Interview with Foreign Minister Peres on Israel Radio

The key issue facing Israel's leadership was how to deal with the new wave of suicide bombing which eroded the sense of personal security among Israelis, while at the same time continuing the negotiations aimed at producing the Interim Agreement with the PA. The government was determined to pursue two avenues: fighting terror and negotiating at the same time so as not to give solace to those who wanted to destroy the peace process. In the following interview Mr. Peres rejected proposals to enter now into a final agreement with the Palestinians, jumping as it were over the interim phase. He believed in a gradualist approach. Excerpts:

I think that we must do two things; one, is to do everything necessary to fight terrorism, in order to foil those who planned this horrible attack, those who sent the suicide bomber and nothing must distract us from doing whatever is required, both to punish and to deter. At the same time, we must continue the peace process, because to do only one thing, is to miss the truth and the reality. If we continue with the peace process alone, without dealing, as we must, with an iron hand against terrorism, we will miss our objective. However, it is impossible to fight terrorism without also fighting the situation that causes terrorism, creates it and supports it. We think all of the time. We do not need a pause in order to reflect. And no one whom I know has a solution which does not include a peace treaty, an understanding, between us and our Arab neighbors, as difficult and complex as this is. We see substantial change in Gaza, where the Palestinians themselves chose to understand that terrorism harms them as much as it does us. Actually, the real victim, in the end, will be Palestinian interests, if they do not fight terrorism as required.

Thus, the front which must emerge is the front against terror and terrorists, against lunatics, against the violent people attempting to destroy our lives and the lives of the Arabs and the lives of the generation to come. We will do these two things, without hesitation. To my great regret, even in situations where we had sole responsibility, things like this happened. We want to achieve a situation, in which the full Palestinian capability will be genuinely united and deployed against terrorism. At the beginning, the situation was that almost all of the Palestinians supported terrorism. Today, there is a change. A large segment of the Palestinians, with Fatah leading them, have chosen to abandon the path of terrorism and to fight the terrorists. We hope that the majority of the Palestinian people will join this war which harms them - not for our sake, but for theirs.

I do not think that this attack has to change the schedule of the negotiations, although there will be a short pause of deep national mourning and sorrow. This is a very difficult hour for us and I do not attempt to deny it, but even in this difficult time, we must weigh matters with clear reason and iron logic.

I do not believe in placebos. I do not believe in the saying, "to speed up the final agreement" - how is this to be done? To rush to the final agreement is to rush to an unavoidable confrontation. We must move gradually. For example, if someone had suggested, "everything first," rather than Gaza and Jericho first - we would have no agreement. We must move one step at a time. And today, in my opinion, the majority of the public is united in supporting what we have done in Gaza, even though many opposed it at the start. Today, it is not appropriate, in any respect, to achieve a permanent agreement and whoever says it is, are those who simply do not understand negotiations and the difficulties of a negotiation of this sort.