Subscribe to our daily e-mail newsletter

E-mail:

Israel News Feed Or subscribe to our RSS feed | What is RSS?
Israel News from Jerusalem Newswire
Uprooting Jews

Eitam slams new Sharon gov?t for incitement


By Jerusalem Newswire Editorial Staff
January 11, 2005

National Religious Party chief Effi Eitam Monday slammed the members of Ariel Sharon’s new “unity in retreat” government for inciting the general public against the Jewish residents of Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip (Yesha).

Speaking before the Knesset plenum as he presented his party’s latest no-confidence motion, Eitam said he had never heard “such unrestrained incitement as that which was heard from [Sharon’s] confidantes and coalition partners this week.”

Referring to recent Hebrew media reports, Eitam quoted certain members of the Likud-Labor coalition as calling for security forces to “break the bones” of settlers who resist being transferred from their homes under Sharon’s “disengagement” plan.

“Whose bones precisely do you intend to break, Mr. Prime Minister? Those of little children? Pregnant women? Civilian protestors?” Eitam asked.

"Are the residents of Gush Katif, Judea and Samaria truly enemies of the State who wish to destroy it, that their bones must be broken?”

Turning to Deputy Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Eitam attacked him for saying the government should “cut off the hands” of the settlers whose rights had once been championed by Sharon.

“I would like to tell you, dear Ehud, that some of these children no longer have hands or legs to cut off,” Eitam said, referring to Cohen family children of Kfar Darom, each of which lost a limb in a “Palestinian” bomb attack against a Jewish school bus four years earlier.

With frustration, Eitam quoted Sharon as saying recently, “The settlers are endangering the very existence of this country.”

“I remember many years ago when I led a group of settlers to Hawara [south of Shechem] on roads that detoured IDF checkpoints [to start a new settlement] ... and your heated car waited up there in Hawara, and you came out and patted me on the shoulder, and I felt at that moment that I was receiving a medal of valor from you,” Arutz 7 quoted Eitam as saying.

“You didn't think then that our bones should be broken, or that our legs should be cut off, or that we were a danger to the State,” he continued.

Eitam then laid into the new Labor ministers, many of whom have long expressed disdain for the Jewish residents of Yesha.

“Your new partners in the government are, unfortunately, joining up with you,” the NRP chief accused.

Eitam said he was “astonished to read of late an article by [Labor MK and former minister] Ephraim Sneh, a doctor bound by the Hippocratic Oath. He writes that it won't be so bad if we have a little civil war and some blood will be spilt.”

Another senior Labor personality, Ami Ayalon, recently called for a second Altalena incident.

In 1948, David Ben-Gurion ordered the fledgling IDF to open fire on a ship carrying arms for the Irgun Jewish militia headed by Menachem Begin. Sixteen Israeli Jews were killed by the army. Further bloodshed was averted by Begin’s order to not fight back.

The new government’s “terrible rhetoric is simply a call to murder citizens, for bloodshed,” said Eitam.

But, Eitam declared, “You won't get a civil war from us, because we — the citizens whom you wish to go to war against — will not fight against our brothers the soldiers.”

Concluding his sharply worded speech, Eitam said those loyal to the Land of Israel would not “respond in kind to [Sharon’s] maliciousness.”

“But we will say to you [Sharon] clearly:If you don't listen to our call to [let Israel decide on retreat in a national referendum], we will send you home, and it will be painful and shameful, erasing all your previous accomplishments.”

Like the article?
Help spread the word:
Jnewswire updates
Never miss another story
  • Inbox already too full?
    Subscribe to our
    RSS feed instead!