`We Say to You: Enough!'
Excerpts from remarks by Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.
PRESIDENT Clinton, the president of the United States, your excellencies, ladies, and gentlemen.
This signing of the Israeli-Palestinian declaration of principles here today, it's not so easy, neither for myself as a soldier in Israel's war, nor for the people of Israel, nor for the Jewish people in the Diaspora who are watching us now with great hope mixed with apprehension.
It is certainly not easy for the families of the victims of the wars, violence, terror, whose pain will never heal; for the many thousands who defended our lives in their own and have even sacrificed their lives for our own. For them, this ceremony has come too late.
Today, on the eve of an opportunity, opportunity for peace, and perhaps end of violence and wars, we remember each and every one of them with everlasting love.
We have come from Jerusalem, the ancient and eternal capital of the Jewish people. We have come from an anguished and grieving land. We have come from a people, a home, a family that has not known a single year, not a single month, in which mothers have not wept for their sons. We have come to try and put an end to the hostilities so that our children, our children's children, will no longer experience the painful cost of war, violence, and terror.
Let me say to you, the Palestinians, we are destined to live together on the same soil in the same land.
We, the soldiers who have returned from battles stained with blood; we who have seen our relatives and friends killed before our eyes; we who have attended their funerals and cannot look into the eyes of their parents; we who have come from a land where parents bury their children; we who have fought against you, the Palestinians, we say to you today in a loud and a clear voice enough of blood and tears.
Enough! We have no desire for revenge, we have - we harbor no hatred toward you. We, like you, are people - people who want to build a home, to plant a tree, to love, live side by side with you in dignity, in affinity, as human beings, as free men.
In two days, the Jewish people will celebrate the beginning of a new year. I believe, I hope, I pray that a new year will bring a message of redemption for all peoples: a good year for Israelis and Palestinians; a good year for all the peoples of the Middle East; a good year for our American friends who so want peace and are helping to achieve it.
For presidents and members of previous administrations, especially for you, President Clinton, and your staff, for all citizens of the world, may peace come to all your homes.
