Middle East
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22 October 2009
Mideast Peace Requires Taking Risks, Rice Tells
Israelis
By Stephen Kaufman
Staff Writer
Washington — The days when countries could pursue their own interests
in isolation from the needs of the global community are over, U.S. Ambassador
to the United Nations Susan Rice told an Israeli audience, and she also called
for a relaunch of peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians “without
preconditions” to resolve permanent-status issues between the two sides.
“We all must decide whether we are serious about peace or whether we
will lend it only lip service,” Rice said October 21 at a conference
organized by Israeli President Shimon Peres in Jerusalem.
“As President Peres always reminds us, being serious about peace means
taking risks for peace. Being serious about peace means understanding that
tomorrow need not look like yesterday,” Rice said.
The goal of negotiations over security, borders, refugees and the status of
Jerusalem is a comprehensive peace agreement: “a Jewish state of Israel,
with true security for all Israelis, and a viable, independent Palestinian
state with contiguous territory that ends the occupation that began in 1967
and realizes the potential of the Palestinian people,” she said.
This is the path for Israel’s ability to “truly and fully take
its rightful place among the nations,” and for Palestinians to “at
last enjoy the dignity and blessings of freedom in an independent state of
their own,” she said.
ZERO-SUM POLITICS
Under President Obama, the United States is pursuing a “principled and
pragmatic” foreign policy based on a vision of a world it seeks for succeeding
generations, and which is in the common interest.
“Our view of that world is rooted in a truth that my nation has long
held to be self-evident, and that is that all people are created equal — of
equal worth, of equal consequence and with equal rights,” Rice said.
“The days when we could view our own interests in isolation are over.
The days when we could focus on our own security and prosperity without regard
for that of others are past,” she said. With common challenges such as
climate change, the proliferation of nuclear weapons, the advancement of human
rights, and the danger of violent extremism, the United States acknowledges
that the fate of the world’s people is becoming ever more closely bound
together.
“More and more, we live in a world where we rise and fall together,
where zero-sum politics no longer fit today’s hard realities, where what’s
good for others is often good for us,” she said.
Failure to take bold action to solve common problems will leave everyone on
Earth in greater peril. The nations of the world must choose between inertia
and “a vain attempt to withstand the whirlwind,” or cooperation “to
seize this rare chance for deep and lasting change,” Rice said.
The advancement of human rights and improving the lives of the world’s
poor are areas where the interests and values of the United States converge,
she said.
Reflecting that she and President Obama are part of “the first generation
of African Americans whose dreams were not immediately circumscribed by institutionalized
racism and legalized segregation,” Rice said all children should be able
to receive a good education and to “forge a dignified future, unbound
by the accidental circumstances of their birth.”
The United States seeks a world “where a child can grow up in Gaza,
in Tel Aviv, in Baghdad, in Bamako, or in Kabul, free of fear, free of want,
and with the opportunity to live their dreams,” and where women and girls “fulfill
their own potential and are indispensable to national growth and development,” she
said.
A nation’s government should be “a means to advance human rights,
not a tool to suppress them,” and along with rejecting violent extremism,
there should finally be an end to genocide and incitement, including school
textbooks with “slurs about Zionism, the Jewish people or any religious,
racial and ethnic group.”
The United States cannot realize this vision by acting on its own, and understands
the hurdles in its path, but, Rice said, “The difficulty of the task
must not serve as an excuse for inaction.”
While human rights values and democracy cannot be imposed upon other nations
by force, there is “nothing relative about America’s convictions.”
“We will always stand for the student who hungers to be taught, for
the voter who demands to be heard, for the innocent who longs to be free,” she
said.
Ambassador Rice also called on ordinary citizens to play their part in bringing
about a better world.
“No climate pact will make the difference if consumers do not change
the cars they drive or the way they insulate their homes. No peace will truly
last if leaders are not held accountable for faithful implementation of their
obligations and if citizens lose heart in the promise of a brighter future.
Shared security rests on public resolve, common understanding and united will,” she
said.
There will always be those who scoff, do not make choices and will prefer
not to take action, but, the ambassador said, “History is made by those
on the playing field, not those sitting in the cheap seats.”
At the current historic moment facing the world, future generations will remember
those leaders who “took responsibility for our shared destiny” and “citizens
who refused to allow differences to define them,” Rice said. | 
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