Ben-Gurion
Airport, Israel
October 25, 1998
BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER (through translator):
Good evening. I have returned from Israel from a tremendous -- from
a difficult task to bring an agreement with security for Israel. We
have obtained such an agreement; we obtained the best agreement that
we could have achieved in the circumstances and in the conditions
that we inherited.
The agreement is based on two principles with which we set out: security and reciprocity. Only by firmly standing by these two principles can we ensure a future of security and a basis for real peace for us and our children.
Gone are the days when Israel gave and gave with no return except for words and promises, or more precisely, false promises. They received territory and we got terror. The terrorist monster of HAMAS grew as the territory under Palestinian control increased, because the Palestinian Authority did not fulfill its obligations to combat the terrorist infrastructure, and other obligations.
In this agreement, we have for the first time created a mechanism that will guarantee concrete implementation of the Palestinian obligations before we hand over any territory. What we have here is a graded structure, a structure of stages. The Palestinians must fulfill all their obligations in a given stage, and only then will they receive from us. Only after fulfilling all their obligations at each stage will we move on to the next stage. They give, and only then do we give. This is something that did not exist before. Fulfilling commitments -- not
words, not promises, but a timetable. With the various supervisory and everything
would be watched over and its closely assessed, but what will the
Palestinians give? They will cancel the charter. They will cancel
the paragraphs that deal with the destruction of the state of
Israel, those various paragraphs -- and they won't do it secretly,
and they won't do it in some other body. They will bring the
Palestinian National Council and convene the entire leadership. And
they will do it publicly in front of the President of the United
States. They won't do this secretly, in English, in some hall in
Geneva and just tell somebody that they are planning on canceling
it. They will say it in Arabic, so that every house and every family
and every Palestinian family will hear it from their leaders that
these various paragraphs that deal with the destruction of Israel
will be canceled.
I want to stress these paragraphs -- if they don't cancel, then they
won't receive from Israel. This is part of the agreement.
What else will they give? They will fight against terrorism and the
infrastructure; this is according to a work plan that has been
agreed to. This, of course, is one of the most important things
because up until now, they didn't do this, and there wasn't a
standard and this couldn't be measured that they have guaranteed to
do, that they are required to do, and that we could say you did or
you didn't do.
We will now be able to say today that the standard -- the standard,
these things are agreed to not only by us, but also the United
States agrees to this.
They will arrest all of the Palestinian terrorists, all of the past
murderers who have been free. They will be put into prison, and
we've set up a structure to see that this is -- and that they will
remain there, remain behind prison. We have stopped them going in
and out of prison.
They will collect illegal weapons, and they will do this under the
administration or close supervision. And they will reduce their
forces, their police forces, the Palestinian police force -- what
they call the Palestinian police force -- to the level that has been
agreed to under the agreement, what they call the Palestinian
police.
The agreement allows them enough police force in order to control
law and order. What they must do -- what they are not allowed to do
is to build an army, and this is what we have prevented. And this
will also be closely supervised and closely watched.
Every paragraph that we are talking about, and many that I have not
described, are connected to a apparatus that can prevent and oversee
the process that up until now was a one-sided process that Israel
was giving and didn't receive anything, and the security of Israel's
citizens was declining. We closed this off. We closed a lot of the
holes in the Swiss cheese that was created by Oslo -- by the Oslo
agreement.
I also say that we should -- we had to give up part of our land.
This is very painful. It is difficult for everyone, for the defense
minister and for the foreign minister, and for everyone of us. Every
mountain, every valley, every hill is a part of our history, of our
people and speak to us, and speak to us in great strength. And to
hand this over -- to hand over even a centimeter of the land of
Israel to the Palestinian Authority is very, very difficult. And,
therefore, I must say -- and I'm not exaggerating -- we fought with
all of our force as lions in order to reduce the -- under the
agreements that we had previously signed to hand over land. Ten
percent will be handed over and another three percent that will be a
nature reserve that Israel will have a security control of this
three percent. And building Palestinian construction will be banned
in this area that is a nature reserve.
I hear various spokesmen -- I want to say something. Everyone knows
that the Palestinians understood from the previous government that
they will get most of the land after the -- with redeployments.
Anyone that says -- anyone that tells stories otherwise is lying.
They told us directly -- the Palestinians -- that we expected, after
the completion of the withdrawal process, 90 percent of the land.
This is what we understood, and these were our expectations based on
what we had been told by the previous government. But they thought
-- now they know that after the process -- they thought that under
the process that Israel would withdraw from most of the land in the
West Bank.
We had to fight in the last two years very hard in order to reduce
their expectations and to bring it to a realistic level. This was
the problem. They all the time talk about first withdrawal 30
percent from an area that is designated under full Palestinian
control. The second withdrawal, another 30 percent, and the
remainder in the third withdrawal, the remaining 30 percent.
This is the situation that we had to fight. Why did they build such
a hope? They had -- there was a reason for this. We had to reduce
their expectations, bring them down to reality. We did this. We have
a real concern about those who live in the Judea and Samaria in the
West Bank. We had to think about how to worry about the settlements,
how to take care of them, how to take care of the settlers that live
there and their security needs.
I met at Wye Plantation in a field. I came there with my wife, Sara,
and I met some of the settler representatives. We sat
there in chairs in the field. It was kind of a surrealistic site, a
group of people sitting on chairs, in a field. And I told them, and
I say this now, you are the same -- we are part of the same people
and vice-versa. We love you. We are fighting this battle for you.
And there is not another government that will fight for you like
this. We've already seen. We know what was, and you know very well
there is no possibility that nobody can replace this government that
can fight the way it did after receiving the agreement from the
previous government in order to reduce the damage and to close the
holes.
These were very, very difficult negotiations. These were very, very
difficult days and nights for me and my ministers. There were
radical demands by the Palestinians that we rejected, and there were
demands that we made, and we didn't agree to give them up. And the
-- and what we have achieved is the best that could have been
achieved. And we've done something very good and something very
important for the state of Israel.
For this, I had -- those who were also -- helped me in this struggle
that had great concern for the security of Israel, for the land of
Israel, and for the people of Israel.