AMBASSADOR RABINOVICH: I'd like to call upon the secretary of state, Warren Christopher, please. SECRETARY CHRISTOPHER: Good evening. This a rather somber day for Americans, just as there have been many somber days for people in Israel, but nevertheless, I'm honored and delighted to be here with you this evening to help you celebrate the 46th anniversary of the founding of the state of Israel. Thank you.

I feel a real sense of pride and a sense of real involvement in being associated with you and identified with this occasion. Israel is an extraordinary place, and certainly the Israelis are an extraordinary people. You are a nation of doers and what you've done and accomplished over the last four decades in the face of great adversity is a remarkable testament to the special qualities of the Israeli people. You've succeeded in building a vibrant democracy, absorbing Jews from all over the world, and becoming leaders in the world field of high technology. And yet you've managed to achieve all this while preserving your humanity and deep sense of justice.

In a sense, you've triumphed over history and defeated those forces that sought to deny the Jewish people the security, even a semblance of normal life. And yet, as we all know, there are still many, many challenges to overcome.

I wish I could say tonight that Israel was fully at peace on this independence day, that the terror had stopped, and that the Israelis could feel a sense of security every day of their lives. On the contrary, I feel outraged and saddened here tonight that Israel's citizens are still exposed to the terror of the extremists and the terror of people who want to deny to Israel the security that they deserve.

No nation should have to live the way Israel is living today. At the same time, we must never forget that there is a real potential for peace in a way that never existed before, not only with your Palestinian neighbors, but with the Arab nations as well.

We will continue to try to push this process of reconciliation, a process that must succeed if peace is to be sustained in the region. The United States knows that we have a very strong and determined partner in Israel. Israelis want peace. In addition to your search for the security of peace, you have identified peace and security as being your highest national priority. The Israelis are courageous and determined enough to stay the course for peace. These qualities are among your very highest national assets. I'm convinced that you will not allow the extremists on either side to defeat your purpose or to interfere with the negotiations.

Prime Minister Rabin expressed those very sentiments in a conversation that I had with him this morning. He was resolute and determined in the way that he always is -- determined to protect the security of Israel, but determined at the same time to pursue the path of peace.

I want to make it unmistakably clear to you that the United states will continue to stand with Israel. Thank you. For more than four decades the United States has stood with Israel because it reflects our ideals and because it reinforces our interests. This country believes in you. We believe in the idea of Israel and we have an unmistakable and unshakable commitment to the security and well-being of Israel. Working together as partners and as allies and friends, we'll continue our search for peace and security until we've achieved all of our objectives. And I believe we can achieve them and I believe we are closer to achieving this year than we have been in any of the recent years in my memory.

With political will, with determination and with courage, we can realize the kind of peace that you and your Arab and Palestinian neighbors have been so long denied. I commit myself, I commit the United States, I commit President Clinton to join you in the search for peace amidst the kind of security that we are also resolute in ensuring the Israel will have.

Thank you very much for allowing me to be here and enjoy this minute or two with you on your Independence Day.

AMB. RABINOVICH: I want to thank the secretary both for coming to celebrate with us, and for the very powerful statement, the very encouraging one that he has made.

I would now like to call on the majority leader in the House, Senator -- Congressman Gephardt, please.

REP. GEPHARDT: Thank you very much, Mr. Ambassador. It is indeed an honor to be here this evening to represent all of my colleagues in the House of Representatives of the United States Congress, and to say to you that on this happy occasion of the celebration of 46 years as a nation of Israel, that the members of the House of Representatives and the Congress on a bipartisan basis stand behind squarely the state of Israel and the citizens of Israel.

As our secretary of state so well said here tonight, this is a first, a day of hope, for peace, and for stability in the Middle East. The secretary and the president have worked very hard with the government of Israel to try to find our way toward peace. All of us know that it is hard, and all of us knows that it takes great courage on the part of the government of Israel to do the things that have already been done to try to reach a just and a lasting peace.

And each of us here is in admiration of the courage that has already been shown and that will be shown by the Israel people and the Israel government in trying to bring about this historic achievement.

Second, this is a day of great joy, joy that comes from understanding that what was begun 46 years ago has endured. There were many people who did not believe then that days like today would take place. It is taking place. The achievement is there. The dream is alive. The nation of Israel, a vibrant democracy in the Middle East, a rare commodity, is there because of the courage and the commitment of thousands and thousands and millions of people not only there but across the world who have stood for that vision and that dream. And so today, 46 years later, is indeed a day of joy.

Finally, it's a day of commitment and recommitment -- commitment and recommitment. I always remembered the story of Clark Clifford when he was in the White House and Harry Truman was president and the question was whether or not the United States would be in favor of the creation of the state of Israel. And as Clark Clifford told the story, all of the advice came in, and advice from many of the advisors was to not be for it, for all of the reasons you might expect.

Harry Truman took the memos off for the weekend and supposedly came back and met with his advisors again, including Mr. Clifford, and he declared that he had decided that we would favor the state of Israel. And when he was asked by some of his bewildered advisors why would not accept their advice, he simply said, "Because being for the state of Israel is the right thing to do."

And so we began a commitment, a commitment based on what was right. And today, 46 years later, that commitment is as right as it was on that day and we as -- we as an American government today say to all of you it is right, it will continue to be right, and we recommit ourselves today to that right decision and there will be many, many, many more years of celebration of the creation of the state of Israel. Thank you.

AMB. RABINOVICH: Thank you very much, Mr. Leader, and now I want to call on a special friend. This is the last time that Howard Metzenbaum will be with us in this celebration as the senior senator from Ohio, but we trust and believe that in years to come he will continue to come as our friend. Howard Metzenbaum.

SEN. METZENBAUM: Indeed, Mr. Ambassador, I will come back, because as a committed and concerned Jew, I want to always be present in the celebration of Israel's independence.

As I was standing back here, I was thinking back over the 18 years that I've been in the United States Senate and thinking about the fact that, when I came to the United States Senate, I was the eleventh member of our faith to be elected to the United States in the history of the United States. Now, I'm going to share a fact with you that you probably didn't know. I did such a helluva good job during that time -- that 14 other United States senators of our faith have been elected since then.

During the years that I've served in the United States Senate, I've had the privilege as the senior-ranking Jewish member of that body to participate in negotiations that were not public negotiations with Frank Carlucci and Cap Weinberger and Jim Baker and President Bush and others, negotiating having to do -- negotiations having to do with arms sales, negotiating having to do with the sale of planes to Saudi Arabia and having to do with the sale of planes to Israel, negotiations having to do with a host of other concerns that we who are supportive of Israel have had during that period of time, and certainly participating in the negotiations having to do with the freedom of the Ethiopian Jews who were able to leave Ethiopia, go to the Sudan and then go on to the state of Israel.

I'm very proud of the fact that Israel today is so well recognized throughout the world, so well respected. There's a certain identity of purpose between Israel and the United States and a reason our allegiance and our relationship. That fact is that both of these nations came -- were formed of immigrants, both of these nations were formed of those people who were fleeing from religious persecution, and both of the nations are the -- two of the outstanding democracies in the world today.

And I know as I stand here that Israel's -- that the United States' support for Israel will continue strong, will continue effective, that Israel is the bastion of democracy in the Middle East, and that Israel and the United States will continue that relationship for many years in the future. I'm proud to be here with you today.

AMB. RABINOVICH: Thank you very much, Senator.

I'd like to recognize a guest that we have with us, Aba Eban. I'm glad you still remember persons who were ambassadors here so many years ago.

Our National Day, Independence Day, is a day of mixed emotions. It's a day of joy, pride, gratitude and pain -- joy at the fact of Jewish independence and statehood after so many years of statelessness and powerlessness; pride at the achievements that the state of Israel has had over the past 46 years; gratitude to the friends and allies who have helped us in this, primarily the Jewish people and the people and government of the United States; pain at the fact that we still continue to pay the heavy price of casualties in the ongoing fright and struggle to maintain the states, some of them paid recently. And today, on the very day of Independence Day, there was yet another attempt that fortunately did not produce other casualties.

Independence Day is also a day for looking back and gazing forward -- looking back into the distance of 46 years in the past, and when one compares the tiny fledgling state of Israel of 1948 to the bustling, powerful state of the president, one can feel and share a degree of satisfaction; gazing to the future, we want to look at the kind of secure peace that we are trying to negotiate, the kind of secure peace that we can have, the kind of secure peace that, as the secretary said, the United States, the international community, we, and hopefully our Arab neighbors will be able to negotiate together.

This is the kind of secure peace that the people in the state of Israel so richly deserve to have. I very much hope that when we meet here again, a year from now, we will be able to celebrate at least the beginning of such a peace. Thank you very much.

MR. EBAN: My friends, until 10 minutes ago, Itamar Rabinovich was my friend. Now he has asked me to improvised some reactions to all the drama and the recollection of this day, I assure you, without the slightest preparation. But he will be forgiven.

As I forgive -- not only forgive, but as I admire all the work carried out by my successors across these decades, culminating in a moment which I believe is a peak in Israel's security and in Israel's international friendships. Even during the past two years, our network of diplomatic relations has expanded from a few dozen to over 120, largely in response to the growing conviction that Israel is determined and resolute to achieve a peaceful order in the Middle East based on the friendship with all its neighbors.

Well, no Israeli can possibly wake up on this anniversary without remembering where he was and what he was doing on that historic day, May the 14th, correspondent to our Hebrew calendar today, 1948. Well, I do remember where I was and what I was doing. I was sitting in the Security Council of the United Nations attempting to prevent the adoption of a resolution for preventing the establishment of the state of Israel. And we prevented them from preventing it -- largely because of the determination and the solid rectitude of President Truman, but also because we were successful on that occasion in creating a Parliamentary success.

The task was to prolong the debate until at least 6:00, at which time the British mandate would expire. And my job was to see that nothing would happen in the meanwhile that would preempt jurisdiction for the United Nations or for any other body.

I therefore approached one of our friends in the Latin American delegation, said that "we have three hours to go, would Your Excellency please, please carry out a filibuster for three hours?" And he said, "For me, my dear friend, a speech of three hours is not a filibuster, it is a normal speech." If the hour came, if the bells rang out and nobody, no government and no international agency had claimed jurisdiction and therefore we were free in every juridical and every other sense, as well as in the historical sense, to go forward.

I would only say now that in Israel today, the sounds of celebration are mingled as never before with the sounds of reflection and also with the sounds of grief. I believe that our government, sustained by a majority of the people, know what the answer is. The answer is not to stop the negotiation, but to regard what is happening as a stimulus and as a justification for pushing onward with determination towards a peaceful order.

After all -- after all, I remember on the 15th of May, 1974, a terrible tragedy overtook some 19 of our youngsters, students in the village school of Maa'lot and Secretary Kissinger, who was then mediating an agreement with Syria for disengagement, had reason to fear that the Israeli government would suspend the negotiations. And my colleagues and I, Prime Minister Meir, we deliberated at length, and that eventually we told the then-secretary of state that the decision was that we would suspend negotiations for 24 hours and then straight back to the negotiating table because terrorism is the disease, negotiation is the remedy. Never subordinate the remedy to the disease. And the other -- and never do what violence dictates. Well, it's great pleasure to be here, quite unexpectedly, on this podium. I hope that we will all meet next at home in Israel. You'll find us very easy to get on with. All you have to do is to agree with everything we say -- but even that is not a viable option because we do not say the same thing. We take our decisions not by the dogmatic acceptance of authority, but by the interaction of alternative and sometimes contradictory choices. And it is that democratic spirit that will inspire us in the future. So let me say to you all -- (speaks in Hebrew, not translated).

AMB. RABINOVICH: I want to thank -- I want to thank Abba Eban for rising up to the challenge of improvisation -- and I think your applause clearly reflected what you felt and how you sensed. And I would like to wish all of us a happy Independence Day despite the clouds that are there above us, but we all want to believe that they are temporary and that there will be a bright sky in the not-too-distant future, and I want to wish you all a happy Independence Day, as I said, and let us all enjoy the rest of our evening. Thank you very much.