And what I want to say is, if you think of the biggest disappointment around to me, I tried so hard for peace in the Middle East.
CLINTON: I thank Shimon Peres and the children of Yitzhak Rabin and Ehud Barak for being here today, and the current foreign minister of Israel for being here today. I did all I could.
 Friday's Question: | | |
|
But when we had seven years of progress toward peace, there was one whole year when for the first time in the history of the state of Israel not one person died of a terrorist attack, when the Palestinians began to believe they could have a shared future.
And so, Mr. President, again I say, I hope you get to cross over into the promised land of Middle East peace. We have a good opportunity and we are all praying for you.
(APPLAUSE)
Finally, let me say this. Quite apart from all the details, the thing I want most is for people to come to this library, whether they're Republicans or Democrats, liberals or conservatives, to see that public service is noble and important; that the choices and decisions leaders make affect the lives of millions of Americans and people all across the world.
I want young people to want to see not only what I did with my life, but to see what they could do with their lives. Because this is mostly the story of what we the people can do when we work together.
Yes, this library is the symbol of a bridge, a bridge to the 21st century. It's been called one of the great achievements of the new age, and a British magazine said it looked like a glorified house trailer.
(LAUGHTER)
And I thought, "Well, that's about me, you know. I'm a little red and a little blue."
(LAUGHTER)
What it is to me is the symbol of not only what I tried to do, but what I want to do with the rest of my life: building bridges from yesterday to tomorrow, building bridges across racial and religious and ethnic and income and political divides, building bridges.
I believe our mission in this new century is clear. For good or ill, we live in an interdependent world. We can't escape each other.
CLINTON: And while we have to fight our enemies, we can't possibly kill, jail or occupy all of them.
Therefore, we have to spend our lives trying to build a global community and an American community, of shared responsibilities, shared values, shared benefits.
What are those values? And I want to say this; this is important. I don't want to be too political here, but it bothers me when America gets as divided as it was.
I once said to a friend of mine about three days before the election -- and I heard all these terrible things. I said, "You know, am I the only person in the entire United States of America who likes both George Bush and John Kerry, who believes they're both good people, who believe they both love our country and they just see the world differently?"
What should our shared values be? Everybody counts. Everybody deserves a chance. Everybody has got a responsibility to fulfill.
We all do better when we work together. Our differences do matter but our common humanity matters more.
So I tell you we can continue building our bridge to tomorrow. It will require some red American line drawing and some blue American barrier breaking, but we can do it together.
Thank you and God bless you.
(APPLAUSE)
END