Bill Clinton spent last Saturday night speaking to the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. According to the Associated Press, he praised President Obama’s Cairo speech and talked about a mistake he feels he made after the Oslo accords were signed:
Clinton told the audience that it’s important that they push government leaders for a resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He cited an experience in 1993 when he failed to persuade many Jewish-American and Arab-American business people to invest in the Palestinian areas because violence and bombings had deterred them.
"It just took one more bus bomb or one more rocket or one more incident and then people got scared of losing their money," he said.
As the U.S. continues to push for peace in the area, "I think it’s really important to give the Palestinian people something to look forward to," Clinton said to loud applause.
Clinton, who wasn’t paid for his speech, spoke in a wide-ranging 35-minute address that focused on people’s identity in an interdependent world. He said the U.S. can’t rely on its military might in global relations. "It has to begin by people accepting the fact that they can be proud of who they are without despising who someone else is," he said.
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