COMMERCE SECRETARY PRITZKER ATTENDS WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM IN DAVOS, SWITZERLAND

FROM:  DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE 
Secretary Pritzker Takes “Open For Business Agenda” to World Economic Forum
Submitted on January 24, 2014 - 6:00pm

This week Secretary Pritzker was in Davos, Switzerland at the World Economic Forum (WEF). Her participation in WEF highlighted the importance of innovation and entrepreneurship as part of the Commerce Department’s “Open for Business Agenda.” The Department of Commerce is responsible for promoting the ideas and policies that support innovation and entrepreneurship, which help America maintain its competitive edge, spur wage and job growth, and strengthen the U.S. economy.

Secretary Pritzker participated in a plenary session on the US Economic Outlook with Treasury Secretary Jack Lew and US Trade Representative Michael Froman. During the panel Secretary Pritzker said she was optimistic and bullish about America’s future because the economy and American competitiveness have regained traction. The economy has created 8 million jobs in past 4 years, including more than 2.2 million private sector jobs last year, and nearly 600,000 new jobs in manufacturing. With 10 straight quarters of GDP growth, the recovery is starting to take hold and economists expect continued strong growth in the year ahead.

Secretary Pritzker also reiterated the need for increased trade and investment. Since 95% of consumers live outside of our borders, it is important that we continue to pursue free trade agreements since they have proved to be one of the best ways to open up foreign markets to U.S. exporters. That is why the Obama Administration is pursuing additional trade agreements that will cover 60% of the global GDP and open up new markets to American businesses. The Secretary also promoted SelectUSA, the Administration’s aggressive effort to seek potential investors.

Secretary Pritzker pushed for a sustained recovery built upon real wage growth. She called for aggressively addressing income inequality by lifting incomes and helping long-term unemployed through increasing the minimum wage and extending unemployment insurance. Pritzker noted that business and government leaders have a moral responsibility to support their workers and thereby strengthen their middle class – in an increasingly interconnected, competitive global economy.

WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM REMARKS BY SECRETARY OF STATE KERRY

FROM:  STATE DEPARTMENT 
Remarks at the World Economic Forum
Remarks
John Kerry
Secretary of State
Davos, Switzerland
January 24, 2014

Well, Klaus, thank you very, very much. It’s an enormous pleasure for me to be back in Davos and to have this opportunity to be able to share some thoughts with all of you about American foreign policy. And I have – as Klaus just said to you all, I have had the privilege of being here many times over the past 20 years. I always appreciate the diversity of thought and the thirst for new ideas that really characterizes this forum. It’s safe to say that Davos pushes the limits of thinking, tries hard to find the new thinking, and that’s really what makes this forum so special. So Klaus, I congratulate you on many, many years of putting together a really remarkable venue for everybody.

Today, I want to share our latest thinking with respect to the role that U.S. diplomacy can play in addressing some of the most pressing foreign policy challenges that we face in an obviously extraordinarily complex, very different world from the world of the last century.

I must say I am perplexed by claims that I occasionally hear that somehow America is disengaging from the world, this myth that we are pulling back or giving up or standing down. In fact, I want to make it clear today that nothing could be further from the truth. This misperception, and in some case, a driven narrative, appears to be based on the simplistic assumption that our only tool of influence is our military, and that if we don’t have a huge troop presence somewhere or we aren’t brandishing an immediate threat of force, we are somehow absent from the arena. I think the only person more surprised than I am by the myth of this disengagement is the Air Force pilot who flies the Secretary of State’s plane.

Obviously, our engagement isn’t measured in frequent flier miles – though it would be pretty nice if I got a few, as a matter of fact – but it is really measured – and I think serious students of foreign policy understand this – it is measured by the breadth of our global commitments, their depth, especially our commitments to our allies in every corner of the world. It is measured by the degree of difficulty of the crises and the conflicts that we choose to confront, and it is measured ultimately by the results that we are able to achieve.

Far from disengaging, America is proud to be more engaged than ever, and, I believe, is playing as critical a role, perhaps as critical as ever, in pursuit of peace, prosperity, and stability in various parts of the world.

Right here in Europe, we are working with our partners to press the Government of Ukraine to forgo violence, to address the concerns of peaceful protesters, to foster dialogue, promote the freedom of assembly and expression. And I literally just received messages before walking in here of the efforts of our diplomats on the ground working with President Yanukovych to try to achieve calm and help move in this direction in the next days. We will stand with the people of Ukraine.

We’re also making progress towards finalizing the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, which would link the world’s largest market, the EU, with the world’s single largest economy, the United States, raising standards and creating jobs on both sides of the Atlantic.

In the Asia Pacific region, we are negotiating the Trans Pacific Partnership, which will similarly encourage a race to the top, not the bottom, as it unifies 40 percent of the world’s economy. The United States is working extremely closely with China and our allies in the region in order to address North Korea’s reckless nuclear program, and also on diplomatic priorities like disaster relief and development. I was recently in the Philippines, and in a few weeks, I will be back in Asia, my fifth trip as Secretary of State within a year. We are working with our ASEAN partners to discourage escalatory steps and conflict in the South China Sea. And this is a critical part of the President’s rebalance to Asia.

Across Africa, the home to seven of the world’s 10 fastest-growing economies, we are investing heavily in both development and trade. And in the Great Lakes region, we just recently helped end an armed rebellion, demobilizing the M23 armed group. And just yesterday, thanks to our diplomatic intense engagement on the ground, we have helped to achieve a ceasefire in South Sudan. And I can tell you that almost every day during the so-called Christmas break, I was on the phone to either President Kiir or to former Vice President Riek Machar or to the prime minister of Ethiopia or President Museveni of Uganda as we worked diligently to try to move towards peace.

Closer to home, we just completed a U.S.-Canada-Mexico summit in Washington last week in preparation for our leaders who will focus on increased cooperation in our hemisphere, a North American effort for renewed entrepreneurship, renewable energy, and educational exchanges.

So after a decade that was perhaps uniquely, and in many people’s view, unfortunately, excessively defined foremost by force and our use of force, we are entering an era of American diplomatic engagement that is as broad and as deep as any at any time in our history. And such are the responsibilities of a global power.

The most bewildering version of this disengagement myth is about a supposed retreat by the United States from the Middle East. Now, my response to that suggestion is simple: You cannot find another country – not one country – that is as proactively engaged, that is partnering with so many Middle Eastern countries as constructively as we are on so many high-stake fronts. And I want to emphasize that last point: partnering. We have no pretense about solving these problems alone. Nor is anyone suggesting, least of all me, that the United States can solve every one of the region’s problems or that every one of them can be a priority at the same time.

But as President Obama made clear last fall at the United Nations, the United States of America will continue to invest significant effort in the Middle East because we have enduring interests in the region, and we have enduring friendships with countries that rely on us for their security in a volatile neighborhood. We will defend our partners and our allies as necessary, and we will continue to ensure the free flow of energy, dismantle terrorist networks, and we will not tolerate the proliferation of nuclear weapons.

Now in reality, all three of these challenges and the relationships that surround them and accomplishing all of these goals requires, in President Obama’s words, for the United States to “be engaged in the region for the long haul.”

From security cooperation with our Gulf partners like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, with whom we are both discussing longer-term security framework for the region, as well as to helping countries in transition like Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Yemen, to countering al-Qaida and its affiliates, to ensuring stability for the world’s shipping lanes and energy supply, there is no shortage of the places where we are engaged in the Middle East.

So the question isn’t whether we’re leaving. The question is how we are leading. Today, we believe that there are initiatives that, taken together, have the potential to reshape the Middle East and could even help create the foundations of a new order.

First, the agreement that we reached with Iran. As of this week, Iran’s nuclear weapons program is being rolled back in important ways. On Monday, Iran took a series of steps that the world has long demanded, including reducing its stockpile of 20 percent enriched uranium, disabling the infrastructure for its production, and allowing unprecedented transparency and monitoring to guarantee Iran is complying with the agreement.

They will have to reduce their 20 percent to zero, and they do not have and will not have the capacity for reconversion. They will have to reduce it to forms that are not suitable for making weapons. Iran must also halt enrichment above 5 percent and it will not be permitted to grow the current stockpile of 3.5 percent enriched uranium. Iran cannot increase the number of centrifuges that are in operation, and it cannot install or use any next-generation centrifuges to enrich uranium. And while we negotiate a final agreement over these next months, Iran will not be permitted to take any steps to commission the Arak plutonium reactor.

Now clearly, there are good reasons to ask tough questions of Iran going forward – and believe me, we will – and good reasons to require that the promises Iran made are promises kept. Remember – we certainly haven’t forgotten – there is a reason that world has placed sanctions on Iran. There’s a reason why they exist in the first place. And there’s a reason why the core architecture of those sanctions remains in place. And that is why this effort is grounded not in trusting, not in words, but in testing. And that is why now inspectors can be at Fordow every day.

That wasn’t the case before the agreement we struck. Inspectors can now also be at Natanz every day. That’s also new, thanks to the agreement we struck. And inspectors will visit Arak plutonium plant every month, and they are under an obligation to deliver the plans for that plant to us.

Taken altogether, these elements will increase the amount of time that it would take for Iran to break out and build a bomb – the breakout time, as we call it – and it will increase our ability to be able to detect it and to prevent it. And all of this will to an absolute guarantee beyond any reasonable doubt make Israel safer than it was the day before we entered this agreement, make the region safer than it was the day before we entered this agreement, and make the world safer than it was.

Now yesterday, President Rouhani stood here and he said that Iran is eager to engage with the world, and hopefully. But Iran knows what it must do to make that happen. He told you that Iran has no intention of building a nuclear weapon. Well, while the message is welcome, my friends, the words themselves are meaningless unless actions are taken to give them meaning. Starting now, Iran has the opportunity to prove these words beyond all doubt to the world.

Now, let’s be clear: If you are serious about a peaceful program, it is not hard to prove to the world that your program is peaceful. For sure, a country with a peaceful nuclear program does not need to build enrichment facilities in the cover of darkness in the depth of a mountain. It doesn’t need a heavy water reactor designed to produce weapons-grade plutonium, like the one at Arak. It has no reason to fear intrusive monitoring and verification. And it should have no problem resolving outstanding issues with the International Atomic Energy Agency.

This is true for every country in the world with an exclusively peaceful nuclear program. And it is the tough but reasonable standard to which Iran must also be held.

So we welcome this week’s historic step. But now the hard part begins, six months of intensive negotiations with the goal of resolving all the international community’s concerns about Iran’s nuclear program. I want to say that the P5+1 has acted in unity, in great cooperation, and we welcome the international community’s efforts that has characterized this initiative.

So Iran must meet this test. If it does, the Middle East will be a safer place, free from the fear of a nuclear arms race. And diplomatic engagement, my friends, backed by sanctions and other options, will have proved its worth.

The second challenge is Syria, where an enormous, almost unimaginable human tragedy is unfolding before our eyes. Just this week, we have seen the terrible new evidence of torture at the hands of the Assad regime. But this week we also saw the Syrian regime and the opposition sit at the same table in the same room – or separate tables but in the same room – for the first time since the war began. They were joined by more than 40 countries and institutions who have assented to the Geneva communique, which clearly outlines how this conflict must conclude: With the creation of a transitional government with full executive authority by mutual consent.

Let me tell you in simple terms why that means Bashar al-Assad cannot be part of that future. It is simple. It is first because of the extraordinary havoc that he has wreaked on his own country, on his own people; a man who has killed university students and doctors with Scud missiles; a man who has gassed his own people in the dead of night – families sleeping, women, children, grandparents; a man who has unleashed extraordinary force of artillery and barrel bombs against civilians against the laws of warfare. Assad will never have or be able to earn back the legitimacy to bring that country back together.

That’s number one. But number two, because of those things that he has done, because of 130,000 people who have been killed, the opposition will never stop fighting while he is there. And so if your objective is to have peace, this one man must step aside in favor of peace and of his nation. You can never achieve stability until he is gone. And finally, any transitional government formed by mutual consent by definition will not include Assad because the opposition will never consent to permit him to be there.

The United States is engaged in this difficult endeavor because we know that the longer the fighting continues, the greater the risk that Syria’s sectarian divisions will spiral out of control. We know there are people who wish that American young men and women who were on the ground fighting for them – there are people who would love to see America fight the war for them. But that is not the choice.

The choice is first diplomacy in order to avoid the devastating results that could result in the disintegration of the Syrian state, and the instability that could spread across the entire region. We are engaged because the number of refugees pouring into Jordan – I see our friend Nasser Judeh, the foreign minister here – into Lebanon, and Turkey is destabilizing and it’s unsustainable.

We are engaged because, while we are proud to be the largest contributor to the humanitarian assistance to deal with those refugees, the ultimate solution can only come when we stop the supply of refugees, when we stop the fighting. And that can’t happen soon enough because Assad continues to kill and displace innocent Syrians, and in doing so has become the world’s greatest single individual magnet for jihad and terror.

Absent a political solution, we know where this leads: more refugees, more terrorists, more extremism, more brutality from the regime, more suffering for the Syrian people. And we do not believe that we or anyone should tolerate one man’s brutal effort to cling to power. We must instead empower all of the Syrian people.

That is why the United States and our partners who sat around that table this week will continue to fight for a pluralistic, inclusive Syria where all minorities are protected, where all rights are protected, and where Syria can come together to be once again the secular and unified state that it was, represented by a government of the people’s choice where all minorities are protected.

Now, we believe this vision is achievable, and we will continue to work closely with our partners for a new Syria that can exist peacefully as a sovereign, independent, and democratic state where Syrians will be able to able have their voices heard without fear of retribution, imprisonment, or even death.

Now obviously, we know this isn’t going to be easy. In fact, it’s obviously very, very hard. It’s already hard. But we’ve already seen in Syria what forceful diplomacy is able to achieve. As we speak, a man who, the day before he agreed to do it, denied he even had the weapons, is now removing all the chemical weapons from that country. As we speak, the international community is on its way to completely removing all of Syria’s chemical weapons, an unprecedented undertaking that is making the region and the world safer and is setting an example on a global basis.

We are convinced that if the Syrian people are to have the chance to rebuild their country and if millions of Syrian refugees are to have the chance to return home, it is ultimately diplomacy that will make it possible. There is no military solution to the problem of Syria.

And that brings me to the most intractable of all conflicts: the struggle to make peace between Israelis and Palestinians. Every time I meet my foreign counterparts, anywhere in the world – when they visit me in Washington or when I travel to their countries – I am not kidding you when I tell you that invariably the first issue that they ask me about is the challenge of Middle East peace. It may seem improbable to you, but I’m telling you it’s absolutely true. From Asia to Latin America to Africa, all through Europe, this question lingers. This intractable conflict has confounded administration after administration, prime minister after prime minister, leaders, and peacemakers. And they always ask this about the Middle East even before they complain about what we’re doing or not doing, ironically.

Despite this global interest, my friends, people still ask me – I’m astonished by it – why, with all the troubles in the world, and in the Middle East in particular, why is the Obama Administration so focused on trying to forge Israeli-Palestinian peace? And obviously, I’ve had that question directed at me in personal and in other ways. Well, the reason that we are so devoted to trying to find a solution is really very simple: Because the benefits of success and the dangers of failure are enormous for the United States, for the world, for the region, and most importantly, for the Israeli and Palestinian people. After all the years expended on this, the last thing we need is a failure that will make certain additional conflict.

There are some people who assert this may be the last shot. I don’t know the answer to that. I don’t want to find out the hard way. But I want you to consider what happens if talks fail. For Israel, the demographic dynamic will make it impossible to preserve its future as a democratic, Jewish state. Israel’s current relative security and prosperity doesn’t change the fact that the status quo cannot be sustained if Israel’s democratic future is in fact to be secured. Today’s status quo, my friends, I promise you will not last forever.

President Abbas is committed to negotiation and to nonviolence. But failure will only embolden extremists and empower hardliners at the expense of the moderates who have been committed to a nonviolent track to try to find peace. And what would happen in the West Bank without that commitment to nonviolence?

The Israeli and Palestinian members of Breaking the Impasse initiative who are here today know well what is at stake. Israel’s economic juggernaut is a wonder to behold. Prime Minister Netanyahu was able to talk to you about it here today. But a deteriorating security environment and the growing isolation that could come with it could put that prosperity at risk.

Meanwhile, if this fails, Palestinians will be no closer to the sovereignty that they seek, no closer to their ability to be the masters of their own fate, no closer to their ability to grow their own economy, no closer to resolving the refugee problem that has been allowed to fester for decades. And if they fail to achieve statehood now, there is no guarantee another opportunity will follow anytime soon.

This issue cannot be resolved at the United Nations. It can only be resolved between the parties. If peace fails, the region risks another destabilizing crisis. One unilateral act from one side or the other will beget another, and yet another, and another, until we have fallen yet again into a dangerous downward spiral at a time where there’s already too much danger in the region.

And you know what’s interesting? We often spend so much time talking about what both parties stand to lose without peace that we actually sometimes forget to talk enough about what they stand to gain from peace. I believe that the fact that peace is possible, especially in a region with so much tension and turmoil, ought to motivate people.

Palestinians stand to gain, above all else, an independent, viable, contiguous state, their own place among the community of nations. Imagine this time next year here in Davos if Palestinian businessmen and government leaders from the state of Palestine are able to pitch the world’s largest investors a host of projects from the Palestinian Economic Initiative. And imagine if they could be invited to participate in building a new state with new jobs, new infrastructure, and a new life free from occupation.

And for Israel, the benefits of peace are enormous as well, perhaps even more significant. For starters, no nation on earth stands to gain so many new economic partners so quickly as Israel does, because 20 additional members – nations of the Arab League and 35 Muslim countries stand ready under the Arab Peace Initiative to all recognize Israel and normalize relations the moment a peace agreement is reached.

As Sheikh Abduallah bin Zaid said at a meeting of the foreign ministers of the Arab League, which we held in Paris a few months ago, he said to his minister colleagues – completely spontaneously, unexpected from me, he said, “You know what? After peace, Israel will enjoy greater economic benefit from relations with the Gulf than it now enjoys with Europe.” That’s the foreign minister of the United Arab Emirates.

Just imagine what that would mean for commerce and trade. Stanley Fischer, the former governor of the Bank of Israel who President Obama has nominated to serve on our own Federal Reserve Board, said that a peace agreement with the Palestinians could boost Israel’s GDP by as much as 6 percent a year.

And together, the Jewish state of Israel and the Arab state of Palestine can develop into an international hub for technology, for trade, tourism – tourism, unbelievable tourism, the holy sites of the world, of the major three religions. This would invigorate a region. It is long past time that the people of this great and ancient part of the world became known for what they can create, not for the conflicts that they can perpetrate. It is long past time that Jerusalem – the crucible of the world’s three great monotheistic religions – becomes known not as the object of constant struggle, but as the golden city of peace and unity, embodying the aspirations of Israelis and Palestinians alike.

The truth is that after decades of struggling with this conflict, we all know what the endgame looks like: an independent state for Palestinians wherever they may be; security arrangements for Israel that leave it more secure, not less; a full, phased, final withdrawal of the Israeli army; a just and agreed solution to the Palestinian refugee problem; an end to the conflict and all claims; and mutual recognition of the nation-state of the Palestinian people and the nation-state of the Jewish people.

That is our destination. And the real challenge is not what is it; it’s just how to get there – how to get the leaders and the body politic of both places to make the courageous decisions necessary to embrace what would be fair and what would work. That’s why I am working with President Abbas and with Prime Minister Netanyahu to achieve a framework for the negotiations that will define the endgame and all the core issues, and provide guidelines for the negotiators in their efforts to achieve a final-status peace agreement.

I have watched over 30 years in the United States Senate. I was on the lawn in Washington when the great handshake took place. I’ve watched Annapolis and Wye and Madrid and Oslo and all of these efforts, but always we’ve left out the endgame. Always, people have had to wonder when or if the real peace could be achieved.

One of the biggest challenges in reaching this agreement, I will tell you, my friends, is security. The Palestinians need to know that at the end of the day, their territory is going to be free of Israeli troops, that occupation ends; but the Israelis rightfully will not withdraw unless they know that the West Bank will not become a new Gaza. And nobody can blame any leader of Israel for being concerned about that reality. We have been working hard on addressing this challenge. President Obama’s approach begins with America’s steadfast commitment to Israel’s security. He knows and I know that there cannot be peace unless Israel’s security and its needs are met.

We have put the full range of resources of the U.S. Government behind this effort in an unprecedented way. For the past nine months, a team led by General John Allen – a four-star general and one of the most respected minds in the U.S. military – has been engaged in a comprehensive security dialogue with our Israeli and Palestinian counterparts.

Based on his efforts, we are confident that, together with Israel, working with Jordan, working with the Palestinians, working with us, all of us together can create a security structure that meets the highest standards anywhere in the world. And by developing a layered defense that includes significantly strengthening the fences on both sides of the border, by deploying state-of-the-art technology, with a comprehensive program of rigorous testing, we can make the border safe for any type of conventional or unconventional threat, from individual terrorists or a conventional armed force. We are well aware that technology alone is not the answer, but we also know that it can play a key role in helping to secure the Jordanian border, just like Iron Dome has played a key role in securing Israel’s southern communities.

Security is a priority because we understand that Israel has to be strong to make peace, but we also believe that peace will make Israel stronger. We are convinced that the greatest security of all will actually come from a two-state solution that brings Israel the lasting peace and secure borders that they deserve, and brings Palestinians the freedom and the dignity that they deserve.

As committed as we are, it is ultimately up to the Israelis and the Palestinians to reach an agreement on how to end this conflict. Make no mistake: this will require difficult political decisions and painful compromises on both sides. These are emotional issues, many embedded in age-old narratives. At the end of the day, it is up to Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Abbas to recognize what the world has recognized: that peace is in the best interests of their people. But that makes it no less true that at every level, everybody has a role to play. The Arab League and the European Union have already shown how they can pave the way for peace, and they have been unbelievably cooperative, and we’re grateful for their help. I thank King Abdullah of Jordan and Nasser Judeh and the extraordinary efforts of Jordan to help move this; the Arab League Nabil Elaraby, and Khalid Atiyah, the leader of the Arab League Follow-On Committee that is working month to month to stay current and to be engaged in this.

Many states have made contributions to the Palestinian economy, including a micro-infrastructure initiative that is making a difference to people’s everyday lives. Many companies, including some of you here, have invested in both Israel and the Palestinian territories, and you’ve shown the difference that the private sector can make in this endeavor. And all of you can make a positive contribution by dismissing, please, the all-too-easy skepticism by seeing the possibilities and by building the momentum for peace.

Successful diplomacy, like the conversations here at Davos, demands the kind of cooperation that has to come from many stakeholders. As Klaus Schwab says, in an interconnected world, all challenges must be addressed on the basis of togetherness. That is true, whether you’re talking about this peace effort or about what we must achieve in Syria, or about what we must ensure in Iran. Intensive, creative, strong diplomacy requires cooperation, and that is exactly why the United States is so engaged in the Middle East and around the world, and why we will stay so.

As our friends and partners take courageous steps forward, they can be assured that President Obama and his Administration will remain engaged for the long haul. But we will also confront these challenges with the urgency that they deserve. We dare not, and I sure you, we will not miss this moment.

Thank you. (Applause.)

SECRETARY OF STATE KERRY'S REMARKS AT WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM

FROM: U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT

Remarks to Special Program on Breaking the Impasse World Economic Forum
Remarks
John Kerry
Secretary of State
Dead Sea, Jordan
May 26, 2013

SECRETARY KERRY: Klaus, thank you very much for a very generous introduction. And it is wonderful to be here with all of you. I have enjoyed participating in the World Economic Forum for many years, as Klaus said in his introduction. And Klaus, I think everybody here joins me in thanking you for creating this remarkable and important institution. It gives people a great opportunity, and we thank you. (Applause.)

I want to thank – let me say, Mr. President Abbas and Mr. President Peres, thank you so much for those comments. I have an agreement here which you both can come up and sign if you want. (Laughter and applause.) We’ll get there, we’ll get there, we’ll get there.

Your Royal Highnesses and your Excellencies and distinguished many guests, I want to first begin just by expressing a very special thank you to His Majesty, King Abdullah. I think all of us are honored to be in a hall that is named after his father, who fought hard for peace, and I thank him for his leadership. I thank King Abdullah for his leadership on so many issues in the region. (Applause.)

It’s also very special for me to be here with President Peres. He is a great friend. For many years I have been meeting with him in Israel or elsewhere around the world, and I have long admired him for his remarkable, eloquent, and steady leadership. And thank you very much, Shimon, for what you do. (Applause.)

I’m also very, very pleased that President Abbas would be here and share his thoughts with us. He, too, is a friend who I have gotten to know better and better. We meet frequently now, and we all count on him to continue to be the essential partner for peace at this critical juncture. Thank you, Mr. President, for being here. (Applause.)

It’s also a great pleasure to be in this remarkable country of Jordan, and I thank my counterpart Nasser Judeh, who had to get back to Amman. But I thank him for his hospitality always, but more importantly for his partnership as we navigate these tricky waters. And I want to say a special thank you to the Quartet Representative, former Prime Minister Tony Blair. (Applause.) He has never lost his passion for or interest in peace in this region. He has labored hard in these last years, and he is working diligently on a special project that I want to share with you in a few minutes.

I also want to acknowledge Chairwoman Kay Granger, who is here from the United States Congress. She is the Chairwoman of the Subcommittee on Appropriations, and believe me, folks, she is critical to all of us here. (Applause.)

I spent the last week traveling through the Middle East and Africa, and I have spoken with national leaders, business leaders, community leaders, and young people. I just had a session with young people at the University of Addis Ababa earlier this morning. And we talked with them, as I have talked with all of these leaders, about the enormous choices that are before us – weighty decisions that confront us in the aftermath of the Arab Awakening – decisions that we need to make and reach before the demographic tipping points just around the corner begin to overwhelm us.

No one doubts that this is a very complex moment in international relations. But still, I don’t think that there is any secret about the conditions that are necessary for peace and stability to succeed. Those are: good governance, security, and economic opportunity. And so the real question for all of us, for President Abbas, President Peres, Prime Minister Netanyahu, all of us, is a very simple one: Will we, despite the historic hurdles, have the courage to make the choices that we know we need to make in order to break the stalemate and provide a change of life for people in this region?

How we answer that question will determine whether the popular revolutions that are transforming this region will indeed fulfill their promise. It will determine whether businesses and the booming youth populations across the Middle East and North Africa will realize their potential. It will determine whether we grasp the possibility of peace which I believe is actually within our reach.

I want to thank those who took part and are taking part and will continue to take part in the Breaking the Impasse. My good friends, Munib Masri, whom I have known and worked with and been to some of those private and quiet meetings with him in various places, and Yossi Vardi, thank you, both of you, for stepping up and being courageous. (Applause.) They represent a courageous and visionary group of people, civic and business leaders, Israelis and Palestinians who have I think the uncommon ability to look at an ageless stalemate and actually be able to see opportunities for progress.

And even as they found plenty to disagree on – and I understand they did in the course of their discussions – even as they fully understand the difficult history that is embedded in this conflict – they refuse to underestimate the potential for the future.

And that’s because Breaking the Impasse’s guiding principle is to respect the freedom and the dignity of all peoples.

I want you to think about that, and I want to put my comments about the peace process in a larger context, if I can for a minute.

As we all remember, it was the lack of that kind of basic respect that ignited the Arab Awakening. It started with a single protest – a street vendor who deserved the right to be able to sell his goods without police interruption and corruption. And then it spread to Cairo, where young Egyptians used their cell phones and tweeted and texted and Googled and called and summoned people to the cause. And they used the social media to organize and demand more jobs, more opportunity, and the liberty to embrace and direct their own destiny. In doing so, these individuals and these individual acts embraced values that are so powerful that they, against all probability, removed dictators who had served for years. And they did it in a matter of days.

Now, of course, there are sectarian and religious and ideological motivations to many of today’s clashes that have followed those events, but those events weren’t inspired by religious extremism or ideological extremism. They were driven by motivation for opportunity and a future.

And what is fundamentally driving the demand for change in this region is, in fact, generational. It’s about whether the massive populations of young people, still growing, has hope that there is something better on the horizon. It’s about opportunity and it’s about respect and it’s about dignity.

And the aspirations that are driving the extraordinary transformations that began in Tunisia and Tahrir Square – the same ones that sparked what has unraveled into a brutal civil war with some sectarian overtones at this point, those aspirations aren’t unique to any one country. They’re universal. They have driven all of history.

So we ignore the lessons of the Arab Awakening at our own peril. And with an important part of the world upside down, it is imperative that all of us channel our creativity and our energy into making sure that people actually do have better choices.

The public and private sectors alike – and this is where you all come into this. The public and private sectors alike have a fundamental responsibility to meet the demands of this moment. And one can’t do it without the other. We need you at the table, Munib and Yossi and all of you.

In fact, this moment is actually – this moment in history is actually one of the great stories of our time. But the ending remains unwritten, which is why what we’re doing here is actually important. Insh’allah, we get to write that ending.

And how we do that is what I want to talk to you about here today. We have to remember that the choices being made – whether they’re being made north of here in Syria, or south of here in Yemen, or just across the Jordan River in Jerusalem, or in Ramallah, or further west in Egypt, Libya, Tunisia – they all have something very important in common: They each offer two clear paths that really couldn’t be more different one from the other, and they couldn’t have more different consequences.

If we don’t eagerly grab this moment, we will condemn ourselves to future conflict. We are staring down a dangerous path filled with potential violence, with the capacity to harden divisions, increase instability. And as most here are very, very aware, this will be a path that will be haunted by violent extremists who rush to fill the vacuum filled by the failure of leadership.

As King Abdullah said here yesterday, extremism has "grown fat" on conflict. If we make the wrong choices or no choices at all, dangerous people will come to possess more of the world’s most dangerous weapons. We will face huge pressure on states from growing populations of refugees, just like the camps that are metastasizing just over here on the border of Jordan and Syria.

Now, everybody here knows it’s not that governments or people will purposefully choose that option. That’s not the concern. It’s that by failing to choose the alternative and failing to take the risks for peace and stability, those with power will make the worst possibilities inevitable.

So what is the other alternative? Let me talk about that a little bit.

Governments need to pay attention to governance. They need to be open, transparent, and accountable to people. And they need to be seen implementing a vision that addresses the needs of their people – the needs to be able to work, to get an education, to have an opportunity to be treated with that dignity and respect that brought people to Tahrir Square and to so many other causes in this region.

Countries like Egypt, Libya and Tunisia need to make the right choices, and that is a combination of building capacity – capacity for governance, capacity for security which doesn’t exist, capacity to provide jobs. They need to aggressively re-emerge into the global economic community.

And in making these choices, a significant part of the outcome of the Arab Awakening for certain will be defined by government, because the choices that government makes clearly will have an impact on the playing field. As Egypt moves toward the acceptance of the IMF and hopefully works to bring the opposition to the table, Egypt will be far stronger than if Egypt doesn’t choose to do those things.

But the burden, I want you to know, does not just lie within palaces and parliaments. There is a huge role for business to play here and a huge opportunity for you to share in the success. No one here should underestimate the degree to which the private sector can promote change and force critical choices, as well as impact the actions of government. The fact is that good governance, peace, and economic development necessarily go hand-in-hand.

And that’s why I believe it is time to put in place a new model for development. The old model is one that saw government make grants or give money government-to-government or invest directly in some infrastructure, some kind of public sector investment. The private sector pretty much did what the private sector thought was in the best interest of the private sector in terms of the bottom line. They did their own thing. And so while aid was government-to-government, there was a sort of division of responsibility, if you will.

In this new age, when there is such a greater amount of wealth, so much cash on the sidelines, and where we see so much pressure on governments in terms of their budgets, and where there is still such a great amount of great poverty, we need a new model for how we are going to bring order and open up the possibilities to the future. We need to partner with the private sector because it is clear that most governments don’t have the money, and in certain places, the private sector actually has a greater ability to move things faster than government does. Government can facilitate. Government can leverage. And in fact, government has gained skills and knowledge about how to do that in ways that we never had 10, 15, 20 years ago. And we can do it with greater skill than ever before.

The greater Middle East and many of the countries experiencing the upheaval at this time need to seize on this new model because the task of building stability by creating millions of jobs is urgent for all of us.

Now, one thing I want to make crystal clear, and President Peres mentioned this in his comments: The Palestinian-Israeli conflict is not the cause of the Arab Awakening. But this fundamental principle of what economics can do to play a profound role in meeting the needs of both peoples is critical.

And that is what we’re hoping to do now in the West Bank.

As I mentioned earlier, I have asked Quartet Representative Tony Blair and many business leaders to join together. And Prime Minister Blair is shaping what I believe could be a groundbreaking plan to develop a healthy, sustainable, private-sector-led Palestinian economy that will transform the fortunes of a future Palestinian state, but also, significantly, transform the possibilities for Jordan and for Israel.

It is a plan for the Palestinian economy that is bigger, bolder and more ambitious than anything proposed since Oslo, more than 20 years ago now. And this, the intention of this plan, of all of its participants, is not to make it merely transformative, but frankly, to make it enormously powerful in the shaping of the possibilities of the future so that it is more transformative than incremental and different from anything that we have seen before.

To achieve that, these leaders have brought together a group of business experts, who have donated their time, who have come from around the world over the course of the last six weeks to make this project real and tangible and formidable – as we say, shovel-ready. They have come from all over the world because they believe in peace, and because they believe prosperity is both a promise and a product of peace.

This group includes leaders of some of the world’s largest corporations, I’m pleased to say. It includes renowned investors and some of the most brilliant business analysts out there – and some of the most committed. One of these senior business leaders actually just celebrated his 69th birthday in Jerusalem at the Colony Hotel after spending a 14-hour day in the West Bank trying to figure it out.

When others ask them, all of them, why they’re here, doing this on their own time, the unanimous answer is: "Because we want a better future for both Israeli children and Palestinian children."

Their plan begins with encouraging local, regional and international business leaders to, and to encourage government leaders in various parts of the world. I raised this issue with the President of China, with the Prime Minister of Japan, with all of our European leaders, and everywhere – with the Brazilian Foreign Minister a few days ago, with the New Zealand Foreign Minister. All of them have on the tip of their tongues the idea that we can make peace in the Middle East and need to, and all of them are committed to be part of this effort in order to change life on the ground.

The fact is that we are looking to mobilize some $4 billion of investment. And this team of experts – private citizens, donating their time – are here right now. They’re analyzing the opportunities in tourism, construction, light manufacturing, building materials, energy, agriculture, and information and communications technology.

This group will make recommendations to the Palestinians. They’re not going to decide anything. The Palestinians will decide that in their normal course of governance. But they will analyze and make recommendations on a set of choices that can dramatically lift the economy.

The preliminary results already reported to me by Prime Minister Blair and by the folks working with him are stunning: These experts believe that we can increase the Palestinian GDP by as much as 50 percent over three years. Their most optimistic estimates foresee enough new jobs to cut unemployment by nearly two-thirds – to 8 percent, down from 21 percent today – and to increase the median annual wage along with it, by as much as 40 percent.

These experts hope that with their plan in full force, agriculture can either double or triple. Tourism can triple. Home construction can produce up to 100,000 jobs over the next three years, and many of them would be energy efficient.

Ultimately, as the investment climate in the West Bank and Gaza improves, so will the potential for a financial self-sufficient Palestinian Authority that will not have to rely as much on foreign aid. So just think, my friends – we are talking about a place with just over 4 million people in a small geographic area. When you’re talking about $4 billion or more and this kind of economic effort, you are talking about something that is absolutely achievable.

I am happy to say that both Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Abbas support this initiative, knowing that just as people find the dignity in a good job, a nation finds pride by functioning and growing an economy that can stand on its own two feet. This will help build the future.

Now, is this fantasy? I don’t think so, because there are already great examples of investment and entrepreneurship that are working in the West Bank.

So we know it can be done – but we’ve never experienced the kind of concentrated effort that this group is talking about bringing to the table.

Now, everyone here also knows how much more can be done if we lift some of the barriers to doing business, build confidence, bring people together. I just ask you to imagine the benefits from a new, open market next door, a new wave of foreign investment that could flow into both Israel and Palestine – and Jordan, and all of them share it.

The effect that could echo throughout the region, and if we prove that this can work here, that can become a model for what can work in other places that are facing similar confrontations.

So my friends, as we gather on the shore of the Dead Sea, a destination unlike any other destination in the world, it’s worth noting the key role that tourism could play in all of this. It’s just one element of the broad sector analysis that I talked about, but it is one of the best opportunities for both countries, for all of the region, for economic vitality and for worldwide use of its reputation.

Today, the Palestinian Authority – the Palestinian Territories attract fewer tourists than Yemen. Even Israel’s tourism is not fully met. Until 2011, Egypt, Jordan and Syria all attracted significantly more tourists than Israel. And despite all the incredible rich archaeological and religious sites in Israel, Jordan, the West Bank, Gaza, together they still attract fewer tourists than the United Arab Emirates.

There is just no question whatsoever – ask Tony Blair, ask the people working on this effort – there is no question whatsoever that the powerful combination of investment in business and investment in peace – risks both worth taking – could turn all of this all around. Imagine a welcoming part of the world that boasts the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, the site of the Tomb of the Patriarchs and the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron, the Western Wall, the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, and more of the world’s other great sites that have drawn tourists and religious pilgrims for centuries.

Most importantly, the success of this this new approach to development could, in fact, become its own example, its own model for the Sahel, for the Maghreb, for the Arabian Peninsula, and beyond. Foreign direct investment – private investment, leveraged investment, visionary investment – has the ability to be able to change the world.

Now, maybe you can get a sense that I actually believe in the potential that we have the power to unleash. But this effort – and this is critical, critical to what was said by both of our speakers before – this effort is only part of the answer, and it will not blossom to its full potential without the other critical part of the equation.

As we learned in the Arab Awakening, as long as prospects for economic advancement remain weak, so do the prospects for peace and stability.

But the opposite is true. The economics will never work properly or fully without the political process. The economic approach is absolutely not – Mr. President Abbas, the economic approach is not a substitute for the political approach. The political approach is essential and it is our top priority. (Applause.) In fact, none of this vision – but it’s good to have the vision, it’s good to know where you want to go, it’s good to know what’s possible – but none of it will happen without the context of the two-state solution.

And the consequences of prolonging the status quo in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is simply in no one’s interest.

We are compelled to come here today to the Dead Sea in the contexts of Breaking the Impasse to ask: If we don’t break the age-old deadlock, if we don’t create the conditions for economic opportunity and responsive, representative governments, where does all this go?

The absence of peace is, in fact, perpetual war, even if it’s low intensity. Are we ready? Do we want to live with a permanent intifada? Most important, the Palestinian Authority, to its credit and credit to the leadership of President Abbas, has taken great risks and invested deeply in a policy of nonviolence in a region where not a lot of people always adopt that in these circumstances. If this experiment is allowed to fail, what is going to replace it? (Applause.)

The truth is that when considering the security of Israelis or Palestinians, the greatest existential threat and the greatest economic threat to both sides is the lack of peace, and the ugly realities that are festering under the surface, capable of catching fire at any time. To not try to head these off would be tragic and it would be irresponsible.

Now, I have been around long enough and I have heard all the arguments against working for Middle East peace. It is famously reputed to be diplomatic quicksand. I am familiar with the cynicism and the skepticism. And after so much disappointment on all sides, I can understand exactly where it comes from.

So of course now, there is huge cynicism about this journey and it greets any push for peace. But cynicism has never built anything, certainly not a state. (Applause.) It is true that the challenge of peace is formidable. But let me say unequivocally: the necessity for peace is much greater.

Indeed, right now the strategic case for peace based on the two-state solution – a secure state of Israel and a viable, independent state of Palestine – the case for that has never been stronger. We talked earlier about the turmoil in the region. There is a reason for that discussion, because everyone feels the uncertainty and the instability as the Middle East slowly releases itself from the past and tries to forge a new and a democratic future.

It’s now clear that the conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians is not the cause, as I mentioned. But it’s equally clear that the resolution of the conflict would bring enormous gains in the political and social environment of the region and help to symbolize and help to crystallize and help to advance the future of the entire region.

Most of all, those who suggest that a two-state solution is already a casualty of years of failed negotiation, and who say that we should search for a new and a different solution, my friends, they have noticeably failed to actually articulate one. And this is for a very simple reason: It is because there is no sustainable alternative solution that exists.

A greater Israel that would end up trying to swallow up the Palestinian people could only possibly survive in a state of institutionalized division and discord, a pale shadow of the democratic vision that motivated and animated the founders of Israel. (Applause.)

And any attempt by Palestinian politicians to wait out Israel in the hope that somehow, some day, the Israelis will just give up and go away, or that somehow they can win a one-state solution, that will only result in decades of futile confrontation and eventual disillusion, and perhaps worse, violence.

So we have no choice but to try again for peace and to find it. We have no alternative to its inevitable difficulty but of challenging and moving down that path. We have to go down that path. And we should negotiate, recognizing that despite all the frustrations, large majorities in the Palestinian Territories and in Israel both support a two-state solution. They support peace. (Applause.) What they need more than anything from all of us is a renewal of hope that peace can actually be achieved. Now, I am well aware that the credibility of anything that is called a "peace process" right now is at a very low base. I know that. I understand that.

But if we give up, we give to those who don’t want reform, or who don’t have the stomach to make the tough choices, an excuse for their own inaction. And two great peoples could come to be known not just for their proud cultures and their contributions to history, or their entrepreneurial energy, but they could come to be known for what they failed to do – or even worse, what they refused to do.

My friends, beyond all the strategies and all the maneuvering, all the politics, there really are some simple realities.

The second graders I have personally seen and met in Sderot, they shouldn’t have to worry about running into a bunker as part of their school day in order to avoid rockets.

And the little girls that I saw playing in rubble in Gaza when I visited it four years ago, they should be able to grow up in a neighborhood where the playgrounds aren’t made of debris, and their lives are not determined by terrorists in their midst.

And the shop owners that I met in Ramallah, some just the other day, they should know that their businesses can flourish without the restrictions that are placed on them, or without the threat of violence.

Time is not on anyone’s side in this – (applause) – and changes on the ground could rob all of us of the possibilities of peace.

The leaders of the Arab Initiative, as have been mentioned earlier, with whom I met in Washington last month, moved and changed and offered an update of the Arab Peace Initiative, and they are committed to making a dramatic step towards peace.

And we all hope and pray that Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Abbas don’t allow this conflict to outlast their administrations.

Negotiations can’t succeed if you don’t negotiate. We are reaching a critical point where tough decisions have to be made. And I just ask all of you to keep your eyes focused on what can really be done here. Think of all that can change. That’s what should motivate us. With renewed and normal relations between Israel and the Arab nations, we could end the regional boycott of Israeli goods. New markets would open up and would connect to one another, and jobs would follow in large numbers.

With renewed strength, the new neighbor states of Israel and Palestine could actually become another hub in the Middle East for technology, finance, tourism. Israel and Palestine and Jordan together could become an international finance center, attracting companies that simply won’t take that risk today.

With a bold, fresh approach like the West Bank project that Tony Blair is heading up and that we discussed earlier, other things can develop here.

In the end, the only way for Israel to survive and thrive as a secure, Jewish, democratic and economically successful state is through the realization of an independent and viable Palestine.

And the only way Palestinians will obtain their sovereignty and the opportunity that comes with it is through direct negotiations with Israelis for a solution of two states for two peoples.

And I say to you, President Abbas: No one is talking about temporary borders. We are talking about an end-of-conflict, end-of-claims peace. (Applause.)

So I come here today to say at this important gathering on Break the Impasse that President Obama is deeply committed to this solution. That is why he came to Israel in an effort to try to open up the people’s minds and hopes and ideas about those possibilities of peace. And I believe that people in both places responded to his call for action.

The only way that both states can succeed side-by-side is with the kind of work that we’re doing here today and the kind of work that must go on in these next months in negotiations.

The true significance of the Arab Awakening isn’t about what was torn down, but it’s about what the people of this region can now choose to build up.

Similarly, the story of the stalemate between Israelis and Palestinians simply can no longer be about all the times that we have been let down by failed efforts. It has to be about the very real ways that we can lift people up, create opportunity, and create the conditions for peace.

I think everybody here believes in this possibility. And standing here with you at the lowest point on earth, I believe we can actually reach for the heights. And I hope we will get about the business of doing it.

Thank you. (Applause.)