I can’t give you a straight answer. No doubt the massacre in Hebron … created a real problem … In the long run, a political solution is the only answer … We are ready, once there will be an agreement about phase No. 1-“Gaza-Jericho first”-to implement it not in four months as is allotted in [last year’s peace accord], but in six weeks. Therefore. I expect the Palestinians not to let this terrible and horrible Jewish murderer achieve his goal. [The killer] went to the holy place in Hebron not just to kill Palestinians, but to achieve a political goal: to kill the peace and to kill the negotiations with the Palestinians. I understand the pain, the sorrow, the agony of the Palestinians … But I expect them-I refer to their leadership-to understand that delaying the negotiations will bring more difficulties.
We are talking about an international presence which does not include [armed] forces … We prefer that it will be [composed of] the donors [of] economic assistance to the Palestinians… I stress one basic principle… We [will] stick to every agreement that was reached and signed, and we will fulfill all the commitments that are included in them … We expect the Palestinians to do the same. Once an agreement is signed, we have to stick to it. There may be terrible events on both sides, from people or organizations who oppose the whole negotiations between the PLO and Israel. We have to cope with them and … do the utmost to prevent them from reaching their main goal: halting and undermining the negotiations.
We’ll have to check to what extent we have legal measures to prevent them to come … First and foremost, we have to cope with the extremists [who already are] in the territories and in Israel … Those who reside in the territories will be asked not to go to Hebron. And those who live in the Jewish quarter in Hebron [will be prevented] from going to the Cave of the Patriarchs … Arms that were given to [extremist settlers] will be taken. Since all the attempts in the past to bring … extremists before our courts did not produce good results-[we’ll] use administrative detention against the leadership [of Kach, the Kahane group]. Of course, each case has to be weighed on its own merits.
So far, such a decision has not been taken. Part of the [peace accord] says that no Jewish settlement will be uprooted during the interim period … [The] PLO has no right to demand this.
Unless there’s a resumption of the talks, only extremists can deliver.
