Giuliani at the RJC

Republican presidential hopeful, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani speaks during a Republican Jewish Coalition forum Tuesday, Oct. 16, 2007, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

Rudy Giuliani gave a masterful speech before the Republican Jewish Coalition in Washington, D.C. yesterday. 

Here are two excerpts from his presentation, the first recounting his ejection of Yasser Arafat from the UN concert at Lincoln Center:

In 1995, when, as Sheldon mentioned, I had Yasser Arafat thrown out of the United Nations…

(APPLAUSE)

… that was a Freudian slip. I didn’t have him thrown out of the United Nations. I had him thrown out of the United Nations’ concert at Lincoln Center. I think it was a Freudian slip because you might have gotten the point of whether I really would have liked to have done.

(APPLAUSE)

I helped to keep him away from the United Nations in the 1980s, but that’s a different story.

When I made that decision, which had to be made right at the moment, because I went out to give a curtain speech, it was for a performance of Beethoven’s 9th Symphony, great work of art, a great piece of music, one that’s dedicated to peace, and I did find some real incongruity in the idea that he was coming to that concert.

But the thing that really bothered me was he didn’t have a ticket.

(LAUGHTER)

He was a freeloader. Just like he stole all that money and sent it to the south of France, he didn’t pay for his ticket.

But in seriousness, the truth is I was informed that he was there and I had to go out and give a curtain speech. I didn’t hesitate, like Hillary Clinton hesitates to answer questions on what she’s going to do about Iran. I didn’t seek to negotiate with him, like Barack Obama would do or says he’d do with these people.

I didn’t call for a team of lawyers to help me…

(APPLAUSE)

I didn’t call for a team of lawyers to tell me, Well, on the one hand, you can throw him out, but on the other hand, you can’t, and maybe you can partially throw him out. Maybe we could have him sit like further up.

(LAUGHTER)

I just made a decision. See, I lead. That’s what [being a] leader is about. A leader has the confidence to make a decision.

(APPLAUSE)

So the administration was real angry at me. President Clinton condemned me the next day. I framed the article.

(LAUGHTER)

The United Nations — the United Nations, they were going to condemn all of New York City, I think, for what I did. But it turned — I knew…

The reason I did it was I knew from my own investigations of Arafat that he was a murderer and a terrorist, that he had killed many Israelis, killed many American citizens. The case with Leon Klinghoffer was the one that probably I knew the best.

And I also thought from the very, very beginning, when they first started negotiating with him, that this whole idea of holding him on a morally equivalent plane to like the prime minister of Israel, like these two people are equal, was a terrible, terrible mistake and I believe that set back the whole cause of peace in the Middle East, maybe for at least a decade and maybe even longer. I hope not.

(APPLAUSE)

Later in his presentation, Giuliani turned to his two conditions for negotiations for a Palestinian state (call them Phase I and Phase II):

In the case of the Palestinians, here’s what it is, two big ones. First of all, the Palestinians have to say and acknowledge and mean it that Israel has a right to exist as a Jewish state.

(APPLAUSE)

Number one, because Israel’s already negotiated its existence. That negotiation happened a long time ago and that’s over and they’ve just got to kind of move on.

(APPLAUSE)

Second, second, they have to be willing to say, We forsake terrorism and we’re going to help to reduce and eliminate terrorism and they need to show their good faith by that condition remaining that way for some period of time. It’s as simple as that — or as hard as that. They do those two things and they mean it and time demonstrates that they do mean it, then, of course, they can negotiate. We would like to negotiate. We would like to have peace, but we don’t want to have a peace in which we’re taken advantage of.

Giuliani’s blog still lists the Jewish Current Issues video of his August 2007 remarks about a Palestinian state.  His statement of support for Israel on his website is very impressive.

Jim Geraghty covers the RJC presentations of all the candidates yesterday at The Campaign Spot (scroll down to Tuesday). Brad Greenberg covers Giuliani's speech at The God Blog.