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Israeli foreign minister seeks to criminalise Arab citizens

June 28, 2014 at 1:12 pm

Israeli foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman has criticised Israeli Arab demonstrators who took to the streets in solidarity with Palestinians under Israeli aggression in Hebron and the Gaza Strip, Israeli media reported.

The Arab Israelis gathered on Friday at Umm El-Fahm junction during a protest against the actions of the occupation forces and chanted against Israelis and in support of Palestinians.

Lieberman said that the demonstrators “should be treated as terrorists in every sense of the word.” He also said he would urge public security minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch to “act with determination and speed in arresting the inciters so that they could be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.”

As the head of the Israel Beiteinu party, Lieberman said that his party “will demand that the government discuss the dangerous radicalisation of the Israeli Arab leadership and deal with it in a thorough, severe matter.”

Criticising the chants by the Arab demonstrators, Aharonovich said: “These are grievous statements that attest to the radicalisation of parts of the Arab public. The inciters will be dealt with in accordance with the law.”

He added: “We will not allow these events to interrupt the daily lives of citizens in this country.”

The Arab population in Israel is around 1.7 million living in a total of around 8 million Israelis.