[Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs] Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni - Israeli Minister of Foreign Affairs Tzipi Livni told the diplomatic corps in Jerusalem on Monday: "More cities are under the threat of rockets coming from Gaza....We cannot live in a situation in which Israel is under daily attack. I know that sometimes there are those who use the term 'collective punishment.' Believe me, there is now collective punishment suffered by the citizens of Ashkelon and the citizens of Sderot, and Israel cannot live with this." "Before the creation of the [Palestinian] state, we need to address the situation on the ground. We need to have an effective government, a government which can control - really control - all this terror coming from its territories....We cannot afford a terrorist state, a failed state, like in Lebanon - because we have this past experience with a government that cannot control its territory, with an armed militia in its territory. Of course, we cannot afford this kind of extreme Islamic state controlled by Hamas, which is not only a terrorist organization, which represents this extreme Islamic ideology, Islamic resistance, without any connection to relations with Israel, without any connection to the fact that Israel left the Gaza Strip - by the way, not in order to come back, but we may find ourselves in a situation that we have no other alternative." "We decided to have this dual strategy - on the one hand to work with the pragmatic leaders, to support the moderates, and on the other hand to delegitimize Hamas as a terrorist organization, to work against terror - and to do it simultaneously because it cannot succeed by executing only one of these two different pillars of the same strategy. It's not enough to work with the moderates." "Nobody can afford a Hamas victory. The first one who cannot afford a Hamas victory...or a perception or image of victory, is Abu Mazen [Abbas]. The second is Israel. And the third is our Arab and Muslim neighbors. Egypt cannot afford it because they don't want to see a Muslim Brotherhood victory in Egypt. The Jordanians cannot afford it." "Speaking about the cycle of violence and that both sides need to stop the violence, and sending condolences to both sides - excuse me, but it's not the right thing...because Hamas takes this as the understanding by the international community that their terrorists are on the same stage as those who are trying to act against terrorism."
2008-03-06 01:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive