Berger: Israel and Palestinians 'can and should reach peace, now'
Palestine-Israel, Politics, 5/22/2000

A peace agreement between Israel and Palestinians must be a lasting, comprehensive agreement and it must be soon," Samuel R. Berger, Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, said May 21 in remarks to the Plenary Session of the Board of Governors of Tel Aviv University, a US statement said.

The alternative to a peaceful compromise is not the status quo, Berger said, "it is something very different and, I am convinced, far worse." The violence of the past week, he said, is a stark reminder that there remains far too much violence and bloodshed between the Israelis and Palestinians, and "it is unacceptable."

An agreement between Israel and Palestinians "must not be a partial or interim one; it must deal with all claims, from both sides; it must in short, define in words and in deeds how the one hundred-year conflict will end ...," Berger said.

The challenge, he offered, "is to find a way to honor each side's historical, religious and territorial claims, for there can be no solution that ignores or belittles them while overcoming the obstacles they place on the path to peace."

Based on discussions the United States has had with both sides for the past several months, and particularly for the past several weeks, "there is not a single issue, not the most complex, not the most sensitive, that cannot be resolved," Berger said.

"It will take imagination. It will take vision. It will take courage. And it will take leaders, like Prime Minister Barak and Chairman Arafat, with a keen sense of what it will mean for the two sides to reach peace, and what it will mean if they do not. But it can be done, and it should be done, now."

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