Israel's Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said on Saturday that the establishment of a future Palestinian state will require Israel to make pullouts from the West Bank. In an interview to the Cairo-based Al-Ahram newspaper, Livni was quoted as saying that "the withdrawal from the Gaza Strip was not the last withdrawal."
However, the Israeli minister claimed that the peace process has been slowed because of Palestinian leaders' inability to control the violence in the territories, and not because of Israel. "Israel does not want to rule over the Palestinians," Livni conveyed.
Livni said that "the current situation in the Gaza Strip is unacceptable." She also emphasized that Israel expects the Arab world to support and grant legitimacy to "moderates" in the Palestinian Authority, in order to bolster their ability to show flexibility on the diplomatic level and "reach more agreements with Israel."
