The Mideast Peace Talks : Day Two Of The Historic Middle East Peace Conference in Madrid Was Devoted To Speeches By Israel And Its Arab Adversaries. Here Are Excerpts From Each Speaker’s Remarks.

Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir

Distinguished co-chairmen, ministers, members of the delegation of the conference. It is an honor to represent the people of Israel at this historic moment and a privilege to address this opening of peace talks between Israel and its Arab neighbors.

To appreciate the meaning of peace for the people of Israel, one has to view today’s Jewish sovereignty in the land of Israel against the background of our history. Jews have been persecuted throughout the ages in almost every continent.

This century saw the Nazi regime set out to exterminate us. The Shoah, the Holocaust, the catastrophic genocide of unprecedented proportions, which destroyed a third of our people, became possible because no one defended us. Being homeless, we were also defenseless. But it was not just the Holocaust which made the world community recognize our rightful claim to the land of Israel. In fact, the rebirth of the State of Israel so soon after the Holocaust has made the world forget that our claim is immemorial.

We are the only people who have lived in the land of Israel without interruption for nearly 4,000 years. We are the only people for whom Jerusalem has been a capital. We are the only people whose sacred places are only in the land of Israel.

Regrettably, the Arab leaders, whose friendship we wanted most, opposed the Jewish state in the region. With a few distinguished exceptions they claimed that the land of Israel is part of the Arab domain that stretches from the Atlantic to the Persian Gulf.

In their war against Israel’s existence, the Arab governments took advantage of the Cold War. They enlisted the military, economic and political support of the Communist world against Israel, and they turned a local, regional conflict into an international powder keg.

According to the American initiative, the purpose of this meeting is to launch direct peace negotiations between Israel and each of its neighbors and multilateral negotiations on regional issues among all the countries of the region. We have always believed that only direct bilateral talks can bring peace.

In the Middle East, this has special meaning, because such talks imply mutual acceptance. And the root cause of the conflict is the Arab refusal to recognize the legitimacy of the State of Israel.

We believe the goal of the bilateral negotiations is to sign peace treaties between Israel and its neighbors and to reach an agreement on interim self-government arrangements with the Palestinian Arabs.

But nothing can be achieved without goodwill. I appeal to the Arab leaders, those who are here and those who have not yet joined the process, show us and the world that you accept Israel’s existence.

And we address a call to the Palestinian Arabs: Renounce violence and terrorism. Stop exposing your children to danger by sending them to throw bombs and stones at soldiers and civilians.

The issue is not territory but coexistence.

We submit that the best venue for the talks is in our region, in close proximity to the decision-makers, not in a foreign land. We invite our partners to this process to come to Israel for the first round of talks. On our part, we are ready to go to Jordan, to Lebanon and to Syria for the same purpose. There is no better way to make peace than to talk in each other’s home.

Jordanian Foreign Minister Kamel abu Jaber

For us this occasion represents what we must strive to make, the final turning point, from a drift toward ultimate disaster for our peoples, our region and possibly the world, to a new era of a properly constructed true peace, hope and life. All the parties to this most chronic and tragic conflict need your continued interest and support, together with the rest of the world, so that we may attain the just peace that the peoples of the region need and deserve.

It is not impossible to hope that this conference will herald the dawn of a new era to rectify the mistakes of the past. And if this conference does anything, it must end Israel’s self-righteous attitude to live by its rules alone.

Jordan comes to this conference in good faith. Our vision is not merely an end to hostility--another truce--but a comprehensive, just and permanent peace. Our region has known nothing but instability and violence since the turn of the century. It is about time that it enjoys peace.

Today we have a historic opportunity for peace in a land that has not tasted it for a long time. We must remember that the extremists and the rejectionists who speak in absolute terms are still lurking in the wings.

It should not be a peace at any price but an honorable peace with which we and future generations can live, a durable peace which is the product of negotiations. It must be the outcome of mutual understanding and accommodation between the parties to the conflict without sacrificing rights or deviating from the principles of international law.

Although the world, and the Israelis themselves, know and are aware of our innocence of the crimes against the Jewish people, Israel’s indignant outrage has not induced a sense of balanced justice. It has become our fate in Jordan to live with, as well as to suffer, and to contain the powerful forces of extremism. The Nazis and others unleashed the passions of injured Zionism for which the Palestinians and Jordan have paid the price.

God only knows the price we continue to pay for the sins of others. It has come to pass that our land, our culture, our people, even our very souls, as well as everything we hold dear and sacred, continue to be plundered and distorted to accommodate new realities and manufactured facts, brutally created on the ground.

We think that the formula of land for peace rings more meaningfully true than any other principle or slogan.

We should shed the psychology of fear, get out of the shadow and realize that states too, like people, sometimes commit suicide because of their fear of life. More land is not more security. Occupation is against every legal principle and the shape it has taken in the Arab occupied territories contravenes the United Nations Charter and the Fourth Geneva Convention. The building of settlements and the expropriation of land are both in clear contravention of the rules of international law.

Arab sovereignty must be restored in Arab Jerusalem. In the context of peace, Jerusalem will represent the essence and symbol of peace between the followers of the three great monotheistic religions. It is God’s will that has made the historic city important to them all.

The illegal settlements should be removed and not augmented; the issue of Palestinian refugees and that of the displaced must be solved in accordance with the relevant United Nations resolutions. The Palestinian people must be allowed to exercise their right of self-determination in their ancestral homeland. The fulfillment of these demands is a question of the credibility of United Nations resolutions. Let me speak plainly--Jordan has never been Palestine and will not be so.

Withdrawal from Lebanon and the application of United Nations Security Council Resolution 425 is also an essential prerequisite for the establishment of a regional peace.

We hope that this peace conference will work toward the solution of all these momentous problems, leading not only to the withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Arab occupied lands, including Arab Jerusalem, but also to the delineation of Israel’s permanent borders and, finally, real peace.

Haidar Abdel-Shafi Palestinian delegate

We, the people of Palestine, stand before you in the fullness of our pain, our pride, and our anticipation, for we have long harbored a yearning for peace and a dream of justice and freedom. For too long, the Palestinian people have gone unheeded, silenced and denied, our identity negated by political expediency, our rightful struggle against injustice maligned, and our present existence subsumed by the past tragedy of another people.

It is time for us to narrate our own story, to stand witness as advocates of a truth which has long lain buried in the consciousness and conscience of the world. We do not stand before you as supplicants, but, rather, as the torch-bearers who know that in our world of today ignorance can never be an excuse. We seek neither an admission of guilt after the fact nor vengeance for past inequities, but, rather, an act of will that would make a just peace a reality.

Our acknowledged leadership is more than just the democratically chosen leadership of all the Palestinian people. It is the symbol of our national unity and identity, the guardian of our past, the protector of our present and the hope of our future.

Jerusalem, the city of peace, has been barred from the peace conference and deprived of its calling. Palestinian Jerusalem, the capital of our homeland and future state, defines Palestinian existence, past, present and future, but itself has been denied a voice and an identity. Israel’s annexation of Arab Jerusalem remains most clearly illegal in the eyes of the world community and an affront to the peace that this city deserves.

As we speak, thousands of our brothers and sisters are languishing in Israeli prisons and detention camps, most detained without evidence, charge or trial, many cruelly mistreated and tortured in interrogation, guilty only of seeking freedom or daring to defy the occupation. We speak in their name, and we say, “Set them free.”

As we speak, the eyes of thousands of Palestinian refugees, deportees and displaced persons since 1967 are haunting us. Bring them home. They have the right to return.

The settlements must stop now. Peace cannot be waged while Palestinian land is confiscated in myriad ways and the status of the occupied territories is being decided each day by Israeli bulldozers and barbed wire.

In the name of the Palestinian people, we wish to directly address the Israeli people, with whom we have had a prolonged exchange of pain. Let us share hope, instead. We are willing to live side by side on the land and the promise of the future. Sharing, however, requires two partners willing to share as equals. Mutuality and reciprocity . . . must replace domination and hostility for genuine reconciliation and coexistence under international legality. Your security and ours are mutually dependent, as entwined as the fears and nightmares of our children.

We will continue to strive for our sovereignty while proceeding freely and willingly to prepare the grounds for a confederation between the two states of Palestine and Jordan, which can be a cornerstone for our security and prosperity.

Our homeland has never ceased to exist in our minds and hearts, but it has to exist as a state on all the territories occupied by Israel in the war of 1967, with Arab Jerusalem as its capital in the context of that city’s special status and its non-exclusive character. We are willing to accept the proposal for a transitional state.

Israel must demonstrate its willingness to negotiate in good faith by immediately halting all settlement activity and land confiscation. Without genuine progress, tangible, constructive changes and just agreements during these bilateral talks, multilateral negotiations will be meaningless.

Lebanese Foreign Minister Faris Bouez

We in Lebanon are in a position to enrich the concept of the “new world order” and to consolidate its foundations. This is what we say in the light of our bitter experience, which has proven that the various ideas, doctrines and religions can live together.

The concept of the “new world order,” although not clearly defined as yet, would benefit from our experience. It will be based on the unshakable realities of the societies that it seeks to encompass and on the necessity of living with these realities. Having paid the price of the international and regional conflicts which have taken place on our soil, we’ve set out on the path to internal peace, and have succeeded in carrying out a number of essential and important tasks. And we surprised everyone, in fact. The challenge and the dream came together.

Events have demonstrated that Lebanon is one whole and cannot be fragmented--the south, the north, the Bekaa, Beirut and the mountains are all parts of Lebanon. If Lebanon loses any of its areas, it would lose a vital limb. This would mean bleeding forever, struggling and venting its rage in every part of the world, this rage often turning into resistance against occupation.

Lebanon calls for the establishment of a new international order where principles of law, rejection of aggression, and peaceful settlement of disputes prevail. Lebanon attaches particular importance to the implementation of Resolution 425, since the armistice agreement of 1949 still governs the situation with Israel. Article 8 provides that this agreement shall remain in force until both parties reach a peaceful settlement.

For all these reasons, Lebanon has sought and seeks to apply Security Council Resolution 425 of March 19, 1978, which calls for the strict respect for the territorial integrity, sovereignty and political independence of Lebanon within its internationally recognized borders. It also calls upon Israel to cease its military action against Lebanese territorial integrity and withdraw immediately its forces from all Lebanese lands.

Lebanon is keen to assert its solidarity with the Arabs, calling for the implementation of Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338, which form the basis for this conference . . . namely, land for peace.

The continuing settlement policy will definitely have an adverse effect on all peace efforts in the region. As for the Palestinian problem, the crux of the Middle East conflicts, its global and just solution would allow or is susceptible to enable the region to enjoy what it deserves in terms of stability, security and tranquillity.

Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk Shareh

It is no exaggeration to state that the continuing intransigent Israeli position, which is bereft of any justification, is the one that places the world on the brink of incalculable dangers and prevents the region from enjoying peace.

Had Israel’s political orientation since 1948 been humane, millions of Arabs, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese would not have been uprooted from their homes . . . nor would they have been denied, until today, their right to return. Had Israel’s policies not been settler-colonialist, Palestinians languishing in the Israeli occupation since 1967 would not have been denied all their fundamental rights, foremost among which is their right to self-determination.

The list of evidence of inhumane Israeli practices is long and well-documented. These are practices which were condemned by dozens of resolutions adopted by the United Nations.

Distinguished co-chairmen, we have never carried the banner of war and destruction. Syria has consistently called for the achievement of comprehensive and just peace on the basis of United Nations resolutions.

Peace and the usurpation of the land of others cannot coexist. For peace to be stable and durable, it must encompass all parties to the conflict on all fronts.

Every inch of Arab land occupied by the Israelis by war and force, the Golan, the West Bank, Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, must be returned in their entirety to their legitimate owners.

Despite Syria’s numerous reservations concerning . . . this conference, the Syrian delegation has come here to attempt to reach a comprehensive, honorable and just peace, encompassing all aspects and fronts of the Arab-Israel conflict.