“You can’t teach a monkey to speak and you can’t teach an Arab to be democratic. You’re dealing with a culture of thieves and robbers. Muhammad, their prophet, was a robber and a killer and a liar. The Arab destroys everything he touches.”(Moshe Feiglin, 2004).
The Israeli Government, through the Israeli Police in Occupied East Jerusalem, allowed the illegal Israeli settler Moshe Feiglin, along with other Israeli extremists, to invade Al Aqsa compound, the third holiest site in Islam and a symbol for all Palestinians. This new act of ongoing provocation is taking place while Palestinians are being barred from entering the compound. It also comes few days after the Israeli government evicted seven Palestinian families in Silwan and approved new settlement construction in areas between Bethlehem and the occupied Palestinian capital. Such actions are part of the Israeli goal to turn Jerusalem into an exclusive Jewish city.
Mr. Feiglin lives in the illegal settlement of Karnei Shomron, in the northern West Bank. He is a member of Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu’s Likud party and serves as the deputy speaker for the Israeli Parliament (Knesset). The speaker of the parliament, Mr. Yuli Edelstein, is also a Likud member and an illegal settler residing the Neve Daniel settlement in the Bethlehem District.
Allowing extremist Israeli settlers to raid the Al Aqsa compound protected by the Israeli Police is a further proof of the belligerent agenda of the extremist Israeli government, a coalition made to please the appetite of Israeli settlers for more Palestinian land, oppression of the Palestinian people, incitement and attacks against Christian and Muslim Holy Sites and violence. Mr. Feiglin, an advocate of Palestinian displacement, is an excellent representative of the culture of hatred endorsed by the Israeli government.
The Palestine Liberation Organization calls once again on the international community to assume its responsibility to protect the Palestinian people under occupation and to support Palestinian diplomatic initiatives to put an end to this occupation, including recognition of the State of Palestine and a Security Council resolution to put a timeframe to end the Israeli occupation.
Palestine holds the Israeli government fully responsible for any consequences of the act of the extremist settlers protected by their occupation forces. In addition the PLO, rejects the Israeli government quest to turn this conflict into a religious argument.
Please find below some quotes from the settler Feiglin:
· “Oslo is finished and there are no two states for two peoples’ there is only one state for one nation.” (Times of Israel, August 5, 2014).
· “Gaza is part of our Land and we will remain there forever (…) Subsequent to the elimination of terror from Gaza,it will become part of sovereign Israel and will be populated by Jews. This will also serve to ease the housing crisis in Israel.” (Israel National News, July 15, 2014).
· “The cost of a bomb to destroy a building in Gaza costs Israel $80,000 (…) If Israel would give that money to the Gazan family living in the building in order to help them to emigrate, they would do so willingly (…) They could continue to perpetuate their refugee status in Gaza, as is the situation today, or take $100,000 to emigrate to a different country (…). (Jerusalem Post, August 25, 2014)
· “The Arabs in the West Bank have no nationality apart from being part of the big Arab nation. They can stay in Judea and Samaria [the Biblical term for the West Bank], with rights they won’t get anywhere else in the Arab world, as long as they accept Israel’s sovereignty. They will have human rights but not the right to vote. If voting is so important to them, they have 22 Arab countries to choose from. If they stay without accepting Jewish sovereignty, that means war (…) Israel is the home of the Jewish people. It is not a state of all its citizens. The reason why the Jews came back from exile to the promised land was not to establish a democracy, but to create a homeland”. (The Guardian May 9, 2012)
· “I have already said everything I have to say about what is going on in the south. In one sentence, until we cannot say, with a whole heart: “this is our land!” including Gaza. Until we declare our sovereignty in all the territories of the land of Israel that we control, there is no real solution for the situation there (…) Don’t ask me what my solution for the Arabs is. Both because I already explained, in detail, what the solution is (to encourage migration), and also because it doesn’t really matter to those who ask. The question is not about the solution but about the point of departure. Nobody kills one child and uses their organs to save another child. There are some principles from which you cannot deviate.” (Op Ed, NRG 24 June 2012).