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Netanyahu: Israel Must Prevent Rockets from Being Placed on Our Borders

(Prime Minister's Office) Prime Minister Netanyahu told the Foreign Press Association on Jan. 20: "In the last few years...those of you who have been in Israel have been under missile and rocket fire....Imagine a country somewhere the size of Belgium and Luxembourg sustaining 12,000 rockets and you understand, of course, the nature of our problem and the fact is that we are surrounded by an ever-growing arsenal of rockets placed in the Iranian-supported enclaves, to the north and to the south....The problem is to prevent them from being placed on our borders." "Where is the problem that Israel has vis-a-vis Lebanon? It is not on the Lebanon-Israel border. It is on the Lebanon-Syrian border. Where's the problem that we face vis-a-vis Gaza? It is not on the Israel-Gaza seam line. It's not on that border. It's in the twelve-kilometer strip between Gaza and Egypt. That...creates a monumental problem - a security problem for Israel....Therefore, in addition to defensive means, we also must ensure that in that entry to the contiguous areas next to Israel, there is a way to effectively stop the infiltration of rockets and other weaponry. And I believe that...in the case of a future settlement with the Palestinians, this will require an Israeli presence on the eastern side of a prospective Palestinian state." "In Lebanon we had an international guarantee - UN Resolution 1701 - an insurance policy signed by the entire international community and you know that that unfortunately has failed, in fact it's failed miserably and Hizbullah is just pouring in weapons, more and more weapons to fire into Israel....We had also an understanding with other countries when we left Gaza about the Philadelphi corridor...but you can see that there is massive infiltration continuing all the time. We can't afford to have that replicated a third time in the center part of the country that dominates our cities, dominates our population, and dominates our airfield....We have to have something to interdict the inflow of rockets and missiles and other weaponry into a prospective Palestinian state."
2010-01-22 08:30:22
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