Far-right Leaders Call to Renew Targeted Assassinations, Form Gov't Following Jerusalem Bombings - Israel News - Haaretz.com
Far-right lawmaker Itamar Ben-Gvir, who will likely become Israel's Public Security Minister, called to renew targeted assassinations of members of Palestinian terror groups and demanded the immediate formation of a government following a double terror attack in Jerusalem on Wednesday morning.
Speaking from the scene of one of the bombings, which killed one and wounded 17, the leader of the far-right Otzma Yehudit party declared that Israel needs to take a hard line against terror, stating that “we must exact a price from terrorism, we must return to the targeted killings, we must impose a curfew on the village from which the terrorists came, we must stop the [summer] camps in the security prisons.”
“It's time to establish a right-wing government as soon as possible,” said Ben-Gvir, who until recently kept a photo of Baruch Goldstein, the perpetrator of the Hebron massacre, on his living-room wall. “Terror does not wait.”
Earlier this week, Likud sources told Haaretz that the incoming government will pass legislation granting the internal security minister the ability to set policy for the police and oversee police budgets, according to an agreement reached Sunday between Netanyahu and Otzma Yehudit leader Itamar Ben-Gvir.
Amending the law could lead to the police commissioner effectively being subordinate to Ben-Gvir on every aspect of police policy, including operational decisions. Prior to their recent reconciliation, Police Commissioner Kobi Shabtai blamed Ben-Gvir for igniting last summer’s Gaza War.
During his short political career in office, Ben-Gvir has developed a reputation as a firebrand, making numerous controversial statements and using his personal sidearm threateningly.
In the most recent incident last month, he pulled out a pistol and shouted "If they throw stones, shoot them," apparently referring to the Palestinians rioters, during clashes in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah.
According to Radio 103FM, multiple members of Ben-Gvir’s party called for a harsh crackdown in Jerusalem and the West Bank in response to recent attacks.
“Nablus is burning, Jenin is burning, Ramallah is burning, until the moment white flags are raised there. This is what I would do if I was the Minister of Defense,” said Otzma Yehudit MK Zvika Fogel, a brigadier general in the IDF reserves, asserting that without controlling “fear and awe” Israel “won’t regain deterrence.”
"Do we have planes? Do we have missiles? Do we have cannons? Do we have tanks? Let's start using them. Go in and hit everyone Who dares to raise his head so that there will be no more orphans in the State of Israel."
“The first thing we need to do is to increase the feeling that there are landlords here, to be much tougher and hurt anyone who tries to undermine our existence,” stated MK Amichai Eliyahu, the son of Safed Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu.
It won't happen in one day, but as soon as the atmosphere changes, when we break the worldview among our [enemies] that the landlord is absent, we'll see a very significant change,” he said.
In a statement following the attack, Religious Zionism leader Bezalel Smotrich, who ran together with Ben-Gvir on a joint slate during the recent Knesset election, echoed his ally’s demand, calling on incoming Prime Minister Netanyahu “to convene all leaders of the incoming coalition, so we can form a right-wing government that will restore security to the citizens of Israel.”
“The murderous Arab terror is knocking on our door; we must form a government immediately,” he said.
Prime minister designate Benjamin Netanyahu did not publicly address his partners’ demands, issuing a statement saying that he was “praying for the peace of the injured in the combined attack in Jerusalem this morning and strengthening the hands of the security forces operating in the field.”
Speaking to reporters at the scene, Internal Security Minister Omer Bar-Lev described the bombing as “an attack we haven’t seen in a long time” and said that he believed that there was a “high probability that there's a connection between the attacks.”
“I believe that we'll put our hand on all involved,” he promised.
Labor leader Merav Michaeli echoed this sentiment, tweeting her condolences to the family of the deceased and best wishes for the recover of the injured and asserting that “the security forces will do everything to find the terrorists and bring them to justice for this heinous attack.”
MK Ram Ben Barak, outgoing Chairman of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, said that Israel’s security services “have foiled quite a few attacks similar to this in recent months,” Radio 103FM reported.
“If the security service had not succeeded in stopping a large part of these operations and arresting many people, the situation would have been one thousand times worse.”
International leader have also commented on the attacks. In a tweet immediately after the bombings, Canadian Ambassador to Israel Lisa Stadelbauer wrote that she was following the news "with concern" and stated that her country "condemns terrorism and calls for a deescalation in current tensions and violence."
This prompted a harsh response from former Canadian Ambassador Vivian Bercovici, who demanded a stronger condemnation: "You call for de-escalation on 'both sides.' Not everything is equal. Time to condemn unequivocally," she tweeted.