Address by Yitzhak Rabin, Prime Minister of the State of Israel, delivered in Washington on 13 September 1993, at the signing of the Israel–P.L.O. agreement.
“We are destined to live together on the same soil of the same land.”
Here is the full text of Yitzhak Rabin’s statement:
The signing today in Washington of the Israeli-Palestinian Declaration of Principles is not a simple thing — not for myself as a soldier in the war waged by Israel, not for the people of Israel, not for the Jewish people of the diaspora who now watch us with great hope mingled with apprehension. It is certainly not simple for the families of the victims of the wars, of violence, of terror, whose suffering will never be healed; for the thousands who defended our lives with their own and who even sacrificed their lives for ours. For all of them, this ceremony has come too late.
Today, on the eve of an occasion — an occasion of peace, and perhaps of the end of violence and wars — we remember each one of them with an eternal love. We come from Jerusalem, the ancestral and eternal capital of the Jewish people. We come from a land of suffering and anguish. We come from a people, a home, a family that has not known a single year, a single month, in which mothers have not wept for their sons. We come to try to put an end to the hostilities, so that our children, the children of our children, will no longer have to pay the painful tribute of war, of violence, and of terror. We come to ensure the security of their existence, to soften the grief and the painful memories of the past, to hope and to pray for peace.
Let me say to you, Palestinians: we are destined to live together on the same soil of the same land. We, the soldiers returned from the fighting, stained with blood; we who have seen the members of our families and our friends struck down before our eyes; we who have attended their funerals and can no longer look their parents in the eye; we who have come from a land where it is the parents who bury their children; we who have fought against you, the Palestinians — we say to you today in a loud and clear voice: “Enough of blood and enough of tears. Enough!”
We have no desire for vengeance, we harbor no hatred toward you. We, like you, are a people — a people that wants to build its home, to plant a tree, to love, to live alongside you in dignity, in kinship as human beings, as free men. Today we give peace a chance, and we say that a day will come when we will all bid farewell to arms. We wish to open a new chapter in the painful book of our shared lives — a chapter of mutual recognition, of good neighborliness, of mutual respect, of understanding. We hope to embark upon a new era in the history of the Middle East.
Today, here in Washington, at the White House, we are going to begin the renewal of relations between peoples, between parents weary of war and between children who will not know war. Mr. President of the United States, Ladies and Gentlemen, our inner strength, our highest moral values, come from the Book of books, in one of which, titled Koheleth, one may read: “There is a season for everything and a time for every purpose under our heavens. A time to be born and a time to die, a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace.”
Ladies and Gentlemen, the time of peace has come. In two days, the Jewish people will celebrate the New Year. I believe, I hope, that the New Year will bring a message of redemption for all peoples: a happy new year to you, to all of you, a happy new year to the Israelis and to the Palestinians, a happy new year to all the peoples of the Middle East, a happy new year to all our American friends who also desire peace and help us to bring it about. To the presidents and the members of the previous administrations, and most particularly to you, President Clinton, and to your team, to all the citizens of the world: may peace be with you! In the Jewish tradition, it is customary to conclude our prayers with the word “Amen.” With your permission, men of peace, I will conclude with this word drawn from the prayer recited each day by Jews, and — whoever you may be, volunteers — I will ask the entire audience to join me in saying “Amen.” — (AFP.)