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 Text: Ambassador Holbrooke's UNSC Remarks on the Middle East Thank you, Mr. President, and once again I must remark on the way Namibia's month has gotten off to a rather dramatic start. I hope you can slow the pace down, Mr. President, but I congratulate you on moving so rapidly to assemble this extremely important Security Council meeting under very difficult and complicated circumstances. I express my appreciation to my many friends, other ambassadors and permanent representatives here who are waiting their turn to speak. And I hope they will understand the very difficult, complicated arrangement which led to the arrangements announced by the President of the Security Council a few minutes ago. I listened carefully to the statements of the previous two speakers from the Palestinian Authority and from Israel, and I would like to address what they have said on the situation on behalf of my government. Mr. President, the United States government joins all the other members of this Council in expressing deep sorrow and regret at the recent violence between Israelis and Palestinians. We offer our deepest condolences to the families of the innocent victims, particularly those who have lost children. We extend our sympathies to the injured. We pray for a restoration of peace in a region where, as both previous speakers have suggested, there has been extraordinary efforts by the leaders to achieve peace recently in talks, at Camp David, in Europe, in the Middle East, and elsewhere. Mr. President, what is needed now is to focus on stopping the violence and to doing everything we can to encourage the parties to return to the peace process. This is the only way to end this cycle of heartbreak and sorrow. President Clinton and Secretary Albright and their colleagues are in ongoing consultations with the parties in a search for ways to end the violence. Tomorrow, Secretary Albright will meet in Paris with Prime Minister Barak and Chairman Arafat. On Thursday, Egyptian President Mubarak will bring the parties together in Cairo for further discussions. I know that my French colleague, Ambassador Levitte, will also want to address the Paris meetings, and we look forward to hearing from the Egyptian ambassador, Ambassador Aboulgheit, later this afternoon with an important statement on behalf of his government in regard to the Egyptian role in this. All of these meetings, in Paris and in Egypt, will have great importance. The world will be watching. The world will be hoping that the cycle of violence will be reversed and the very encouraging and intense efforts to make progress will resume. And, as soon as conditions permit, the U.S. will chair a meeting of Israeli and Palestinian security officials for the purpose of fact-finding and to prevent a recurrence of the events of the last few days. But I want to stress, Mr. President, that the first priority for all parties must be to stop the violence. Now is not the time to be apportioning blame. Israelis and Palestinians have negotiated historic agreements in the past. They have engaged in practical cooperation on the ground. Now, tragically, in full view of a horrified world, innocent victims have suffered senseless violence. But empty rhetoric does not forward the cause of peace. Too often in the past, positions taken by the United Nations have tarnished this great organization's credibility and undermined the United Nations' ability to play a constructive role in the Peace Process. Let us not repeat this error in this cycle of history. Recent events have undeniably been a setback for the peace process and we cannot pretend otherwise. Let's not allow them to become a setback for our commitment, for our efforts to move forward in the peace process and also to restore the UN's credibility so that it may play whatever role it can in this process. Mr. President, there is, of course, no place for violence, intimidation or pressure in this process. Although, we recognize that it has been a concomitant of the problem for generations. The only way peace can be achieved, the only way the hopes and dreams of the people of the region can be fulfilled, is through negotiations. Neither side wants a future of indefinite confrontation. The way ahead lies though negotiations -- to which both sides remain committed, as we have heard here today. At this delicate and dangerous moment, the Security Council should keep its focus on the task at hand: restoring calm, creating a climate in which the parties can take steps that will lead to a just, comprehensive and lasting peace. Thank you Mr. President for calling this important meeting today. [end of document]
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