seder, Jews everywhere
will say the words that have been repeated every year for ages,
"In every generation someone rises up to destroy us." Well, the
Jewish people have overcome every one of these would-be
destroyers and denied them their goal, and reaffirmed that what
is good in human nature can prevail.
Perhaps there will always be someone, some group,
some nation that seeks to destroy Israel. Even if peace is made
here in the Middle East, there will always be those who seek to
take advantage of others, who seek to deny others their rightful
place in human destiny, who even seek to deny the realities of
human nature and the humanity we all share. It is not in our
power to rid the world of evil. But today it is within our power
to fight on for peace that will give your generation the age of
possibility you so richly deserve. (Applause.)
More nations than ever before have risen up with
Israel to defeat the destroyers, those who would kill and maim,
those who explode human bombs on buses and on busy streets, those
who seek to destroy the peace by violence. And here more people
are willing to come and share your faith, for along with the
Israelis who died in these last round of bombings, there were
also Palestinians and Americans and others.
The lesson of the meeting we held yesterday in Sharm
El-Sheikh was that Israel is not alone. It was an unprecedented
event in the history of this region. At the urging of Israel's
neighbors -- Egypt, Jordan, the Palestinians and the United
States -- 29 leaders, 13 of them from Arab states, came to
demonstrate their support for peace and their opposition to the
terrorism that is bent on wrecking peace. It was the largest
such meeting ever. We there rededicated ourselves to the battle
against extremism. We began to work closely together to root out
those responsible for the bloodshed.
A meeting like this would literally have been unthinkable
just a few years ago. For the first time Arab nations recognized and
said publicly that pain in Israel is a danger to them as well. They
understand that the destruction of hope and dreams and innocent life in
Israel is a threat to the future they want for themselves and their
children. And that is a cause for hope in itself. (Applause.)
Today, large majorities of Palestinians, Jordanians,
Egyptians are saying that they wish to raise their children in
peace. They want to go about their work to build a better life.
They, too, have had enough of war and enough of tears, as Prime
Minister Rabin said. They have understood that for all peoples
in the region, security does not lie just at the end of the road
to peace, there must be security every step of the way or there
will be no peace. Peace and security are indivisible.
Twenty-nine years ago, when the Straits of Turan
were closed, Sharm el-Sheikh stood as the symbol of Israel's
isolation from the world. But in 1996, Sharm el-Sheikh has
become a symbol of Israel's acceptance in this region and in the
world. (Applause.)
The division today in the Middle East is not between
Arab and Jew. It is between those who are reaching for a better
tomorrow and those who have retreated into the pointless, bloody
hostility of yesterday. We must be clear: Those who are
reaching for the future will prevail. (Applause.)
The bombings of recent days have been the act of
desperate men who see that peace is coming closer, that support
for peace is growing in the West Bank and Gaza and throughout
nations of the region. They know that stirring these old embers
of hatred is their only chance to burn down all that has been
built. We must not let them succeed in continuing their violence
or in breaking our will for peace. (Applause.)
Just a few months ago, I was here in Israel on
another journey of great sorrow -- to mourn the death of my
friend, Prime Minister Rabin. Just as the bullet that struck him
down renewed our determination to press ahead then, if he were
here standing with his partner, Shimon Peres, he would say we
must have these tragedies move us forward with even greater
conviction.
I know Israel will not lose resolve for peace. Just
before coming here, I visited in Jerusalem the Bet-Haruch where a
number of students had lost their lives in the recent bombings.
I talked to their fellow classmates, and I was amazed at the
resilience and the determination of these young people to press
ahead for a better future.
And then on the road to Tel Aviv, I called two young
men, Tal Loel and Uri Tal, who were badly injured in the Tel Aviv
bombing. And they wrote me from their hospital beds a marvelous
letter in which they said -- and I quote -- "Peace is the only
true solution for this area." I salute those young men for not
losing hope even while they are dealing with their own injuries
in the hospital. Their extraordinary spirit is the spirit of
Israel. (Applause.)
Yesterday, in Sharm el-Sheikh, nations from this
region and around the world strengthened their resolve to defeat
those would destroy peace. Today, Prime Minister Peres and I,
along with our top security advisors, set a course to deepen our
own cooperation and intensify our war on terror. We agreed to
increase intelligence-sharing, to develop new methods to combat
terror, to enhance coordination between our nations and others
who have agreed to join us to fight against terror. I committed
$100 million to this effort, and last night I sent a message to
the Congress asking them to take urgent action to fulfill our
first installment in this endeavor.
America stands with you in the pursuit of peace and
in the war on terror. And we will do more. In the days of the
Bible, the foreign prophet, Balaam looked upon the children of
Israel and called them "a people that shall dwell alone and shall
not be reckoned upon the nation." Today, looking at all this
nation has achieved, the acceptance it has won in the Middle East
and around the world, we know his words were and are and will be
wrong.
Israel is not alone. America stands with you, and
with every passing day so do more people here and abroad. But we
will not rest until, in the words of the psalm, "there is peace
within Israel's walls and security in her towers."
And we know that Israel will never give her enemies the victory
they seek, never abandon the hope of peace, never lose hatikvah
leshalom.
Thank you, and God bless you. (Applause.)
Q Mr. President, do you have any advice for young
people that want to become leaders? What should young people do
in order to grow up and become leaders?
THE PRESIDENT: I believe it is important to do at
least three things. One, follow the advice of the Prime
Minister. (Laughter.) That is, it really matters that you
develop your mind, that you develop the capacity to learn for a
lifetime. The world in which I live and govern is changing very
rapidly. The world in which your generation will live and govern
will change even more rapidly.
So it is important that you make the most of your
school years. It doesn't matter so much what you learn, but that
you learn how to learn and that your mind will work for a
lifetime to take in new changes and to grasp the ability to
understand what is going on -- first.
Second, I think it is important to develop a genuine
interest in people, and especially people who are different from
you -- not just in terms of religion or ethnic group, but I mean
people who are genuinely different. People who maybe don't have
as much money or have different ways of living or making a
living. Because it is impossible to govern effectively in a free
society unless you can understand the experiences, the attitude,
the challenges other people face.
And then the third thing I would say is it is
important to figure out what you believe, and when you do, throw
yourselves into election campaigns. (Laughter.) Support people
who believe as you do. Even if you can't vote, stand up for
them, talk to them, provoke arguments and discussions and learn
to stand up for what you believe in. But if you have a good
mind, if you care about what happens to other people and you can
understand them, and you're willing to fight for what you believe
in, then you have an excellent chance of success. (Applause.)
Q How do you see the future of the -- in your
following the Middle East, its ups and downs?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, I think, first of all, I
believe that it is highly likely that sooner or later in the
relatively near-term -- that is, sometime in the next few years;
if not this year, sometime fairly soon -- that Israel will make
peace with her neighbors on terms that will guarantee your
security and theirs.
And then I believe that the region will begin to
grow together economically and culturally, and people will begin
to work together. That does not necessarily mean that there will
be no more violence, because this problem of terrorism and of
fanaticism and of extremism is a problem that the world faces.
Remember, it wasn't so long ago that a religious fanatic walked
into a Japanese subway and broke open a small vial of sarin gas
and killed many people. It was only a year ago, or two years, I
guess now, that the tragedy in Oklahoma City occurred in America.
So the great problem for the world of the future
--and when I was your age, the great problem was the free
countries of the world against the communist countries of the
world, both sides had nuclear weapons, and we all hoped they
would never be used because society could be wiped out. Now the
great challenge will be in a world that is increasingly
interconnected, where you can literally get on a computer now and
have conversations with young people in the United States, or
research an academic paper on volcanoes out of libraries in
Australia, to do all kinds of things like that -- in an open
society like that, people are vulnerable to the organized forces
of destruction -- to organized crime, to drug gangs, to
terrorists, to people who would develop biological and chemical
and other dangerous weapons.
So for your lifetime, I do believe you will have to
fight these organized forces of destruction. But I believe you
will do it within a framework in which the nations are at peace
and are growing together economically and you will be more
secure. That's what I believe will happen. (Applause.)
Q Israel gave priority to education. What is the
role of education in America and what are the most important
parts of it?
THE PRESIDENT: I would say that -- first, let me
deal with the conditions of education in the United States. I
believe we have a system of higher education that is second to
none in the world. And our great challenge there is to make sure
that all of our young people have the opportunity to go on to get
a university education, that they are not prohibited from doing
it because of economic problems.
So what I have tried to do largely there is just to
find new ways for young people either to get scholarships or
loans or work there way through universities, so everyone can go,
because the income differences between young people in the United
States who have a college education and those who don't are
breathtaking today in America.
In the earlier years, I would say there are
basically two great problems. One is we have a highly
decentralized system of education in America where children from
the age of let's say three or four to 17 and 18, until they
finish high school, most of them are in public schools that are
essentially under the legal control of each of our 50 states and
under the operational control of school districts in all those
states.
So what we have to do is to find a way -- and
many of our schools are doing a great job and many aren't -- and
America has always rebelled at doing anything that in any way
undermines the decentralization of education, which is good. But
what we're trying to do is to figure a way now to have high
standards that we articulate and that we that we measure for all
students in our large country, but that we don't tell the schools
how they meet the standards, they decide that -- but we have
standards, and that in the continuing emphasis on those standards
and in rewarding those that are meeting them, we bring up all the
schools in their performance.
Overall, educational performance in America is
improving, but improving slowly, and it's too uneven.
And then, the third big problem we have is just an
enormous percentage of our children are poor children, about 15
to 16 percent of them, and they're coming from homes where the
parents often don't have the resources they need.
And we don't have the same tradition in our country
that you do, that a lot of other countries do, where, if you
will, the community, or what my wife calls the "village" works
with each family to help each child succeed. And we've got to
find a way to do better by our children who come very poor
backgrounds and difficult homes. Those are the three challenges
we face and we're working very hard on them. (Applause.)
Now, let me just say one other thing -- one other
thing. The great opportunity we have is the same opportunity we
have. We are trying to hook up every classroom and every library
in America to the Internet by the year 2000, every single one.
And we want them all, basically, on the -- in a worldwide network
so that you can all have your common communications and share
information and learn and grow together and hook into all the
libraries of the world together. And if that happens, it will
effect a revolution for all children without regard to their
incomes and it will lift the standards everywhere. So that's the
great opportunity we're working on, and I believe we're going to
get there. I think we'll get there ahead of schedule. I hope we
will. (Applause.)
Q (Asked in Hebrew.)
THE PRESIDENT: Well, I intend to do two things.
First of all, I intend to set a good example. That is, we are
setting a good example. On the next day after we had the
conference, I said that in addition to the things that the Prime
Minister has already mentioned, we would commit over $100 million
to working with Israel to fight terror here in the region and
working with others who are committed to fighting the terror.
Secondly, we intend to work to make sure the
Palestinian Authority has the capacity, and fulfills its capacity
to do its part in fighting the terror. You cannot do this alone.
They have to do their part for the peace to work. (Applause.)
And thirdly, we intend to start immediately meeting
with every other country that was there to work out a joint plan
for what we can do. And keep in mind, this is not work just for
the countries of the Middle East. There are things that the
North Americans, the Europeans, and the Asians can do to help to
defeat the terrorist networks that wreak their violence here in
your background. Their reach goes beyond your backyard.
So I did not intend for this to be a cordial meeting
in which nothing happens. This -- we will give everybody a full
opportunity to put their actions where their words were
yesterday. I assure you of that.
Thank you. (Applause.)
END 5:17 P.M. (L)
The White House
THE WHITE HOUSE
Thank you. (Applause.)
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