Bill Clinton

“ After the Kosovo conflict - and I went there and met with all the people who were going to have to work on Kosovo's future - even when we first started the Irish peace talks, we were dealing with people who would hardly speak to each other. We were dealing with people who still often wouldn't shake hands. We were dealing with people who thought they were from another planet from one another, whose wounds were open. ”

“ But the overriding thing you need to know is that progress was made on all fronts, that significant progress was made on some of the core issues, that Jerusalem, as you all knew it would be, remains the biggest problem for the reasons you know.
But what we have to find here, if there is going to be an agreement - by definition, an agreement is one in which everybody is a little disappointed and nobody is defeated, in which neither side requires the other to say they have lost everything and they find a way to a shared result. ”

“ At the end of this summit, I am fully aware of the deep disappointment that will be felt on both sides. But it was essential for Israelis and Palestinians, finally, to begin to deal with the toughest decisions in the peace process. Only they can make those decisions, and they both pledged to make them, I say again, by mid-September.
Now, it's essential that they not lose hope, that they keep working for peace, and they avoid any unilateral actions that would only make the hard task ahead more difficult. The statement the leaders have made today is encouraging in that regard. ”

“ But I think it is fair to say that at this moment in time, maybe because they had been preparing for it longer, maybe because they had thought through it more, that the Prime Minister moved forward more from his initial position than Chairman Arafat, particularly surrounding the questions of Jerusalem.
Now, these are hard questions. And as I said to both of them, none of us, no outsider can judge for another person what is at the core of his being, at the core of his sense of national essence. But we cannot make an agreement here without a continuing effort of both sides to compromise. ”

“ There is no other place in the world like Jerusalem, which is basically at the core of the identity of all three monotheistic religions in the world, at the core of the identity of what it means to be a Palestinian, at the core of the identity of what it means to be an Israeli. ”

“ And it's very often that people know that a superficially safe position is to say no, that you won't get in trouble with whoever is dominating the debate back home wherever your home is, as long as you say no.
One of the reasons I called this summit is so that we could set in motion a process that would give the Palestinians the confidence that all of us - and most of all, the Israelis - really didn't want to make peace, so that it would offset the pressure that will be increasingly on Chairman Arafat as we approach the September 13th deadline. ”

“ For the sake of their children, they must rededicate themselves to the path of peace and find a way to resume their negotiations in the next few weeks. They've asked us to continue to help, and as always, we'll do our best. But the parties themselves, both of them, must be prepared to resolve profound questions of history, identity and national faith - as well as the future of sites that are holy to religious people all over the world who are part of the Islamic, Christian and Judaic traditions. ”

“ Israelis and Palestinians are destined to live side by side, destined to have a common future. They have to decide what kind of future it will be. Though the differences that remain are deep, they have come a long way in the last seven years, and, notwithstanding the failure to reach an agreement, they made real headway in the last two weeks. ”

“ And it shouldn't surprise you that when they first come to grips with this in an official, disciplined way where somebody has to actually say something instead of sort of be off in a corner having a conversation over a cup of coffee that no one ever - that has no - it just vanishes into air, that it's hard for them to do. ”

“ You've got refugees that have to be resettled, you've got some compensation which has to be given, and there are lots of issues in that refugee pot that cost money, and then there's the whole question of working out the economic future of the Palestinians and the whole question of working out what the security relationships will be and the security needs will be for Israel and in this new partnership what they will have - the Palestinians. ”