http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/08/opinion/naftali-bennett-on-israels-jewish-terrorists.htmlNaftali Bennett on Israel’s Jewish TerroristsJERUSALEM — Israel is under attack. This time though, the threat is not from Iran, Hezbollah or Hamas. It comes from a fringe group within Israel, which needs to be eradicated swiftly and forcefully.
Last week, an ultra-Orthodox man brutally stabbed six participants at the Gay Pride Parade in Jerusalem, including 16-year-old Shira Banki who a few days later died of her injuries. The attacker, Yishai Schlissel, had been released from prison just weeks before for committing a similar attack at a gay pride parade a decade earlier. This should never have happened.
A day later, Israelis awoke to news that an 18-month-old Palestinian boy, Ali Dawabsha, had been burned to death in a firebomb attack on his home in the West Bank village of Duma. His family is still hospitalized, fighting for their lives.
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Shira’s murderer and the suspected perpetrators of the heinous and unforgivable firebombing that killed Ali are radical Jewish extremists who claim to act in the name of God but do the exact opposite — they desecrate God, our religion and the Jewish people.
They represent no one but themselves. They are terrorists. And just as Israel has done in our previous wars on terror, we will defeat them with all the means at our disposal.
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I am the leader of Israel’s right-wing camp and it is no secret that I have genuine disagreements with our Palestinian neighbors. I believe in the legitimacy of the settlements in the West Bank and I am opposed to conceding our national homeland and dividing Jerusalem. I believe that a Palestinian state, if established, would be taken over by ISIS, Hamas and Islamic Jihad and would turn into a launching pad for attacks against our citizens, just like what happened in Gaza. It is a risk Israel cannot take.
But at the same time, I believe in coexistence and working together with our neighbors to create stability, economic prosperity and a safe, secure future for all of our children, Israeli and Palestinian, without regard for their religion or sexual orientation. We can do that by working together to improve our economies, the infrastructure we jointly use and in improving our bilateral ties.
The terrorists who killed Shira and Ali do not represent Israel or its people. They are a fringe group, made up of radical extremists who do not only seek to kill. Their ultimate goal is the destruction of the State of Israel. They act against and threaten the very premise of what the Zionist movement envisioned when returning to the Land of Israel after 2,000 years in exile — a Jewish and democratic state committed to equality and freedom for all its citizens. They are anarchists, a fifth column within Israel and like Hamas and Hezbollah, they must face the full force of Israel’s justice system and its defense establishment.
But they are also a tiny group. They do not represent the 400,000 residents of Jewish communities throughout the West Bank, the overwhelming majority of whom are law-abiding citizens and have condemned these acts of violence.
The government I am a member of has already authorized our security forces to use all measures — even extraordinary ones — to apprehend Ali’s murderers. The model is very similar to how we combat terrorist groups that operate along and inside our borders — superior intelligence, legal action like administrative detentions and if needed, military force. Terror is terror even when it originates from within.
As Israel’s education minister, I also believe that the effort needs to be taken into our homes and schools. We need to teach more tolerance, respect and appreciation of all people. This can be accomplished by learning more about Arabs, their culture and history and by teaching Arabic to Jewish students.
The same needs to happen on the Palestinian side. Textbooks there need to stop publishing maps that pretend there is no State of Israel. They need to stop praising martyrdom, stop naming town squares for mass murderers and begin teaching tolerance and coexistence. For attacks like this to stop, we need to speak respectfully about one another and appreciate the differences among us. That is the only real way to attain a genuine and durable peace.
A few weeks ago, the Jewish people marked the ninth day of the Jewish month of Av, a fast commemorating the destruction of the Jewish Temple that used to stand in Jerusalem.
The Roman destruction of the Temple also led to the loss of our people’s previous commonwealth and it took us 2,000 years to re-establish an independent Jewish state.
These extremists threaten Zionism, our future and our statehood. We must do everything in our power to stop them.
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