Daily Alert Archives

Netanyahu: Israel Cannot Accept Another Gaza in the West Bank

(Times of Israel) David Horovitz - Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu set out his worldview at a press conference in Hebrew on Friday. He indicated that he sees Israel standing almost alone on the frontlines against vicious Islamic radicalism, while the rest of the as-yet free world does its best not to notice the march of extremism. Given the march of Islamic extremism across the Middle East, he said, Israel simply cannot afford to give up control over the territory immediately to its east, including the border between Israel and Jordan, and the West Bank and Jordan. The priority right now, Netanyahu stressed, was to "take care of Hamas." But the wider lesson of the current escalation was that Israel had to ensure that "we don't get another Gaza in Judea and Samaria [the West Bank]." "I think the Israeli people understand now what I always say: that there cannot be a situation, under any agreement, in which we relinquish security control of the territory west of the Jordan River." Naming both U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and his security adviser Gen. John Allen - who was charged to draw up security proposals that the U.S. argued could enable Israel to withdraw from most of the West Bank, including the Jordan Valley - Netanyahu said: "I told John Kerry and General Allen, the Americans' expert, 'We live here, I live here, I know what we need to ensure the security of Israel's people.'" Netanyahu answered those who argue that holding onto territory for security purposes is less critical in the modern technological era, and argued by contrast that the closer your enemies are, physically, to your borders, the more they'll try to tunnel under those borders and fire rockets over them. "If we were to pull out of Judea and Samaria, like they tell us to, there'd be a possibility of thousands of tunnels" being dug by terrorists to attack Israel, he said. The West Bank is 20 times the size of Gaza. Israel, he said, was not prepared "to create another 20 Gazas" in the West Bank.
2014-07-15 00:00:00
Full Article