Racing the Clock:
The Quest to End the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

President William J. Clinton's remarks to a seminar panel

Monday, April 19, 2004, The Waldorf-Astoria, New York City
Well, good afternoon. I thank you for the nice welcome. I want you to know how I feel. I have two feelings today: First, I feel like an inmate in a prison, who just got out on parole. Because I have been working at home on my book, and I have a deadline, and I’m almost through. And most nights I work until three or four o’clock in the morning – So I feel like I got at least a furlough to come out into the real world and see people. Thank you very much for that. I’m grateful to you. I thank my good friend, Danny Abraham, and the Center for Middle East Peace and Economic Cooperation, and Columbia, NYU, and of course Tel Aviv University and my great friend, Itamar Rabinowitz.

Thank you all for letting me out of my little writer’s prison. On the other hand, we joke every day – the young people who are working with me on my book and I – that we feel that we’re characters in the movie “Groundhog Day.” You remember that movie? You remember "Groundhog Day"? It’s, for those of you who didn’t see it, Bill Murray gets up every day and it’s the same day every day. That’s what I feel like here. I’m supposed to come here and say something insightful? After all the years, and all the work that has been done. I wish I had heard the panel. I respect the people on this panel very much. And, I feel almost that I have more to learn than to contribute.

So, let me just make a few observations: Nothing has really changed in the last four years, and yet, everything has changed. In December of 2000, in January of 2001, Ehud Barak offered, or agreed to, a set of suggestions I made which went beyond any understandings I’ve ever reached with Yitzhak Rabin. And the Palestinian leadership turned it down. When they turned it down it convinced Israel they had no partner for peace in the PLO, and that conflict lay ahead. And Arial Sharon was elected Prime Minister of Israel. In effect, Arafat was his campaign manager. About a year later, Arafat decided that deal he turned down looked pretty good, and made a public pronouncement that he certainly would like to have it now. By the time he made the announcement, no one took him seriously. He had an Israeli government that wouldn’t give it to him, and an Israeli public that no longer trusted him. The problem is they had no one else to deal with. They had an agreement to which they were both bound. And the alternatives among the Palestinians were either non-existent, or quite unattractive. And so the intifada that began in the aftermath of Mr. Sharon’s trip to the Temple Mount in August of 2001 intensified.

Now there are some 1950 Palestinian casualties, and in excess of 900 Israeli losses. And nothing has changed, but everything has changed. The casualty ratio is something over two-to-one, has been taken by some Palestinian radicals and other terrorists as a sign of hope that, if they can carry on this intifada long enough to do permanent and lasting damage to Israel, because that’s the best casualty ratio they’ve ever had as a result of the increasing sophistication and power of the bombs.

Now Mr. Sharon says he wants to have it withdraw from the Gaza. I think it is quite a good thing. I have thought for some time that if Israel didn’t trust the particular people it was dealing with, but the general commitments that had been made before still made sense to the security of the state; if they could make the moves unilaterally, and not undermine their security, why not do it – to continue to show good faith, and to show that there is no long-term desire to dominate or occupy your neighbors.

But I still think it’s only good if it works to re-engage the Israelis and the Palestinians and the larger Arab community. It’s no good making a deal with the United States. We don't live in the Middle East. I mean, it’s nice if we, if our government thinks it’s okay for Prime Minister Sharon to do something or not, but we don't live there. We were always trying to be helpful to the negotiations. But we were never part of them, because we don't live there. What we were supposed to do is to guarantee the qualitative military edge of Israel, and its security, and then to help anybody who was willing to take risks for peace. So, do I think it’s a good thing, this Gaza proposal? I certainly do. But I think it’s got to be part of a larger strategy to figure out how to re-engage Israel and her neighbors. And I’ve thought about it a lot. Israel had successfully eliminated the second Hamas leader in a short period of time, but does not wish to deal with the PLO, who are they going to deal with? I understand why Arafat is not trusted. Look, I don't think anybody in this room, who doesn’t live in Israel, has got a right to be any more disappointed with Mr. Arafat than I do, do you? I mean, I don't think so.

On the other hand, when the music starts, and you go out on the dance floor, and you dance along because you don't find any attractive partners, you’re still dancing alone. And, the two men who have served as Prime Minister of the Palestinian Authority, which I thought, really, was one of the great tings that the Bush administration and the Israeli government achieved, was requiring that a prime minister to be part of the Palestinian mix – trying to modernize the PLO, trying to force them to adopt a more comprehensive notion of democratic government, and transparent, open process. Both these people, Abu Mazen, and Abu Ala, in the past have been trusted by Israel, and both of them know what is wrong with the PLO. They know better than you do. And they know how much can, and cannot, be done. So the question is, are we going to kick the can down the road, until we wait for someone to die, or some new group that come up? Are we going to continue to dance alone on the dance floor? Are we going to continue to make unilateral moves and hope that someone else will make a unilateral move in response? And we won’t have to pretend that we’re dealing with them, because we had decided we’re not. Or will this Gaza move, the Israeli government, which I think is a good thing, lead to a re-engagement with the only people we’ve ever been able to make any progress with? For all their faults and all their flaws. That, I think, is the issue before the house at this moment.

Otherwise, we have the United States and Israel, adopted the position that we are into a long, cold, grim winter of discontent in the Middle East in which Israel will survive. And if necessary, dismantle its adversaries militarily. But more of its children will die, and we will all be perfectly miserable, because we have abandoned the underlying logic of the peace agreement signed in 1993: That the future has to be shared. Not just land, but the future. That is really the decision for the house.

It’s been my experience in life, it’s kind of like every time I need to start a diet: You can always figure you’ll find an excuse if you want to, not to change. And it’s always quite comforting to look at the faults of your adversaries. Keeps you from having to think about your own. I’ve spent a lot of time doing that in my life. So there are – and I say this not to minimize the losses that the Israelis have suffered of the horror, or the terror, or the failures in the last four years of the PLO to stop the events that they could have stopped. But, if you’re the main player on a stage, then you are, for good or ill, the magnets against which all other steps are measured. So the decision that is there for Israel is: This Gaza deal is a good deal, I think. But what happens next? And how long are you willing to wait for another partner to get on the dance floor? Can there be some reconciliation, as I thought they were trying to find, first with Abu Mazen, and then with Abu Ala. There was one year in the second term of my presidency when for the first in the history of the entire state of Israel, when not a single, living Israeli, not one, not one person was killed by a terrorist attack, for the only time in the history of the state. This can be done. There can be a level of cooperation which provides the security that the Israelis seek, but only if it’s part of a larger strategy. And it is harder now.

I warned Mr. Arafat in 1993 – 11 years ago – when he signed the agreement on the White House lawn, that he would never again be the most radical Palestinian, no matter how hard he tried. Therefore what he should do is make the deal on all the hard issues as quickly as possible. Because the longer we drug it out, the harder it would be, and the more competition he would face for the hearts and minds of the disaffected. And the more disaffected there would be, if the Palestinians continued to grow younger and poorer, and unable to access the benefits of peace because of the burden of terror. And sure enough, that’s pretty much what’s happened.

But the underlying realities have not changed. The fundamental decision remains in the hands of the people of Israel: What will the future look like? Can it be shared? Not just the land, but the trust, the security, the education, the economics – the whole deal. That’s what has to be decided. If you still believe that – that leads you in a certain direction about what to do after Gaza: how to deal with the PLO even while it is changing. If you believe the answer is probably not, that for the foreseeable future, five, 10, 15 years, there will be a long, grim purgatory, in which the important thing is for the state of Israel to survive in its homeland – then that leads you to a different set of conclusions. But Israel and the Palestinians are the world’s ultimate example of interdependence, which embraces us all now. And every American can no longer deny it when the World Trade Towers went down. If you live in a world where you have adversaries, and you cannot kill them all, or jail them all, or occupy and control them all, then sooner or later, you have to make a deal. That’s really what politics is. It is not dishonorable, and it does not violate any obligations of security. So you know where I come down on this.

I was always trying to see the glass as half full or half empty. But if you think it’s half empty, and no deal is possible – then that leads you in a whole different direction. Then you cannot complain, however, if the people on the other side are not grateful for the morsels that are thrown off of your table, and do not believe that anything better will ever happen. If you believe that you must proceed carefully because so many Israelis have died, and you’re not sure who can deliver the goods, and you’re not sure who can provide security, but you really are willing to share the future, that the first premises that guided us for the eight years I was in the White House are still valid, never mind what the details turn out to be – then that leads you in a whole other direction.

So, America is going to be there with Israel regardless. We cannot impose a peace on the Israelis. We couldn’t impose a peace on Arafat. In fact, if I could have imposed a peace on him, I would have done it. And he’d have been a lot better off. And so would Israel. But that’s the fundamental decision. And I think that it’s a mistake to get caught in the weeds and the details of anything. I like the Gaza thing because, I think, any time you’re stuck in a rut, it’s better to do something than nothing. So I like it. And I still think Prime Minister Sharon has debates with himself about whether the glass is half full or half empty. But you need to decide that. You can’t decide the validity of American policy, of what Jordan’s policy should be, of what Egypt’s policy should be, of what, you know, anybody’s policy should be, until you decide this: Where are we? What does this mean? Is this the beginning or the end? (Gaza.) Is the glass full or half empty? Are we going to share the future? Are we looking for the best line we can draw and make it bearable? You know, my philosophy was always to plan for the best, and guard against the worst. If you start planning for the worst, you get what you plan for. So you know where I stand, and what I hope will happen.

Thank you very much.