Remarks by the President at Opening Plenary Session Jollyville Golf Resort, Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt (10/16/2000)
                              THE WHITE HOUSE

                         Office of the Press Secretary
                            (Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt)
___________________________________________________________________________
__                                                                  For
Immediate Release                                                  October
16, 2000


                            REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT
                         AT OPENING OF PLENARY SESSION

                          Jolieville Golf Resort
                          Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt


1:30 P.M. (L)


     THE PRESIDENT:  Well, first of all, I would like to thank you,
President Mubarak, for having us all here, for providing an opportunity for
the Palestinians and the Israelis to come together and to talk, and for us
all to try to save the peace process.

     I thank His Majesty, the King of Jordan; and the Secretary General of
the United Nations, who has been working very hard out here and we're
grateful for him; and my good friend, Javiar Solana, from the European
Union -- for all being here.

     I think it's very important that we all be quite honest and blunt with
each other, but we be sober and serious about this.  We're here because we
would like to achieve three objectives.  We want to end the violence and
restore security cooperation.  We hope to achieve agreement on an objective
and fair, fact-finding process on what happened to bring us to this sad
point and how we can avoid having it ever happen again.  And we want to get
the peace process going.

     The future of the peoples involved here, the future of the peace
process and the stability of the region are at stake; we cannot afford to
fail here.  In order to succeed, though once again we have a situation
piled high with grievance, we have got to move beyond blame.  We have got
to focus on what we're going to do tomorrow and the next day and the next
day.  We have to have a balanced, mutual disengagement and we have to
restore the security cooperation and have the confidence building measures
necessary for people to go about their business and live in peace and begin
to rebuild the bonds of trust.

     The only other thing I want to ask you all is just to remember before
these terrible events how far we have come since September 19*, 1993, when
the Palestinians and Israelis signed the agreement to find a peaceful
future together and resolve their differences peacefully, on the lawn of
the White House.

     We shouldn't give it all up for what has happened in the last few
weeks.  And what has happened in these last few weeks reminds us of the
terrible alternative to continuing to live in peace and to continuing the
peace process.

     President Mubarak, I am grateful to you, again.  We can -- if we will
look to the future and proceed in a fair and balanced way, we can do what
we have to do here and we must do that.

     Thank you.

                         END                  1:34 P.M. (L)


* September 13, 1993


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