Recent violent incidents ascribed to right-wingers may have rattled the government enough to cause it to reappraise its attitude toward leftist and Arab violence, too.
Government Secretary Tzvi Hauser told Channel 2 that “whoever burns a mosque and damages a site that is holy to others disgraces this nation and causes it to be slandered,” Hauser said. “These things… an end must be put to them. The Prime Minister was shocked when he heard the story of the mosque.”
He said that the government intends to take a series of measures to deal with the violence. “There is meaningful budgetary assistance and there are technological means. All the necessary approvals will be granted and there is attention from the leadership. Once the Prime Minister says this is the time to clamp down on it – I believe things will move, as in other cases where the Prime Minister put his fist down.”
Hauser added that a change could also be expected in the way security forces deal with leftist and Arab violence at regular hotspots Bilin and Naalin.
“This is also an opportunity to put an end to the coddling approach at Bilin and Naalin. In the course of the last three years, nearly 100 soldiers were wounded. There are repeated disturbances there and the media needs to search its soul regarding its attitude toward that. The State of Israel needs to approach these fringe groups, mark a red line and tell them ‘this is as far as you go.’ There are anarchists on both right and left.”
Hauser said that the government’s policy on outposts was that “there is enough land in Judea and Samaria to enable Jewish settlement – not one square meter of private land needs to be taken.”
“It is important to say at this moment, too,” he added, “that there are manipulative interested parties out there that try to besmirch an entire population of settlers. Just as we will fight with an iron hand the anarchists who libel this land, we must insist that in this discourse, events will not be used in order to hurt the population that is the most severely challenged in Israel.”
