05/16/2008

News / Democracy Could Transform Middle East, Says Bush

By promoting freedom, region could realize peace, defeat extremists
By David McKeeby
Staff Writer

Washington -- Democracy could bring a new future to the Middle East by undermining extremism and giving voice to millions of families across the region yearning for justice and tolerance, freedom and hope, says President Bush.

“These values are the self-evident right of all people, of all religions, in all of the world,” Bush said in a May 15 speech to Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, as the country celebrates the 60th anniversary of its founding.

Since independence, Israel has built a thriving democracy with a dynamic economy and open society, all the while under continuous threat from the forces of extremism, Bush said. A new generation of regional leaders must defy extremists by making the hard choices necessary for peace, rooted in democratic values. “We must stand with the reformers working to break the old patterns of tyranny and despair. We must give voice to the millions of ordinary people who dream of a better life in freedom.”

“Leaders who are accountable to their people will not pursue endless confrontation and bloodshed. Young people with a place in their society and a voice in their future are less likely to search for meaning in radicalism. And societies where citizens can express their conscience and worship their God will not export violence, they will be partners for peace,” Bush said.

Democratic values have shaped Israel’s “unbreakable” alliance with the United States, Bush said. Democracies such as the United States and Israel counter the darker visions offered by the terrorists groups such as Hamas, Hezbollah and al-Qaida.

“These killers claim the mantle of Islam, but they are not religious men. No one who prays to the God of Abraham could strap a suicide vest to an innocent child,” Bush said. “In truth, the men who carry out these savage acts serve no higher goal than their own desire for power. They accept no God before themselves.”

As a leading sponsor of terrorism, Iran also must be prevented from acquiring nuclear weapons, Bush said. “[Israeli] Jews and Americans have seen the consequences of disregarding the words of leaders who espouse hatred. And that is a mistake the world must not repeat in the 21st century.”

By standing behind democratic reforms in the region and steadfastly defending its freedoms, Israel could celebrate its 120th anniversary beside a free and prosperous Palestinian state and a region transformed, Bush predicted.

“From Cairo and Riyadh to Baghdad and Beirut, people will live in free and independent societies, where a desire for peace is reinforced by ties of diplomacy, tourism, and trade. Iran and Syria will be peaceful nations, where today’s oppression is a distant memory and people are free to speak their minds and develop their talents,” he said.

“I truly believe that if we stay firm in our resolve, resist the temptation to give in to the terrorists, and believe in the transformative capacity of liberty, someday other nations in the region will share the blessings of democracy and liberty,” Bush said in an address later in the evening at Jerusalem’s Israel Museum. “Someday, they'll know that they'll have governments that respond to the people. They'll build schools instead of bombs. They'll not want a war with their neighbors -- but want to live in peace. And that's the dream, and that's the hope. And I firmly believe it can come true.”

Bush urged critics to consider how democracy has shaped today’s Israel, as well as transformed other regions of the world in the past 60 years.

“When Europe was destroying itself through total war and genocide, it was difficult to envision a continent that six decades later would be free and at peace. When Japanese pilots were flying suicide missions into American battleships, it seemed impossible that six decades later Japan would be a democracy, a lynchpin of security in [East] Asia, and one of America’s closest friends.”

“This fundamental insight, that freedom yields peace, is the great lesson of the 20th century. Now our task is to apply it in the 21st,” Bush said.

The full text of Bush's remarks to the Knesset is available on America.gov.

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