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Internal Security Minister Avi Dichter
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| By Israel Insider staff March 9, 2008 |
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Public Security Minister Avi Dichter said Saturday night that Israel should create laws that enable the expulsion of terrorists and their families, even if they have Israeli citizenship or permanent residency.
Dichter's latest statements reflect the hard-line tone that the former Shabak chief has been taking since the Palestinian terror attacks hit home, literally. Latest week, a Grad missile just missed the minister's Ashkelon home. He was responding to the outspoken support among Jerusalem Arabs and among Israeli Arabs for the terrorist who murdered eight yeshiva students Thursday night.
The terrorist, Abu Allah D'heim, who lives the Jabel Mukabar neighborhood of Jerusalem, owns an Israeli ID card. His family members, who set up a mourners' tent in his honor decorated with Hamas and Hizbullah flags, hold Israeli IDs as well and collect extensive payment from Israeli social security and other national benefits.
Arab residents of Jerusalem have been involved in at least 20 percent of terrorist attacks against Israelis, Dichter said Saturday. Israel must find a way to expel terrorists and their families and to prevent them from exploiting their unimpeded freedom of movement that their Israeli ID cards and the yellow license plates on their vehicles to harm the state, he said.
However, Dichter's tough stance has been restricted to expelling Arabs from eastern Jerusalem rather than elsewhere in Israel, raising suspicions that it is party of his Kadima Party's campaign to relinquish Jerusalem's Arab neighborhoods to PA control. Rather than expelling terrorist Arabs, Israel would in effect be retreating and rewarding the terrorists.
MK Gilad Erdan (Likud) appealed to Dichter and Police Chief Dudi Levy Saturday night asking them to shut down the mourners' tent that has been set up in Jerusalem's Jabel Mukabar neighborhood in honor of the terrorist. "It makes no sense that the Israeli government would allow this sign of respect for a lowly, contemptible murderer in her territory, or the flags of Hamas and Hizbullah which call for her destruction," Erdan said.
The terrorists' family built the tent unimpeded. Unlike Israel, Jordan prevented attempts by relatives living near Amman to set up a similar tent or to have public mourning of any kind.
A senior aide to Public Security Minister Avi Dichter said the family was permitted to put up a mourning tent. "It's not illegal to mourn him," the aide said, comparing the situation to that of Dr. Baruch Goldstein, the local doctor who was convicted of shooting dead Muslims at the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hevron. Goldstein?s family and friends say he pre-empted a bloody Purim attack on the local Jewish community. Others have claimed that Goldstein was framed for the murder as a pretext for justifying a retreat from most of the Holy City. Following the incident, Israel withdrew from most of Hevron and classified right-wing political groups Kach and Kahane Chai as illegal terrorist organizations.
Dichter's aide said that while the tent would be allowed to remain open, the Hamas and Hizbullah flags would be removed. That decision was reportedly carried out late Saturday night after remaining unimpeded for more than a day. |
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