WASHINGTON: With a few Swift pen strokes on Monday Sept.13, the Middle East was remade.
Under brilliant sunshine on the South Lawn of the White House, representatives of Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization Signed a frame work agreement for peace and a beaming PLO chairman Yasser Arafat clasped hands With Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who once led his country’s armed forces in crushing victories over its Arab foes.
The dramatic tableau evoked hope of an end to one of history’s most cruel conflicts and a beginning to one of its most difficult works of reconciliation.
“We who have fought against you, the Palestinians, we say to you today in a loud and a clear voice, ‘enough of blood and tears. “Enough!” “Said Rabin, the 71yearold former general “The battle for peace,” said Arafat, is the most difficult battle of our lives; it deserves our utmost efforts because the land of peace yearns for a just and comprehensive peace,”
Both sides recalled the generations of sorrow and bloodshed that preceded the historic ceremony and pledged to press forward with the diplomatic tasks that remain, calling upon the United States and other nations to aid the process of turning the theoretical framework into concrete results.
Witnessing the histone ceremony along with leaders of the Clinton administration were former Presidents Jimmy Carter and George Bush, eight former secretaries of State and scores of others who had played central roles on the diplomatic road to the agreement.
President Clinton, whose role as host of the ceremony underscored how much both Israel and the PLO are counting on the United States for the next steps called the signing “an extraordinary actin one of the history’s defining dramas.”
Article extracted from this publication >> September 17, 1993
