A hunger for killing Arabs
This posting has three items:
1) Ma’an news PA ministry: Palestinian prisoners are not terrorists, it’s the Israelis who are terrorists;
2) Arutz SHeva: Bennett: Haaretz Misquoted Me on Terrorists, the settler’s press does its best with the story;
3) Ha’aretz: Killing Arabs – not what you thought, Oudeh Basharat is sickened by Bennett’s pride in killing;
“I’ve killed lots of Arabs ” boasts today’s Economy Minister Naftali Bennet of his time in an elite unit in the IDF. Today’s Economy Minister thinks Palestinian ‘terrorists’ should be killed, not imprisoned.
PA ministry: Palestinian prisoners are not terrorists
By Maan news,
July 29/August 14, 2013
RAMALLAH — The Palestinian Authority on Monday slammed remarks by an Israeli minister who said Palestinian prisoners were “terrorists.”
“Terrorists are those who occupy the lands of another people and displace them by force and settle in their place. Palestinian prisoners are strugglers for their freedom and not terrorists,” the PA Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement.
The ministry was responding to remarks by Israel’s Economy Minister Naftali Bennett, who has protested the planned release of 104 long-serving Palestinian prisoners to coincide with the resumption of peace talks.
Bennet, leader of the Jewish Home party, has called the proposed prisoner release a “disgrace” and said “terrorists should be eliminated, not freed.”
The PA ministry responded that some Israeli officials were “terrorists.”
“The definition of terrorism completely applies to many Israeli politicians who defame Palestinian prisoners especially those jailed before the Oslo Accords.”
At a cabinet meeting on Sunday, Bennett said Palestinian “terrorists” should be killed instead of jailed, the Hebrew-language newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth reported.
When told such a policy would be illegal, Bennett responded that he had “killed many Arabs and I never had a problem,” the report said.
Bennett: Haaretz Misquoted Me on Terrorists
Economy Minister says: I never said there was no problem in killing Arabs. Haaretz misquoted me.
By Elad Benari, Arutz Sheva
August 08, 2013
Economy Minister and Bayit Yehudi chairman Naftali Bennett said on Thursday that he had been misquoted by the Haaretz newspaper earlier this week.
In an editorial published Wednesday, the newspaper included quotes that were previously published and in which Bennett supposedly told National Security Advisor Yaakov Amidror that instead of keeping terrorists in jail in order to release them later, “they should simply be killed when they are caught.”
Amidror responded by saying that such activities are illegal, with Bennett responding that he had “killed many Arabs and I never had a problem.” The comments were allegedly made during a discussion that preceded the Cabinet’s vote to release 104 terrorists as a “gesture” to the Palestinian Authority.
Soon after the comments were originally made public, Arab MK Taleb Abu-Arar filed a complaint with Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein against Bennett, claiming that he was a “racist” because of the alleged comments.
Responding on his Facebook page, Bennett wrote, “Haaretz reported yesterday that I said, ‘I killed a lot of terrorists in my life, and there is nothing wrong with it’ and ‘if you catch terrorists, just kill them.’”
“Just to remove any doubt, these words were not said,” he emphasized, adding that during the Cabinet meeting that dealt with the terrorist release he had suggested that IDF soldiers not be endangered by capturing live terrorists, “since they end up being released by the State in any case. A terrorist who endangers the lives of our soldiers during an operation should be killed.”
The Palestinian Authority took issue with Bennett’s comments last week, saying that the prisoners to be released were not terrorists and suggesting that it is, in fact, certain Israelis who should be called terrorists.
“Terrorists are those who occupy the lands of another people and displace them by force and settle in their place. Palestinian prisoners are strugglers for their freedom and not terrorists,” the PA Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement.
The statement added that some Israeli officials were “terrorists.”
“The definition of terrorism completely applies to many Israeli politicians who defame Palestinian prisoners especially those jailed before the Oslo Accords,” said the PA Foreign Ministry.
Killing Arabs – not what you thought
A minister boasts of killing Arabs, a leader in the ruling party wants to expel them and a mayor is in favor of cleansing his city of them.
By Oudeh Basharat, Ha’aretz
August 12, 2013
Even Rafael Eitan, the tough general with whom Prime Minister Menachem Begin scared the goyim – “Assad be careful, Yanush and Raful are ready!” – had a human side. As his widow Ofra Meirson said: “Almost every night he would wake up and awaken me with shouts of pain and terrible suffering emerging from his throat, fragmented words, broken sentences … then he would climb up from inside some bottomless pit, from some kind of hell and from a bitter struggle he conducted with people, with an Arab terrorist, or in the battle of San Simon in the War of Independence” (“Raful’s Sleepless Nights,” by Roni Hadar, Haaretz January 3, 2006).
Apparently that is not the case with Economy Minister Naftali Bennett, who has said: “I’ve killed lots of Arabs in my life, and there’s no problem with that.” In other words, despite the killing he doesn’t suffer from sleeplessness or nightmares. Not the horrified look of a victim, not facial distortions of pain or astonishment, not a final tic followed by absolute quiet – none of those things disturb the minister’s sleep.
Even if someone who was only a witness to killing does not shed a tear or at least get upset, then according to all the signs he is almost certainly suffering from shock. Is Naftali Bennett in shock? Are his comparison of Arabs to shrapnel in the butt, his description of the economic boycott of the settlements as a terror attack, his call to boycott the world, all signs of shock? Last Wednesday the signs of shock were clearly evident on the man: Bennett proudly posted on his Facebook page a photograph of the lead editorial of Haaretz, which was called “A nuisance named Naftali Bennett.”
If it weren’t tragic, it would be good material for irony. Maybe a chief Israel Defense Forces education officer will ask Bennett to meet with new recruits in order to imbue them with a spirit of battle and explain to them how easy it is to kill Arabs. And maybe those meetings will be entitled: “Killing an Arab – not what you thought,” with the same ease with which we inoculate against polio – “Only two drops.” The first in order to encourage death, and the second in order to encourage life.
Bennett’s bragging arouses basic questions that you have to organize in your mind: First, what did he mean by “lots of Arabs”? If lots means two or three, that’s throwing dust in our eyes – fewer than 10 dead is not considered lots. Second, Did Bennett kill those “lots” in one blow? Two? In innumerable cases? And three – don’t those dead men have names? After all, a chance meeting is likely to lead to an exchange of addresses and phone numbers, so what about end-of-life meetings? And fourth, let him explain to us the circumstances of the killing, and then we can wonder, with the necessary caution, whether legitimate killing spilled over into deliberate murder? Not only that, it’s a source of pride.
Moreover, under the circumstances in which Naftali Bennett, as a senior government minister, serves a public that is 20 percent Arab – won’t his words be considered a threat to the public that he serves? His clear and biting words lead us to understand that he is ready and willing to continue the killing, or at least they constitute a call to others to behave like him. And that’s how a new definition of a public servant is created: He serves you to death.
It’s not Bennett, that’s his natural environment. Raful, who in his day proposed filling the West Bank with settlements until the Arabs could only scurry around “like drugged cockroaches in a bottle,” caused the Transportation Ministry to name a tunnel after him, the one built at the entrance to the cities of cockroaches, Iksal and Nazareth. Since then the tree of evil has only grown, with its roots planted deep in the soil: A minister boasts of killing Arabs, a leader in the ruling party wants to expel them, a mayor is in favor of cleansing his city of them and a parliamentary majority wants to get rid of their representatives. It’s lucky that there are Arabs. Otherwise, where would all this evil with which we are blessed accumulate?