Cease-fire is important, but it can last only for a very, very, very short time.

No one can compare us to the apartheid regime. It's not like in South Africa between the blacks and the whites who belong to the same nation, or in Berlin where you find parents living on the eastern side and their children in the western side.

I'd like to ask you: what you would prefer us to do? I'd like to ask my colleagues, would any other country act differently? I think the answer is very clear. No one would act differently.

The Palestinians are not willing to do anything, they're not willing to make the strategic decision to dismantle the infrastructure of terrorist organizations.

There is no taboo after this assassination and no one of the Palestinian leaders has immunity anymore, ... It shows once again the necessity to collect the illegal weapons and to dismantle the infrastructure of terrorist organizations.

In my view, Arafat is the only Palestinian in the world that isn't willing to have an independent Palestinian state.

We have been in the territories since 1967. In 2002, we had sometimes three or four suicide attacks every day. We came to the conclusion that it can't continue like that.