If there will be a serious Palestinian prime minister who makes a 100 percent effort to end terrorism, then we can have peace. Each side has to take steps. If terror continues, there will not be an independent Palestinian state. Israel will not accept it, if terror continues.

As a Jew, it is my historic responsibility to defend the Jewish people. I feel this responsibility for the survival of the Jewish people. We're not going to accept any decision by anybody else about security of the State of Israel. It is our role and only our role.

All together, we know for many years that terror is the most dangerous thing for local, regional and international stability.

I know I have been portrayed as a general looking for war. Many other headlines speak of that. That's what people say. But I understand the importance of peace because I saw the horrors of war. That's how I see it. I lost my best friends in battles.. and I had to make decisions of life and death, of others and myself.

I begin with the basic conviction that Jews and Arabs can live together. I have repeated that at every opportunity, not for journalists and not for popular consumption, but because I have never believed differently or thought differently, from my childhood on. ... I know that we are both inhabitants of the land, and although the state is Jewish, that does not mean that Arabs should not be full citizens in every sense of the word.

I cannot deny that I have doubts, reservations and fears. However, I have come to the conclusion that in the present regional and international reality, Israel must act with courage to accept the political plan which I described.

I am 73 years old. I've seen everything. I've met the kings, the queens, the presidents, I've been around the world. I have one thing that I would like to do: to try to reach peace.