○  the perils of indifference  ○

g, filled with drama and emotion, between rabin and arafat that you, mr. president, convened in this very place. i was here and i will never forget it.

and then, of course, the joint decision of the united states and nato to intervene in kosovo and save those victims, those refugees, those who were uprooted by a man, whom i believe that because of his crimes, should be charged with crimes against humanity.

but this time, the world was not silent. this time, we do respond. this time, we intervene.

does it mean that we have learned from the past? does it mean that society has changed? has the human being become less indifferent and more human? have we really learned from our experiences? are we less insensitive to the plight of victims of ethnic cleansing and other forms of injustices in places near and far? is today's justified intervention in kosovo, led by you, mr. president, a lasting warning that never again will the deportation, the terrorization of children and their parents, be allowed anywhere in the world? will it discourage other dictators in other lands to do the same?

what about the children? oh, we see them on television, we read about them in the papers, and we do so with a broken heart. their fate is always the most tragic, inevitably. when adults wage war, children perish. we see their faces, their eyes. do we hear their pleas? do we feel their pain, their agony? every minute one of them dies of disease, violence, famine.

some of them -- so many of them -- could be saved.

and so, once again, i think of the young jewish boy from the carpathian mountains. he has accompanied the old man i have become throughout these years of quest and struggle. and together we walk towards the new millennium, carried by profound fear and extraordinary hope.

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