It's not a democracy here, it's the Middle East.

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.

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

In 1988, King Hussein of Jordan said that it doesn't take any connection any more to those territories, and he would like to split from those territories. So according to the international law, it doesn't belong to anyone.

We are not going to damage our safety and our security. We're not going to give those extremists the privilege to come so freely to Israel in order to carry out more attacks against us and kill us one day after another.

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.

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