Netanyahu ‘not moved’ by criticism of anti-Arab incitement

Israel’s prime minister has dismissed criticism of inflammatory remarks made against Arab citizens at the site of a fatal shooting in Tel Aviv on Saturday. Benjamin Netanyahu defended his comments during Sunday’s cabinet meeting.

“I am not moved by criticism,” he insisted. “We are a state of law and we will enforce the law throughout the State of Israel and vis-à-vis all citizens of Israel.”

The prime minister said that his government will open new police stations, recruit more police officers, go into all the towns and demand loyalty to the laws of the state from everyone. “We all know there is wild incitement by radical Islam in the Arab sector,” he claimed. “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.”

During a visit to the site of the shooting incident in Dizengoff Street in central Tel Aviv, Netanyahu slammed Arab political parties, including the Arab joint list and the Islamic Movement, blaming them for “extremism and terrorism”. In an attempt to cover-up his government’s political and security failures, Netanyahu hinted at the lack of law enforcement in Arab towns and villages even though the shooting took place in the heart of a predominantly Jewish Israeli city.

Former minister Tzipi Livni, MK, of the Zionist Union, slammed Netanyahu’s comments and described them as “irresponsible”. Speaking to Ynet news site, Livni called on Netanyahu to act like a prime minister. “Don’t discriminate, don’t divide and don’t sow hatred and fear,” she said. “That is what the prime minister managed to do at the scene of the incident.”

Livni pointed out that Israeli Arab Knesset members 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.