The Social Democratic Party Congress Västerås 5-11 November 2001-11-09 Speeches held by Abu Ala and Shimon Peres at the invitation of Göran Persson Thursday 8th Nov.

Göran Persson:

Dear Friends.

Olof Palme once said that there is no contradiction between our efforts to improve the best welfare state mankind has ever seen, Sweden, and the struggle for a better world, for peace and freedom, for people far away from our own country. Therefore, it is no more than natural that our party conference leaves the domestic issues for a moment, or to put it more correctly there are no longer domestic and international agendas. Sweden lives in the world and the world lives in Sweden.

When I opened our party conference I stated the following, the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians must be resolved by political means. The rest of the world has the responsibility in getting the parties back to the negotiating table. An agreement must be reached which is based on the UN resolutions 242 and 338, both based on international law. Israel must withdraw from the occupied territories and the settlements must be vacated, the executions must end and the Palestinian acts of terror must cease. I also said, that we will have the opportunity to present these demands to two of the key persons in this conflict on Thursday.
Dear friends.
Today it is Thursday and it is time to introduce two of the most important politicians and personalities in the Middle East. After hundreds and hundreds of hours together in tough negotiations these two men know each other very well. But they have many, many hours together ahead of them. We are far away from a secure Israel side by side with its Arabic neighbours, among them a sovereign, free and prosperous Palestine.

Ahmed Queri, better known as Abu Ala, lives only a short walk from the Al Axa Mosque and the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem. Among many other things, he is known as the number one negotiator for the Palestinian people. He heads the secret negotiations in Oslo and also at Harpsund. He was chief for the Palestinian delegation for the Taba talks, where the two sides were so close. He is Speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council.

Please receive the conference's warmest greetings. The floor is yours, Abu Ala.      

Abu Ala:

Mr Göran Persson, Prime Minister, Dear Friends, Ladies and Gentlemen.

I would like first of all to extend my thanks and my gratitude to you and to the social democratic party for halving invited me to join you conference and for giving me the opportunity to address you on behalf of our people.
It gives me pleasure to extend to you the best regards and warm wishes of President Yassir Araft, as well as his wishes for a successful conference. President Arafat and the Palestinian people extend to you their thanks and appreciation for the continued support and assistance, especially the critical role played by the government of Sweden in preparing for the American - Palestinian dialogue. We also appreciate your having hosted several important Palestinian -Israeli meetings and negotiations. These without doubt will be of historical significance to the Palestinian history and that of the region.

Mr Prime Minister, Ladies and Gentlemen. A year and a half ago, I had the honour to lead the Palestinian team to the final stage of negotiations in your country.
Sweden opened its doors one more time to host the most important talks in the Palestinian - Israeli negotiations. This was the most serious attempt to reach a final solution to the Palestinian -Israeli conflict with all its issues, namely -  land and borders, refugees, Jerusalem, the colonial settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories, security, water, relations, and many other issues leading to put an end to the conflict and to the Arab - Israeli struggle.

Your government, Mr. Prime Minister, had graciously granted us all the necessary facilities to ensure that the negotiations are constructive and productive. It provided an excellent environment, conducive to ensuring the success of these negotiations. It ensured the quiet and the total privacy, travel and other logistic arrangements were spectacularly handled. It guaranteed that the secrecy, away from the media and other interferences, was safeguarded. Most significantly, you maintained a comportable distance from the negotiators, never pressuring, affecting or imposing, you made every effort to accommodate the needs and wishes of the negotiators. Thank you very much for that.

The Stockholm channel received reasonable progress in the specific issues on the negotiations agenda. This was achieved during a very short period of time, not withstanding the various outstanding contentious issues that required more time, intensive discussions and negotiations to bridge the wide gap between the two parties. Please allow me, Mr Prime Minister, to state honestly that if the Stockholm channel, and we call it the Stockholm channel, had the chance to proceed with the same momentum, the same atmosphere, the same facilities, and the Swedish care, then it would have been possible to narrow the gap and position, thus preparing for the achievement of a subsequent achievement at the Camp David Summit.

Because Mr Yehoud Barak, the former Israeli Prime Minister, insisted and MR Bill Clinton the former United States President wished to hasten the convening of the Camp David Summit, it was prematurely convened, prior to having ripened issues and before having the conditions, positions and reasons ironed out. All this led to aborting the Stockholm channel and failure of the Camp David Summit.

In turn all expectations were let down. Nevertheless, the Stockholm channel set, for the first time, solid grounds for the most significant negotiations on the Palestinian -Israeli track, as subsequently negotiations were held regionally, and the region in Camp David in Washington DC and Later in Taba, Egypt, where the position of both sides had become closer than at any other time.

Mr Prime Minister the failure of the Camp David summit, which had set high expectations for both Palestinian and Israeli people, as well as the people of the region, caused a serious state of depression. This added to the long existing suffering and depression among the Palestinian people in the aftermath of the Oslo agreement; a depression caused by the repeated failures of the Israeli government to abide by the signed agreement, Israeli disrespect for the implementation date and schedule time set in the Oslo interim agreement, the continued Israeli policy to confiscate land, build colonial settlements and expand them, the continued construction of the by-pass roads at the expense of the Palestinian territories, the determined and pre-designed plan to change the face of Jerusalem to ensure a Jewish identity; limit the natural development of civic, economic, social and political institutions, against the agreement; continued violations of human rights, rejection of the applicability of the Geneva Convention to the occupied Palestinian territories. In addition to that, and my friend Shimon Peres will allow me, the visit of Ariel Sharon, leader of the Israeli opposition at that time to the sacred sanctuary of Alaxa Mosque in Jerusalem, constituted a dangerous provocation to the feelings of all the Palestinian people. This dangerous step was met with a demonstration rejecting and condemning it.

The Barak government at this time dealt with this demonstration by firing live ammunition on unarmed Palestinian civilians. The casualties were 19 martyrs and over that 17 Jews in one day. After that there was a serious escalation in the events and the Palestinian Intifada broke out against the occupation as a rejection of its practices. It was also a rejection of the Israeli policy of protraction, stalling and non-implementation of the signed interim agreements. In turn the Israelis escalated their violence, after that killing innocent civilians, demolishing of houses, uprooting trees, assassination of PA leaders and personal destruction of the Palestinian infrastructure and devastation of the national Palestinian economy. At the same time Israel continued the same policy to confiscate Palestinian land and construct colonial settlements.

The Sharon government during the very short period, built over 14 new settlements and continued expanding existing ones.

Mr Prime Minister, in the heat of the moment and these events, the tragic and painful terrorist attacks on New York and Washington resulted in the loss of thousands of innocent lives. Immediately, we, the Palestinian people and the Palestinian leadership, condemned strongly this cowardly terrorist attack expressly and explicitly. We in our humble and limited capacity contributed to the international effort to the combat of terror worldwide.

After September the 11th 2001, a new historical era set in where the world will pose for some time. The focus will be on approaching all forms of terror, including state sponsored terror. This includes putting an end to the conflict that have had the greatest impacts on the world scene and created armed terrorists, giving them excuses to launch terror against humanity, peace and global stability.

As we face this new global era and this world wide unity, we rise before you and before the world and the Israeli people, to loudly state and say, that is now the time to recognise immediately an Independent Palestinian state, pursuant to the Security Council resolutions 242 and 338, Plan for Peace. And return immediately to serious negotiations that were started in Stockholm, continued in Camp David and later in Taba.

We assure You, Mr. Prime Minister, that we are committed to all the signed agreements, their conditions and commitments and that we are in adherence to the international law and peace as a strategy choice. From here we affirm a concrete desire to return immediately to the permanent status, negotiations, implementation of the Tenant working plan, Mitchell report and later the Arafat - Peres understanding.

I am sure Mr. Prime Minister based on my personal experiences in negotiations since 1991 until today, that the chances for success are available to both of us, Palestinian and Israeli.
And if we abide by our commitments, as they were signed and by the international legitimacy of the UN resolutions, and by moving away from, and renouncing the logic of power to the power of logic, to the power of peace, to power of security and to the power of co-operation.
Finally I stand before you today, to extend appreciation to you, and wish this conference all success. I wish the Swedish people, our friends, more prosperity and well being. Warmest regards to you, Mr Göran Persson, and to the leadership and members of the social democratic party and to the Swedish people and thank you all very much. Thank you.

Göran Persson:

Dear Friends.

I cannot express the thanks better than you just did. Thank you, my dear friend, Abu Ala.

Allow me to introduce our next speaker. Shimon Peres was born in Byelorussia in 1923 but he grew up in Tel Aviv. Since 1959 he has been a member of the Knesset, Israel's parliament. Mr Peres has been Minister in several capacities for several decades. He has had and still has a leading role in our sister party, the Labour Party, in Israel. In 1993 together with Yitzhak Rabin and Easier Arafat he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for the Oslo Agreement. Please receive the warmest greeting of congress, the floor is yours, Shimon Peres.

Shimon Peres:

As a social democrat may I say that I was very proud of you re-electing Göran as the leader of your party. I think he is a source of inspiration for all of us, a person who represents the highest values and the deepest understanding of our time, of our future and may I say also, for us as a Jewish people. In the tempered temperature of Sweden, when it is very hard to become warm in words, he really found a moving expression for the Jewish tragedy and it moved all of us. So I want to thank you very much for that as well.

I am also delighted to be in the company of a very successful colleague of mine, Anna Lindh, and it is a pleasure to see you in the party, not only in diplomacy and then again I am very glad to speak again with my dear friend Abu Ala. Though I won't agree with what he has said, but then I agree with what he is, he is a wonderful person...so don't take it personally

And I know what the party congress is. I think I have participated in more congresses than any of you, and it is because of my age. I know how moving and thrilling it is. Because Socialism, contrary to what people may think, is not a dogma. Socialism is basically a civilisation. It is a permission to support the things which are right, the things which are humane, the things that keep us together and bring us together. And the Swedish Social Democratic party was always an example, a party that is ideologically oriented.

As you have said to keep the world in Sweden and not only Sweden in the world. But I am afraid that all of us now have more world than we have our countries.We are reaching an age of interdependence like never before. We experience already what we called globalisation. Globalisation was not an ideological choice. Globalisation is the result of the fact we went over from an economy of the land to an economy of science and technology. Science and technology made borders and divisions and sovereignties marginal, not as important as they used to be. The whole history of humankind was written in red ink, because we have had to defend our land, which was the source of our existence, to defend it, to extend it. And that brought war after war. All of a sudden we discovered that land is important, but not as it used to be. It is today, more the potential of science and technology that will decide our lives.

It's not only that we are not dependent on pieces of land and borders, but also, may I say, that we are connected, not by land and not by seas, we are connected by air, by space, by cybernetics. And you don't have any more, the old distances and differences that have typified human history. And the world today, more than it is divided between the haves and the have-nots, is divided between the connected and the disconnected. If you are connected you are in, if you are disconnected you are lagging behind.

And we also actually discovered that to introduce high technology, you cannot divorce from values...You cannot have a scientific research and separate it from the pursuit of truth...You cannot combine lies and science. You cannot lie scientifically. You must really tell the truth and sell the truth. You cannot for example attract investment unless your books are open, and the society is transparent. You cannot keep your young scientist at home unless the air is clean, the government is honest and the system is based on law and justice. So technology today is not just that you buy a computer with the internet and you are in.

You have to keep an open system because you cannot have open research if you don't have an open society. That was the one side and the sky looked very blue for all of us. And the we discovered than not only was the economy globalised but so are the dangers. Terror is also becoming global. They use the same mechanisms as, and the same opportunity that economy uses in order, all of a sudden, to endanger our well being and our lives. We used to have wars basically based on national armies and coalitions of armies. Today we discover that we have national armies without having national enemies. On the other hand we have global dangers without having a global army. And I know that we do not have a chance, none of us but to fight these dangers, and we shouldn't miss the opportunity to bring to our people the new opportunities of a global age.

I think that what the United States is doing today is a must. And I know that is very much fashionable to attack the United States. I have a very warm feeling for American history. Twice in the 20th century they went to help Europe to regain freedom and independence. In Asia many of the American boys lost their lives. And America participated in winning the wars, gaining the land. They didn't keep anything for themselves. They gave back Japan and improved Japan. They gave back Germany and improved Germany. They offered the Marshall Plan. They helped needed countries. And for the first time when the Americans are speaking about war it is war in their home, not war abroad, as never before in American history. And all of us understand that if this war is not be won, we shall not be able to fly safely, we shall not be able to walk to work, to commerce, to build high buildings, and even to drink fresh water, or breathe fresh air

And one can see how the world is being redivided and reoriented. We are no longer in the post-cold war, but in the post-post cold war, seeing a new coalition taking shape that comprises the United States, Europe, China, India, Latin America and many other countries.

It brings me also to our region. Our region cannot remain detached from this new age with its great new opportunities, which are basically economic, and its great dangers that are basically terror. After all Europe solved her political problems more in the economic domain than in the political domain. Let's face it, Jean Monet contributed to the future of Europe more than Napoleon contributed to its past. The glory of the cemeteries is meaningless in comparison with the windows of the computers. And there my dear friends, I know you have heard a great deal of stories about Israel. Let me give our side of the story

I think it is important but I shall try to do it as honestly but also as clearly as one may.

The late Prime Minister Rabin and myself went to Oslo, where I met for the first time Abu Ala, with tears in his eyes and myself being very excited. I never told you Aba Ala, but when we were supposed to sign the Oslo agreement, I told you later on , I got a telephone saying that ten of our soldiers were killed in Lebanon. Of course it was a terrible day.  I called up Rabin and I said I know how you feel. Shall I sign or not. He said, go ahead! Sign!

We went to Oslo not because we were forced politically, not because we lost militarily. We went to Oslo basically on a moral rail, on a moral principle. We felt strongly that we are not born to govern another people, to govern the lives of the Palestinians. We were not born to occupy their land. Our main task in Oslo was to straighten out the tradition of our people, the Jewish tradition, where in our history we have never dominated another people. It goes against everything we stand for. And it wasn't simple for us to go because, Ladies and Gentlemen, many of you and I say, land for peace. That's nice. We gave back all the land to the Egyptians, all the land, all the water, all the oil. I am not sure we got back peace. You know the land is tangible, peace is moody, and I am not sure that we gained the mood that we expected to gain. The same goes for Jordan. We gave back all the land, all the water. I'm not sure we got back peace. And before I shall go further, I want to say we are willing by our own choice, and believe me we are not going to impose anything upon the Palestinians. I don't believe in any unilateral agreement.  I think peace is based on agreement, not on force and not on illusions. And if it's hard to get an agreement, better to go the harder way but to get a right agreement than to create the impression that we have an agreement that we do not have. So we are very serious on this point.

And like you Aba Ala we would like to see an independent, successful Palestinian state. And we know that the better the Palestinians have it, the better Palestinian neighbours we shall have. And a good neighbour today is more important than a large gun.

It is because of this ladies and gentlemen, that we are not impressed by the offers of the bin Ladin terror. But by the dangers of it. bin Ladin didn't start the terror by saying he wanted to help the Palestinians. He remembered the Palestinians too late in the day. As we reached an agreement with the Egyptians without bin Ladin and the tower terror, as we reached the agreement with the Jordanians without bin Ladin and the tower terror, so will it be with the Palestinians.

We don't need terror we don't need killing. Suppose we didn't complete our negotiations. But our Palestinian neighbours know perfectly well that we intend to give them back most of the land, if not all of the land. I  think we offered practically all of the land. And if there remains a difference of two or three percent....does this justify killing thousands of women and men in New York or Washington? Does it justify killing children in the school in Israel? What for?

We can and we should arrive at an agreement on time. So you ask why didn't it happen?

And I have to tell you our side of the story. Rabin and myself didn't have a vast majority in our parliament. Actually we swam against the stream. We said we shall give back the land gradually. Many people didn't like it, because, I say it, though I may not agree with it, there wasn't a feeling that the Palestinian partner was a credible one. Now, that what I am saying is true, is evident, because Rabin was assassinated. By the way I think ten years after Olof Palme. Olof Palme was 86 and Rabin was the end of 95. I participated at the funeral of Olof Palme. I can still remember it vividly...

Let me say a word about this assassination. He was assassinated on Saturday night. We met on Friday the two of us, and Rabin was totally pessimistic. He was very sceptical about the rally that we had decided to hold on the next day on Saturday in Tel Aviv in the centre. He was afraid people would not come, that he was not being supported, that we were a minority, that we were alone.

When he came to the square, he was taken by the size of the audience, hundreds of thousands and even more so, by their spirits. There was a large group of young people, and under the terrace of the municipality of Tel Aviv there was a pond of water and many of them jumped with their dresses into the water, to praise, to sing, to give support. They called on him to continue to be encouraged

I knew Rabin for over 50 years...we were comrades we were friends from time to time. I never saw him such a happy person in his life. The surprise was so big.  I mean with his very pessimistic estimation and very enthusiastic performance. I knew him for 50 years. He never embraced me. On that day he did. I knew him for 50 years. I never saw him singing, this time he sang. It was really the top of his life. And then came the assassination. Clearly it represented resentment in the depth of our people. I have to admit, so I wouldn't accuse anybody else but the murderer. But the opposition was large because we for it. Rabin has had to go through columns, avenues of hatred, was insulted, they shouted at him. If I admire him its for that period, to negotiate all the opposition, all the hatred. And I must tell you also that for Rabin it wasn't simple to shake the hands of Araft. He didn't like Arafat and only came to appreciate him after the agreement. As a matter of fact they didn't want to go to Washington to sign the agreement. And and at the signature, after we signed, and Clinton almost forced him to shake the hands of Arafat. He turned to me and he said..now it's your turn. You know, he went through all the agonies of shaking hands, now I have to do it. Then I saw him for the last time in his life and in my life. The smile on his face is the smile of a person who has reached the ultimate vocation. And after that as you may imagine, my life became dark. I was the very same night, elected to replace him. I asked myself what shall I do. What would be the best thing to continue of what he started.. And I said well, we have to realise what is being called the second part of the Oslo agreement. And in a short while I was in charge of returning 460 villages to the Palestinians and 6 cities, in a nation that is still in the eyes of the people, in a public opinion that was highly sceptical..

I didn't care. I thought that's my obligation. And that's what I did. But it didn't take much. After the return, and this was the line, piece of the land that we have returned to the Palestinians, terror started against us, against me. In three months time, almost day after day there were assassinations, killing. A bus was bombed in the square of Jerusalem. Let me just say, to describe it in my own words, what does it mean? I came to my office before 7 o'clock. The security people told me that just now a bus exploded in the heart of Jerusalem. And if I'm not wrong, 40 people were killed, many others were wounded. I went to the square. There were thousands of people crying, shouting. When they saw me, they started to shout - murderer, traitor, killer. What did you do to us?  I didn't answer.

The next day the same thing was repeated in Tel Aviv. Again a bus was  bombed. Tens of people were killed, hundreds were wounded. I came to the square and again they shouted at me -  murderer. What did you do to us? Who gave you the permission to do so? And the next day, again in Jerusalem, almost in the same square, almost the same picture. The next day again in Ashkelon, another place. I was running for election. I didn't have the opportunity to run a campaign, because every day I had tens, if not hundreds of warnings, of the creation of the acts of terror.

I knew that I should lose the elections. I lost the elections by one third of a percent. Now I know that my Palestinian interlocutors didn't want it to happen. But I spoke with Arafat. I told him, look those actions would bring an end to the Oslo agreement. And that's what happened. Because after Netanyahu was elected to replace me, he stopped the Oslo agreement. And with all due respect, I think that both Rabin, who paid with his life, I paid a lesser price with the elections, that was the result

What I am saying Abu Ala You must understand. I am sure you understand, that the Palestinians cannot attain what you want, and what we want, unless you control your armed forces. This is the real problem. You cannot run with one authority that has 60,000 policemen and rifles and on top of it have four other organisations, armed with guns and bombs, and using them at their leisure. Killing people but also killing processes. They killed Oslo, not us. You know what an effort and what a risk we took, and you know how much goodwill we have invested in it. So when we hear, my dear friend, some of your criticism, you must understand that we feel differently. We feel the greater part in Israel with a brave, courageous moral choice. And we paid already for it. I can say now to our Palestinian friends, please put all your guns under one control.

You know there is a contradiction in democracy. Democracy is a free organisation. But in order to defend it you have non-democratic organisations. An army is non-democratic, a police force is non-democratic, and if you don't have it you cannot defend...One of my Palestinian fiends says well you have also many views in your cabinet. It's true. We have. We may have many views but one gun. If you permit a hundred guns and one view, you will never succeed..And I am saying it, to shorten the story.... It's true that Rabin and myself say were ready to negotiate, even under fire, but we lost the mandate. I mean there is another majority...I'm representing a defeat not a success; a defeat, Aba Ala, because most of the Israelis think that the rejection by the Palestinian party, of the offers introduced by Clinton, was a basic mistake...

Nobody in Israel understands it and the camp of Israel lost its temper and its support not because they gave up the hope for peace...but because they are not sure that they have a valuable partner...the credibility of the partner became the main issue...

And now we have another government. We have adopted, all of us the Mitchell report. I hope I'm not exaggerating our influence, but may I say that if we hadn't been part of the government, the government would never have  adopted the Mitchell report. It's not exactly a copy of the ideology of the Right. The Mitchell report includes a call for a Palestinian state for example, a total halt on building settlements. It has adopted it, the present government of Israel has adopted a policy that says we are not going to build any more new settlements. Abu Ala submitted to me a list of 134 settlements that were built. We are now checking place by place, and we shall refer to it. We don't take it lightly.

And we are telling Mr Arafat, please help us to achieve a cease-fire, which is the first chapter in the Mitchell report.  If you shall have it, we can put the train on the rails and start our voyage to the station, which is called peaceful and political negotiations. We were not successful, actually, we talked, we negotiated with Abu Ala... and my own director general of the Ministry. We were very close to have this cease-fire, and then a  bomb again exploded in the heart of Jerusalem. You remember, and we had to stop it. Again and again we lost the opportunity. So now we are going to introduce the cease fire step by step, city after city.  There are 9 cities in the West Bank. Our army has already withdrawn from 6, on the condition that the Palestinians become responsible for the security and tranquillity in these cities, they will appoint a proper commander and they will put in prison the people who are the main troublemakers or trouble-shooters. I hope we shall conclude this withdrawal from the other 3 cities in a very short while, maybe another few days even, it depends very much upon the security situation. And then we want to go ahead.

We want to have the same things happening Gaza and then we may have a total agreement about this fact.

Now,  Ladies and Gentlemen, when I analyse what went wrong at  Camp David...and I know it will be hard for Abu Ala to agree. But I don't ask him to agree...I shall appreciate his listening...
I think that the fact, that Barak asked Mr. Arafat to declare that this is the end of  the conflict and that Arafat no longer has any more claims, put in the centre of the negotiation two issues that were not yet ripe for resolution. You know every problem has a date of birth but it doesn't mean that has a date of a solution. Solution is not a matter of dates but of maturity. What we can do now, we couldn't do five years ago, ten years ago, maybe Jerusalem in another age -  we can solve it. But Abu Ala and I am asking you myself, honestly, about Jerusalem. Let's face it, the pragmatic situation is not bad at all. The real difficulty is to translate an existing situation into a contract, into a lawyer's language. Because what is the situation right now?

The Alaxa mosque is totally under Palestinian control. No Israeli soldier or policeman can come in. Actually the Temple Mount is under the control of the Mufti of Jerusalem. According to Jewish tradition we don't have the right to establish a life on the Temple Mount. Only after the messiah has arrived. And you know the messiah is the best Jewish peoples' myth we have ever had. He didn't arrive, he waits so that gives a little bit of time and patience. Then we send our army on the border of the temple mount, when there are between 30 000 to 300000 prayers, coming to the mosque or the two mosques to pray. We don't intervene in prayers. Then we have the old city where we have a Palestinian quarter, an Armenian, a Jewish one...in fact they live together. I don't say it's the pastoral...but neither is it a hell. Now when we shall try to translate the existing situation into a legal language, we shall have a lot of troubles. Because you now politicians, their task is to make compromises. But clergymen they will never compromise...if you want to compromise you have to stop being religious, and become political. So in Jerusalem we have thousands of conflicts, hundreds of years old, thousands years old...I don't say that we don't have to solve the problem for Jerusalem. When it comes to the Palestinian capital, there was a suggestion. There would be the vision of the modern Jerusalem in two states, on demographic lines...one will be called the Yerushalaim and the other will be called Al Kuts, which is the Arab name for Jerusalem. I think this too is achievable. There is one issue that I want you to understand...because I am sure that many people in Sweden do not understand it. And it is the issue of the right of the return of the Palestinian refugees to Israel. We cannot accept it....and we said so honestly and clearly to our Palestinian negotiators. Why?

There were 24 states in the Middle East.  22 were Muslim are Muslim...one was Christian, the other is Jewish...the Christian state was Lebanon. What made Lebanon a Christian state? The fact that there was a Christian majority. The minute the Christians lost their majority Lebanon stopped being a Christian state. If we the Jewish people will lose our majority in Israel we shall stop being a Jewish state. And since the demographic balance is quite delicate, adding another 2 or 3 million people, means making Israel a non-Jewish state...you must understand it. It cannot happen. We shall not do it. After thousands of years of suffering, of a holocaust, of pogroms, finally we have a corner to ourselves, where we can live and defend our rights. And we don't feel responsible for the issue.  I think it was a mistake on the part of the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem at the time in 1948, that they didn't accept the resolution of the United Nations to build a Palestinian state on most of the land...and they called the people to leave, telling them that they would return victoriously

But this should not prevent us from having at the earliest date, a Palestinian state with land, with diplomacy, a Palestinian state that will enjoy freedom, that can really join in modern economy...And in the Middle East economy doesn't play a role, all of us are generals, politicians, presidents...whatever you want...economy is boring...But maybe the solution is
as much economic as political and can join in the fight against terror...

I joined this government when I was invited, informing Sharon that I joined in but not to divorce from my positions, and he knows it. People say, how can you stand such a situation, where you have the majority to the Right. My answer is how can the majority stand the position when the minorities trying to introduce policies of their own. So it's a mutual suffering, if you want, and we are trying now...to reach, to build a common plan...not by giving up our principles. I shall not join in any common plan just for expediency. But I'm asking myself...I can go back to the opposition...We shall have elections in another two years   I  think those two years are crucial...If we do not reach an agreement in those two years, the fortunes of the Palestinians and us, will go to the hands of the extreme groups of terrorism...

We are doing things that we don't like to o but we are forced to do them...to defend our life...It's not a great pleasure and when you see on television our army and you say, why are we reacting excessively ? The answer is because you do not see the provocations which are being organised by clandestine organisations that television never shows...It doesn't matter...

I know that you care about the situation, and rightly so. So do we. I do hope that a solution will be found, maybe we shall suggest to our Palestinian friends also to have a messiah for a while and not solve all problems in one jump...But while we are waiting for the messiah...we are not stopping to do everything which is necessary to improve the life.

Our principles for peace are based on the Bible. And in my judgement Socialism too is base on the Bible. We are being driven by a moral choice more than anything else. Anything else we are doing is forced upon us. And so. We shall continue, Göran, to work very seriously and very hard to enable our Palestinian people to be a people of their own, having an economy of their own...being independent, .so we can live like good neighbours...and some of them are even socialists so have another framework to meet and we shall try to do the most and the best, really, to reach an agreeable conclusion to one of the most complicated conflicts that our times have ever experienced.

Thank You

Göran Persson:

Let me just shortly underline your thanks once more. Both to Abu Ala and to Shimon Peres. And let me say that we have huge expectations on you personally. We know that you are key actors in this conflict and in the endeavours to solve it. We know that you have in front of you many many hours of hard work. We know that if you fail it will also be our failure. We are in it together, but you have the duty to solve it, and to solve it with our support, and you can rely on us. We are with you. We are behind you, and we are firm in the support for a fair, just peace based on the United Nations resolutions. Go ahead. You have our support.

Thank you.