Deputy Knesset Speaker MK Oren Hazan (Likud) had a spat with Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon (Likud) on Friday, at the party’s Likudiada committee event in Eilat.
The background for the verbal fisticuffs, in which Hazan took to Twitter to condemn Ya’alon for his speech at the event, is the Defense Minister’s eviction of 200 Jews last Friday from two buildings in Hevron they purchased in full from an Arab buyer.
Hazan, along with Jewish Home MK Bezalel Smotrich and Deputy Regional Development Minister Ayoub Kara (Likud) had promised to buck coalition discipline in votes, a promise that was breached on Wednesday. Ya’alon conditioned the return of the residents on an examination of the purchase, “political” considerations, and security considerations, highlighting the draconian measures imposed on Hevron Jews.
“The Defense Minister is speaking at Likudiada, in his eyes everything is pastoral, carrots and flowers here. I wonder if we’re living in the same reality?,” wrote the freshman MK Hazan on Twitter. “Is the knife intifada in China? Troubling.”
Hazan also criticized Ya’alon for claiming that Hamas has not fired a single rocket at Israel since Operation Protective Edge in 2014, even though the ceasefire has been breached countless times, apparently by terrorist groups operating in Hamas-controlled Gaza.
“Ya’alon claims that since Protective Edge Hamas hasn’t fired once because they understood our strength. In the south they’re wondering if that’s because they hear Hamas drilling (tunnels – ed.) under their homes?!,” he added.
In his speech at Likudiada, Ya’alon addressed the two buildings in Hevron that were purchased in full.
“We know how to fight terror and also how to settle Judea and Samaria according to the law of the Jewish and democratic state. They won’t preach to me about settlement. There is a law here and people can’t take the law in their hands,” claimed Ya’alon.
Critics have argued that it is Ya’alon who sets the law in the region that has yet to be annexed and remains under military administration. Smotrich on Sunday said that “under the applicable law in Judea-Samaria, you do not need purchase approval to move back into your home.”
Ya’alon continued on Friday, saying, “I would be happen to approve the residency of the homes in Hevron, believe me. But those who want the benefit of the settlements do not squat in homes without a permit and government approval. We will do it according to the law.”
“Also in Tel Aviv you need to prove a purchase. Those who truly want to implement a purchase bring us the documents quietly. If they want to make a provocation and attack me and (Prime Minister Binyamin) Netanyahu – fine, but we won’t play along.”
In an apparent barb at Hazan, he added, “those who want to control the Likud and bring in a bad spirit…the Likud movement will clean us. I won’t allow the settlements to be harmed.”
