Doesn't the agreement weaken Israeli security? The security picture is clear. All of the territory, including that to be administered by the Palestinian Authority, will be demilitarized of foreign forces. There will be no tanks in these territories, nor warplanes, nor warships, nor missiles with warheads, except for those in the possession of the Israel Defence Forces. Our strategic depth will not diminish; it will remain as it was, from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. The threat will diminish. We already have a peace treaty with Egypt, to our south. We have just signed a peace treaty with Jordan, to our east. With the Palestinians, and with their largest political organization, the PLO, we have reached an accord that commits them to forsaking and fighting terror. The war on terror has become a Palestinian interest, not only an Israeli one, because the agents of terror wish to destroy peace and attack those who are parties to peace. The Palestinian Authority understands the choice that it faces: either to overcome them or let them overcome it and destroy it. If they destroy the self-rule, the extremists will again bring catastrophe upon the Palestinians. Nobody has done the Palestinian people greater harm than the Mufti of Jerusalem. His rejectionism, accompanied with terror, caused the Palestinians to turn down the partition plan, left them stateless, created the refugee problem, and caused indescribable suffering for hundreds of thousands of people to this very day. We do not promise a total cessation of terror. But we believe a new constellation has come into being that will leave its imprints on terror, perhaps even in the near future. Questions and answers by then-Foreign Minster Shimon Peres, presenting the Israeli-Palestinian Declaration of Principles to the Knesset on Oct 23, 1995
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