For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
May 3, 2001
Remarks by the President to the American Jewish Committee
National Building Museum Washington, D.C.
8:22 P.M. EDT
THE PRESIDENT: Well, Bruce, thank
you very much for that kind invitation. I'm glad I came, and
I'm proud to call you friend.
I appreciate David Harris, your
eloquence. I want to say welcome to the foreign dignitaries
who are here; members of the Congress; Justice O'Connor; my friend,
Mayor Williams. And I'm proud to be here tonight with such
close friends of America.
Mi amigo, un hombre muy fuerte, muy
inteligente, el Presidente de Mexico, Vicente
Fox. (Applause.)
Foreign Minister Fischer and Foreign Minister
Peres. I had the honor of meeting with Foreign Minister
Peres today in the Oval Office. It is not the first time we
have met. He had a sparkle in his eye some 12 years ago when
we met; he still has this marvelous sparkle in his eye. I
love his optimism.
As Bruce mentioned, he said, when you talk to
Shimon Peres, you feel like you're talking to a poet; you know you're
talking to a leader. He's been a good friend of the United
States throughout his many years of public service. And I
look forward to showing him my friendship for the state of Israel over
the coming years. (Applause.)
And Mr. Fischer, welcome to
Washington. Please take back my best regards to your
Chancellor. I had a great visit with him, as well, in the
Oval Office. And Mr. President, thank you for coming by --
he also was in the Oval Office. I had a pretty busy
day. (Laughter.)
This is the third time I've met with President
Fox, and it's right that it be that way, because relations with Mexico
and the United States are incredibly important for our
future. We want our friend to the south to be strong and
vibrant -- a strong Mexico, a healthy Mexico is good for the United
States of America. (Applause.)
The four of us don't always agree; we
occasionally have our differences. But one thing, obviously,
we all agree on is when Bruce Ramer invites us somewhere, we
go. (Laughter and applause.)
I took a look at this weekend's program before
coming here. I was flattered to read that "understanding the
new administration" is called a "central feature" of this year's
meeting. Well, I may be able to save you some
time. (Laughter.) I believe in equal opportunity
for all, without discrimination or prejudice of any kind.
I believe that tolerance and respect must be
taught to all our children, because too many young minds and souls are
lost to hate. I believe that our government should support
the works of charity that are motivated by faith -- but our government
should never fund the teaching of faith, itself. (Applause.)
I am a Christian. But I believe
with the Psalmist, that the Lord God of Israel neither slumbers nor
sleeps. Understanding my administration should not be
difficult. We will speak up for our principles; we will
stand up for our friends in the world. And one of the most important
friends is the State of Israel. (Applause.)
Incredibly enough, when I visited Israel two
years ago, I had the honor of touring many parts of that land in a
helicopter with Ariel Sharon. I'm pretty confident he didn't think I
was going to be the President. (Laughter.) The truth is, I
wasn't sure he was going to be the Prime
Minister. (Laughter.) But, nevertheless, here we
are. I look forward to working with the Prime Minister.
As Foreign Minister Peres told me today -- and
I agree -- he's a man who knows how to keep his word, and that's
important when it comes to foreign diplomacy.
For a Texan, a first visit to Israel is an
eye-opener. At the narrowest point, it's only eight miles
from the Mediterranean to the old Armistice line: that's
less than from the top to the bottom of Dallas-Ft. Worth
Airport. (Laughter.) The whole of pre-1967 Israel
is only about six times the size of the King Ranch.
It's a small country that has lived under the
threat throughout its existence. At my first meeting of my
National Security Council, I told them that a top foreign policy
priority of my administration is the safety and security of
Israel. (Applause.) My administration will be
steadfast in supporting Israel against terrorism and violence, and in
seeking the peace for which all Israelis pray.
The Middle East is the birthplace of three
great religions: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Lasting
peace in the region must respect the rights of believers in all these
faiths. That's common sense. But it is also
something more: it is moral sense, based upon the deep
American commitment to freedom of religion.
That commitment was expressed early and
eloquently by our first President, George Washington, in his famous
letter to the Touro Synagogue in Newport, Rhode Island. He
argued for an attitude beyond mere tolerance -- a respect for the
inherent and equal right of everyone to worship God as they think
best. "The government of the United States," he said, "which
gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires
only that they who live under its protection, should demean themselves
as good citizens."
Over the years, Washington's rejection of
religious bigotry has matured from a foundation of our domestic
politics into a guiding doctrine of our foreign policy. The
American Jewish Committee deserves special credit for this
progress. (Applause.) You were among the very
first groups to support the International Religious Freedom Act of
1998. Formed to resist anti-Semitic persecution in Czarist
Russia, the American Jewish Committee has emerged as a great champion
of religious liberty worldwide.
I am proud to say that it was a fellow Texan,
Leo Napoleon Levi, who was responsible for one of the earliest American
protests against anti-Semitic violence. Levi, a Galveston,
Texas, lawyer and a president of the national B'nai Brith, drafted
President Theodore Roosevelt a telegram denouncing a Russian pogrom in
1903. The czar of Russia was so stung by Roosevelt's message
that he formally refused to accept it. Some Americans
complained that Roosevelt had gone too far. He replied that
there were no crimes so monstrous -- that there were crimes so
monstrous that the American conscience had to assert itself.
And there still are. Such crimes
are being committed today by the government of Sudan, which is waging
war against that country's traditionalist and Christian
peoples. Some 2 million Sudanese have lost their lives; 4
million more have lost their homes. Hospitals, schools,
churches and international relief stations have often been bombed by
government warplanes over the 18 years of Sudan's civil
war. The government claims to have halted air
attacks. But they continue. Women and children
have been abducted and sold into slavery. UNICEF estimates
that some 12,000 to 15,000 people are now held in bondage in Sudan.
The story of the Exodus still speaks across
the millennium: no society in all of history can be justly
built on the backs of slaves. (Applause.) Sudan is a
disaster area for human rights. The right of conscience has
been singled out for special abuse by the Sudanese
authorities. Aid agencies report that food assistance is
sometimes distributed only to those willing to undergo conversion to
Islam.
We must turn the eyes of the world upon the
atrocities in the Sudan. Today, I have appointed a special
humanitarian coordinator, USAID Administrator Andrew
Natsios. He will provide the leadership necessary to ensure
that our aid goes to the needy, without manipulation by those ravaging
that troubled land. (Applause.) This is the first
step. More will follow. Our actions begin today
-- and my administration will continue to speak and act for as long as
the persecution and atrocities in the Sudan last.
I'm pleased to say that many countries in the
region show considerable and improving respect for religious
liberty: Morocco, Tunisia, Jordan and Bahrain among
them. But there are other regimes, not only in North Africa
and the Middle East, whose disrespect for freedom of worship is
seriously disturbing.
Iraq murders dissident religious
figures. Iran systematically maltreats Jews, Christians and
adherents of the Baha'i faith. The Burmese junta tortures
adherents of Islam, Buddhism and Christianity. Cuba monitors
and harasses independent priests and
ministers. Afghanistan's Taliban government has horrified
the world with its disdain for fundamental human freedoms, epitomized
by its destruction of ancient Buddhist works of art. And the
newly independent republics of Central Asia impose troubling limits on
religious expression and missionary work.
We view with special concern the intensifying
attacks on religious freedom in China. In many respects,
China has made great strides toward freedom in recent
decades. China's economy has opened. Chinese
people enjoy greater personal mobility, more secure property rights,
and enlarged access to information. These are not small
achievements. And they do promise even greater change.
But the Chinese government continues to
display an unreasonable and unworthy suspicion of freedom of
conscience. The Chinese government restricts independent
religious expression. We hear alarming reports of the
detention of worshippers and religious leaders. Churches,
mosques have been vandalized or demolished. Traditional
religious practices in Tibet have long been the target of especially
harsh and unjust persecution. And most recently, adherents
of the Falun Gong spiritual movement have been singled out for arrest
and abuse.
China aspires to national strength and
greatness. But these acts of persecution are acts of fear --
and, therefore, of weakness. This persecution is unworthy of
all that China has been -- a civilization with a history of
tolerance. And this persecution is unworthy of all that
China should become -- an open society that respects the spiritual
dignity of its people.
No one is a better witness to the transience
of tyranny than the children of Abraham. Forty centuries
ago, the Jewish people were entrusted with a truth more enduring than
any power of man. In the words of the prophet Isaiah, "This shall be My
covenant with them, said the Lord: My spirit which is upon
you, and the words which I have placed in your mouth, shall not be
absent from your mouth, nor from the mouth of your children, nor from
the mouth of your children's children -- said the Lord -- from
now, for all time."
It is not an accident that freedom of religion
is one of the central freedoms in our Bill of Rights. It is
the first freedom of the human soul -- the right to speak the words
that God places in our mouths. We must stand for that
freedom in our country. We must speak for that freedom in
the world. And I thank the American Jewish Committee for
your willingness to do both.
God bless. (Applause.)
END 8:38
P.M. EDT
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