At the end of the day there are two ways to approach this. One is to say I am not going to make a deal under any circumstances if all of my conditions are not met and the other is to say that if all of my conditions are not met then all of their conditions will not be met.
Prime Minister Netanyahu

At the end of the day there are two ways to approach this. One is to say I am not going to make a deal under any circumstances if all of my conditions are not met and the other is to say that if all of my conditions are not met then all of their conditions will not be met. Prime Minister Netanyahu

The following are excerpts from an interview with Prime Minister Netanyahu in English on September 14 with a small group of reporters, including IMRA:

IMRA: The actions of compliance which are required of the Palestinians in return for the Israeli withdrawal are actions which can later be reversed. The Palestinians can cease arms and then distribute weapons.

Netanyahu: You are absolutely right. There is no question that there is an asymmetry between Israel’s obligations which, when fulfilled, are practically in point of fact irreversible and Palestinian obligations of which virtually all are reversible. This is part of the flawed deal of Oslo. I never said that the deal is good. Its not a good deal. I said its the deal we’ve got.

Other Reporter: Then why not drop it?

Netanyahu: First because we made a commitment to continue the process and to seek its conclusion. Its conclusion, by the way, is fulfilling the interim agreement and and negotiating a final settlement although there is no road map in Oslo to the actual shape of a final settlement. The Oslo process in its stipulations leads up to final status negotiations but leaves the outcome open. It is a big achievement for Israel to have been able to carry out its obligations but minimize the damage to the country. Obviously it is a far cry, if it come to pass, from the 90% of Judea and Samaria that the Palestinians expected to get.

It would be an achievement for Israel to fulfill its commitments while simultaneously insuring that the Palestinians keep theirs without having an international breakdown – or for that matter domestic – breakdown. There has to be also a civil peace among the majority of the Israeli public. I am not talking about the fringe of Israeli society that wants to give everything to the Palestinians and ask nothing for Israel. They are not relevant. But the vast majority of Israelis want to attempt to have progress with the Palestinians based of the principle that we have established: security and reciprocity and minimizing the damage which is exactly what we are doing. That is on the domestic side.

On the international side, responsible governments had better think long and hard before they jettison international commitments. Of course the Palestinians may create such a situation by making such a grievous violation – for example unilaterally declaring a Palestinian state – which would be a gross violation of the Oslo Accords and release us from it and thereby create the grounds for our taking unilateral action. This is highly inadvisable from their point of view and they should think long and hard before nullifying the Oslo Accords in that fashion.

A responsible government seeks to implement agreements and not to nullify them. Because unilateral and unprovoked nullification of agreements can lead to equal action on other international agreements which are of vital importance to the state.

… I would like to say that we will achieve all of our demands. I cannot tell you which is absolutely unconditional and so on. As far as I am concerned I want to achieve all of them. At the end of the day there are two ways to approach this. One is to say I am not going to make a deal under any circumstances if all of my conditions are not met and the other is to say that if all of my conditions are not met then all of their conditions will not be met.

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