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Minister Meir Shitreet (Kadima) on Nasrallah: Don't negotiate with him, destroy him
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| By Israel Insider staff January 20, 2008 |
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Several Israeli cabinet ministers and politicians openly called for the assassination of Hizbullah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah at the weekly cabinet meeting on Sunday, one day after the guerilla leader claimed to possess the body parts of IDF soldiers who fought during the Second Lebanon War.
"We shouldn't be afraid of Nasrallah, we should eliminate him," Internal Affairs Minister Meir Sheetrit of PM Olmert's ruling Kadima party said. "Nasrallah is a person who has crossed all lines of inhumanity. We don't need to negotiate with him, we need to destroy him."
Before the meeting, newly appointed Minister of Religious Affairs Yitzhak Cohen said the Hizbullah leader was a lunatic who must be eliminated. "Nasrallah is a cruel and crazy man... I don't understand why he is still breathing. We should have liquidated him a long time ago. I recommend the cabinet assassinate the man." Cohen said Nasrallah's remarks "brought Adolf Hitler and others like him to mind.... The mere fact that this vicious and deranged man crawled out of his hole is worrying," he added.
Housing Minister Ze'ev Boim (Kadima) called Nasrallah a "sewer rat who should dig his own hole."
Israel's only Arab Minister Ghaleb Majadle (Labor), however, called for understanding and restraint. He said "we should analyze Nasrallah's speech and understand why he made it. Everything he does is calculated. We shouldn't fall into his traps."
Defense Minister Barak also voiced caution, telling the cabinet ministers to ignore Nasrallah, maintaining that responding to the Hizbullah leader's remarks only lends them validity. "The determining factor is not Nasrallah's comments. Our problem is that we always strengthen him and his words more than necessary. He always uses psychological pressure, and I recommend paying no heed to his comments," Barak said.
Opposition member MK Zevulun Orlev (NU-NRP) tried to be clever: "We always knew that Nasrallah does not have a heart. It's about time he did not have a pulse as well."
On Saturday Nasrallah appeared in public for the first time since September 2006, warning Israel against attacking Lebanon and claiming that Hizbullah has a near-complete body of an IDF soldier killed during the Second Lebanon War in addition to various body parts.
While the IDF claims to have accounted for all of the bodies of the 119 soldiers killed in the Second Lebanon War, officials said it was possible that small body parts were not found during evacuations under fire. Sources in Jerusalem said Sunday morning that families of the fallen were fully apprised about the conditions of their lost relatives prior to burial, and that all soldiers were buried in accordance with Jewish law.
Israel would hold no negotiations with Hizbullah over body parts, Jerusalem officials insisted. "There is no intention of cooperating with Nasrallah. We will not be a party to profiteering in the remains of Israeli soldiers and will not trade in body parts," they said.
A statement by the IDF Spokesman's Office said Nasrallah's statements "constitute a cruel and cynical move by an organization that fragrantly tramples the most fundamental, ethical codes, shows no respect for human rights or the international conventions that govern these matters ... we call upon all those with the most basic common sense to view him as cowardly and to condemn him." |
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