Itamar Ben-Gvir, the minister of national security, was admonished by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday for urging Jews to move into the illegal outpost of Evyatar in Samaria.
Following the horrific terrorist incident near Eli on June 20, hundreds of Israeli Jews went to the settlement. Ben-Gvir told visitors to the site on Friday, “Run to the hills, settle there; we love you.”
He said that the outpost had his “full and complete backing,” but added that he had higher expectations for this town.
This area should be fully settled, as should all the surrounding hills.
Netanyahu stated in his speech at the weekly Cabinet meeting on Sunday that “Calls to grab land illegally and actions of grabbing land illegally are unacceptable to me.”
He declared that such words and deeds “undermine law and order in Judea and Samaria and must stop right away.
We won’t just oppose such measures; our government will act strongly to stop them.
Such calls and acts really weaken the settlement effort rather than enhance it, he said.
He said, “I say this as someone who quadrupled settlement in Judea and Samaria despite huge and unprecedented international pressure to implement withdrawals that I have not implemented and will not implement.
He continued: “Fighting terrorists” and “deepening our roots in our country” are the proper responses to terrorism.
According to him, Israel was acting decisively on both fronts. In addition to eradicating record numbers of terrorists, our nation is also heavily developing in accordance with authorized building plans.
I’ll say it again: approved. Ben-Gvir tweeted back in response, saying, “I appreciate and love the prime minister, but the problem of our governance does not start with the settlers in Judea and Samaria, but with leniency toward the [Druze] rioters in the Golan Heights and the lack of strict enforcement in Rahat [a Bedouin city in the Negev].
I object to arbitrary enforcement.
JOIN US ON WHAT'SAPP, TO GET INSTANT STATUS UPDATES AND BE IN THE KNOW.
CLICK HERE
