Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon (Likud) spoke on Friday morning at an industrial conference in Eilat, and said he can’t anticipate when the Arab terror wave plaguing Israel will end.

“We have a wave of terror that will accompany us in the coming days and apparently in the coming weeks, and we don’t know if it will end soon or when,” said Ya’alon of the terror wave, which has already left 22 Israelis murdered and hundreds others wounded in two months.

“Therefore, we need to prepare ourselves for any possible development. Our policy in order to deal correctly today with the situation is ‘a big stick’ – deterrence,” said the minister, apparently paraphrasing former US President Theodore Roosevelt’s famous adage.

The same Friday morning that Ya’alon made his pronouncements, an Arab terrorist wounded two soldiers at a junction to the east of Jerusalem – the very same site where the terrorist’s brother just this Sunday conducted a similar attack, wounding one victim.

Ya’alon came in for scrutiny after IDF Central Command chief Roni Numa on Wednesday called to arm the Palestinian Authority (PA), in a call that raised an uproar given that previous arming of the body saw it turn around and use the weapons to murder hundreds of Israelis in the 2000 Second Intifada.

While Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu rebuked Numa and insisted there were no plans to approve arms for the PA’s security forces, Ya’alon apparently refused to explicitly oppose the IDF proposal, nor would he reprimand Numa. 

Arutz Sheva has learned that a senior government official expressed shock over Ya’alon’s refusal to reproach Numa, saying, “it raises serious concerns that the Central Command did not issue such a bizarre proposal to journalists on his own.”