PM doubles down on criticism of Israeli Arabs after TA attack

Tel Aviv mayor says Netanyahu’s warnings about ‘wild incitement’ in the Arab community were compensation for his failure

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks to press after lighting a candle outside a pub on Dizengoff Street in central Tel Aviv, January 02, 2016, a day after two people were killed in a shooting at the bar. (Miriam Alster/Flash90)
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks to press after lighting a candle outside a pub on Dizengoff Street in central Tel Aviv, January 02, 2016, a day after two people were killed in a shooting at the bar. (Miriam Alster/Flash90)

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday that he was “not impressed” by criticism that slammed him for inciting hatred toward Israeli Arabs while failing in his duty to protect Israel’s citizens from terrorism.

“[Arab] citizens are the ones suffering from rising crime,” he said after opposition politicians charged that he was fanning hostility against Israeli Arabs by linking a terror shooting in Tel Aviv on Friday to “wild incitement” and “disloyalty” in the Arab community.

Two Israelis were killed in the attack in central Tel Aviv. The suspect, still on the run, is 29-year-old Israeli Arab Nashat Milhem.

On Saturday night, visiting the scene of the attack on the coastal metropolis’s Dizengoff Street, Netanyahu had railed against anti-Israel “incitement” in the Arab community and vowed to compel national loyalty from Arabs, as well as increase law enforcement in Arab population centers.

“We will open new police stations, recruit more police officers, go into all the towns and demand of everyone loyalty to the laws of the state,” he said. “We all know there is wild incitement by radical Islam in the Arab sector. Incitement in mosques, incitement in the education system, incitement in social media. I expect all of the Arab Knesset members, all of them, without exception, to condemn the murder clearly and unequivocally. Murder is murder; it must be condemned and acted against by all sides,” Netanyahu said.

MK Tzipi Livni (Zionist Union) slammed Netanyahu’s comments as irresponsible. “Act like a prime minister,” she said in an interview with the Ynet news site. “Don’t discriminate, don’t divide and don’t sow hatred and fear; and that is what the prime minister managed to do at the scene of the event.”

Livni also noted that Israeli Arab lawmakers had long appealed to Netanyahu for help in removing illegal weapons from their communities, having proposed legislation on the subject and warned publicly against the consequences of ignoring the problem.

Fellow Zionist Union MK Shelly Yachimovich said Netanyahu had failed in his duty to protect Israelis, instead “excelling” at incitement.

“Yesterday we saw the prime minister rush to a pointless photo op at the scene of the painful and bloody attack, set up an inappropriate lectern, and then incite terribly against all Israel’s Arab citizens,” she wrote on her Facebook page. Netanyahu “completely failed” to battle terror, “to console, to calm [tensions], to inspire unity and hope — while excelling at incitement.”

Speaking at the start of the weekly cabinet meeting Sunday, Netanyahu rejected those criticisms.

“When we established the government, I asked [Public Security] Minister [Gilad] Erdan, and later the police commissioner, to make a supreme effort to change something that has been true in this country for nearly 70 years: the lack of law enforcement in the Arab community,” he said.

“[Arab] citizens are the ones suffering from rising crime, and all Israel’s citizens suffer from the incitement and violence — both criminal and nationalistic — that hurt all of Israel’s citizens… We decided to change this reality, to enforce the law in all fields: construction laws that are completely unenforced, public noise laws that we hear [violated] from the mosques, the incitement in the mosques — and of course on social networks and in the education system — and the basic matter of the collection of illegal firearms that are pervasive in the Arab community.”

According to Netanyahu, “This work has begun, it will be implemented, it is being implemented in the coming days and will expand further, because we’re going to make a very great effort to ensure that the State of Israel has one law, applied uniformly everywhere.

“This is the right thing to do, and I’m not impressed by the criticism on this issue. This is the right thing for all Israel’s citizens – Jews and Arabs as one.”

Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huldai (photo credit: Gideon Markowicz/Flash90)
Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huldai (photo credit: Gideon Markowicz/Flash90)

Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huldai, who is linked to the Labor Party, one of two factions in the opposition Zionist Union list, said Netanyahu’s Saturday speech showed a man “frustrated” by his failure to provide security for Israelis and “lashing out” at the entire Arab sector. His “security thesis” has collapsed, said Huldai, and he is blaming the Israeli Arab community.

Likud sources promptly accused Huldai — a possible candidate for the Labor Party leadership — of “playing politics” in the aftermath of the tragic shooting.

MK Ahmad Tibi of the Arab Joint List also denounced Netanyahu, saying his speech was hypocritical, cynical, and inciting against Muslims and Israeli Arab parliamentarians.

“That is something that is not only irresponsible. It is the action of a politician who is dancing on the blood of the attack. His whole goal is to be more right-wing than (Jewish Home party head Naftali) Bennett and (Yisrael Beytenu leader Avigdor) Liberman,” Tibi told Israel Radio.

“What matters most [for Netanyahu] is to score a few more points,” Tibi said.

Milhem, who comes from Arara in northern Israel, fled the scene of the Friday afternoon shooting at the Simta Bar and remained at large Sunday morning. Two people were killed in the attack and several others injured, two of whom remained in serious but stable condition.

Stuart Winer contributed to this report.

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