Rule Jerusalem by deporting Arabs to Gaza
More street protests in Jerusalem after the shooting dead of Keir Hamdan in northern Israel on November 9th. See Israeli Arab shot dead for banging on a police van
Netanyahu tries to deport Arab-Jerusalemites to Gaza
By MEMO
November 07, 2014
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu seeks to move Arab Jerusalemites to the Gaza Strip to reduce tensions in the occupied city, an Israeli newspaper has claimed.
According to Yedioth Ahronoth, during an emergency meeting held by Netanyahu on Wednesday evening, there was a feeling that a “new and effective security operation” should be embarked upon, “something that changes the rules of the game at once, otherwise we will enter into an Intifada”. They agreed that “what doesn’t succeed using force, succeeds using greater force!”
The newspaper added that the head of the Shin Bet Yoram Cohen, who supports Netanyahu’s plan, has the hardline approach to the situation in Jerusalem. It said he is ” strongly convinced by the effectiveness of [collective] punishments: the imposition of prison sentences and fines for parents whose children throw stones, the demolition of houses, deportation to the Gaza Strip, the collection of taxes by force.”
The Israeli police headquarters, the newspaper reported, supports Cohen’s position, as does the Mayor of Jerusalem Nir Barkat.
Israel’s Attorney General, Yehuda Weinstein, opposed the idea of collective punishment, saying he is not convinced that the imposition of such sanctions on relatives and neighbours would be a deterrence, and it may have the reverse effect: “The escalation of hatred and the search for revenge.”
During the recent war on Gaza, Weinstein supported plans to deport top Hamas leaders from the West Bank to Gaza.
Recent discussions held at the Israeli Ministry of Justice, with the participation of top experts in international law, concluded with the decision that “deportation is not possible”, because such a step would put Israel in the dock at the International Criminal Court in the Hague.
Subsequently, Weinstein summoned Professor Yoram Dinstein, an expert in international law who holds right-wing views, he told the Shin Bet chief: “You should not even think about deportation.”
Netanyahu asked Weinstein to respond regarding the deportation of Jerusalemites to Gaza, to which the latter replied: “Do not put pressure on me. If you force me to answer, the answer will be negative.”
The newspaper said that during deliberations yesterday, Netanyahu broached the subject again and Weinstein said that “the subject is complex and thorny”. Netanyahu asked: “Do you still think about it?” Weinstein replied: “Yes.”
Netanyahu ‘invites’ Arab protesters to move to Palestinian Authority
Responding to the Tel Aviv terror attack, both the prime minister and foreign minister blame the ‘incitement’ of the Palestinian Authority.
By Jonathan Lis, Haaretz
November 10, 2014
Israeli Arabs who demonstrate against Israel can “move to the Palestinian Authority or Gaza,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday in response to the terror attack in Tel Aviv earlier in the day.
“To all those who demonstrate against Israel and in favor of a Palestinian state, I say something simple: I invite you to move there; we won’t give you any problem,” Netanyahu said, during a meeting of the Likud Knesset faction.
Riots rocked the northern village of Kafr Kana on the weekend following the death of an Israeli Arab man who was shot by the police. Much of the Israeli Arab sector observed a general strike on SUnday in response to the shooting.
Netanyahu also promised to “fight the incitement led by the Palestinian Authority” and to “take determined action against the rioters who call for the destruction of Israel.”
He said that there was a simple reason for the recent wave of attacks on Israelis: “The terrorists incite and want to evict us from everywhere,” he said. “They don’t want us in Jerusalem, not in Tel Aviv and not anywhere.”
The prime minister said that he had given orders “to use all the tools at our disposal, to the full extent of the law … including the destruction of the houses of terrorists.”
He called on all Israelis to unify in contending with the situation. “This is not the time for schismatic talk,” Netanyahu said. “The more unified we are the stronger we will be – and that’s what Israel needs today.”
Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman also referred to the attack in Tel Aviv, saying that “precisely now, as we talk of a diplomatic process, it is clear that territorial and population swaps must be part of the solution. Us here and them there. The triangle [an Arab-majority area adjacent to the West Bank] must be part of the Palestinian state.”
Referring to Israeli Arab MK Haneen Zoabi, who has been suspended from the Knesset plenum for what the majority regards as her incendiary remarks, Lieberman said: “If Zoabi says that the kidnapping of the three youths [in the West Bank last June] is not a terrorist action and she wanders around instead of being behind bars, it encourages terror. She represents terror organizations in the Knesset.”
“We need to call on the Arab public to calm things down, rather than incite,” Lieberman said. “Everything that we’ve seen in the last few days is wild incitement by the other side. Incitement that goads actions such as the near lynch[ing] of a Jew in Taibe.”