Il discorso di George Bush a Ramallah

President Bush and Palestinian Authority President Abbas Participate in Joint Press Availability
For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
January 10, 2008




Muqata
Ramallah

11:12 A.M. (Local)

PRESIDENT ABBAS: (As translated.) Your Excellency, President George Bush, President of the United States of America, I welcome you in Ramallah, as well as in Bethlehem, on the land of Palestine, that welcomes you today as a great guest, that goes with him, commitment towards the peace process. It's a historic visit that gives our people great hope in the fact that your great nation is standing and supporting their dream and their yearning towards freedom and independence and living in peace in this area, alongside their neighbors.

Our people will not forget Your Excellency, your invitation and your commitment towards the establishment of an independent Palestinian state. You are the first American President that confirms and reiterates this right.

(Translation earpiece not working.)

PRESIDENT BUSH: I haven't got it yet. You may have to start over. (Laughter.) Not yet. You better stay awake. (Laughter.)

PRESIDENT ABBAS: Our people, Your Excellency --

PRESIDENT BUSH: I agree completely. (Laughter.)

PRESIDENT ABBAS: Your commitment towards an establishment of an independent Palestinian state -- you are the first American President to reiterate this right. The conferences of Annapolis and Paris were an historic step from you and from the American people and the world as a whole to perfect this commitment and push it forward.

Our Palestinian people, who committed to peace as a strategic option, want to see, through your support and your intervention, and end to its suffering and the suffering of its people and their families, and wants to move freely in their homeland, and develop their life and their economy without any obstacles that hinder that progress, and without a separation wall that fragments the land, and without settlements that is governing its land and future. We want to see a different future where prisons are not crowded with thousands of prisoners, and where hospitals are not crowded with tens of innocent victims every day, without checkpoints and queues of ordinary people who suffer from humiliation and siege.

continues (here)