Q& A: Tzipi Livni, Israeli Foreign Minister

Israel made clear in the last few months that the participation of Hamas in the Palestinian Authority elections is totally against any kind of democratic values.

What's Israel going to do when Hamas becomes a part of the Palestinians' government?

First, I believe that it is the role of the international community to speak right now, even before the elections, and to say in a very clear voice that elections are only meant to achieve the goals that terrorist organizations cannot be part of any parliament.

Will you communicate with the Hamas-Palestinian government?

Israel cannot communicate with terrorist organizations . . . They are using terror because they cannot accept the existence of Israel. This is part of the Hamas charter. It is totally unacceptable.

So the international community must say it's unacceptable.

It's unacceptable, and now we accept it. We, the international community, accepted the idea of elections before, but the only reason for these elections is to give you the legitimacy to dismantle the terrorist organizations. I know what the Palestinians will do. They will try to differentiate between the parliament and the government. They'll try to say that they are weak. They will try to say there are two arms to the Hamas -- one is the legitimate political side and the other is the terrorist side -- and we cannot accept it.

Can you go ahead with your unilateral plans to disengage if Hamas is in the government?

As I said before, Israel adopted the road map.

It seemed as if the strategy of Sharon was to decide on the borders without any Palestinian partner.

The idea of the disengagement plan was to open a new window of opportunity. Before, we were on the first phase of the road map. But the Palestinians didn't implement their part. There was no partner on the Palestinian side. Israel could wait on the first phase of the road map and do nothing. But we decided that we could take some risky steps and send a message to the world and to the Palestinians that we mean business -- that when needed, we are dismantling settlements. The message is that Israel is no longer the Palestinian excuse for not fighting terrorism.

We took our forces out of the Gaza Strip; we dismantled the settlements and now Israel is no longer the excuse. And now we are back on the track of the road map; we are not talking now about more unilateral steps. . . . Our expectation now is that the Palestinians will implement their word.