The world has changed greatly since I left the White House. Now there is only one superpower, with unprecedented military and economic strength. The … - Jimmy Carter

I think it's good to point out tonight, too, that we have evolved a good working relationship with the Congress. For 8 years we had government by partisanship. Now we have government by partnership. And we've had good success. I'm new in Washington, as you know. I've never served there before in my life until last January 20. But in this brief period of time, there has been a remarkable demonstration of compatibility and mutual purpose between the White House and Capitol Hill. When I was preparing to be inaugurated, I had meetings with different Members of Congress, and there were five basic questions that I wanted to present to them as goals I hoped to achieve sometime in the future. One was for both Houses to pass strict ethics legislation to make sure that conflicts of interest that had embarrassed our Nation in the past were over. And they have both already done that. I wanted to see a strong economic stimulus package passed, and without delay the Congress has acted again. I wanted to be given authority to reorganize the executive branch of Government and to be given immediate direction to proceed without delay. And the Congress, of course, has acted on that as well.

We have already found a high degree of personal liberty, and we are now struggling to enhance equality of opportunity. Our commitment to human rights must be absolute, our laws fair, our natural beauty preserved; the powerful must not persecute the weak, and human dignity must be enhanced.

Yes, I was upset. As I said I think it's an obstacle to peace. And I let Mr. Begin know very clearly that our Government policy, before I became President and now, is that these settlements are illegal and contravene the Geneva conference terms. Mr. Begin disagrees with this. But we've spelled this out very clearly on several occasions in the United Nations and other places that these settlements are illegal. I think that it's accurate to say that the Israeli Government has never maintained that they are permanent but, that on a temporary basis, maybe extending quite a while in the future in their view, that they are legalized, but not as a permanent settlement. Israel has never claimed hegemony over the West Bank territory, as you know. And I think that it would be a mistake, as I said in my press conference yesterday, to condemn Mr. Begin about this action because this was a campaign commitment he made. I think what he did was in consonance with the desires of the Israeli people. But I don't want anybody to misunderstand our feelings about it. We think it's wrong to establish these settlements, it's wrong to insinuate that they are legal, it's certainly wrong to ever claim that they are permanent. And to establish new settlements would be even more unsettling to their Arab neighbors, as we try to go to Geneva in a good spirit of compromise and cooperation, than the allocation of legality by the Government to those already in existence.