Israel Ganz, the head of the Binyamin Regional Council, harshly condemned on Thursday the violence by a handful of Jewish rioters against Arabs from the PA village of Turmusayya following the murderous shooting attack near the town of Eli, which left four Israelis, including three teenagers, dead.
“My opinion is clear and straightforward I say it everywhere, full-heartedly, and from every platform, no one has the authority, authorization, legal or moral, to harm innocent people. It is unacceptable and can not happen,” Ganz said during an interview with Radio 103-FM.
He emphasized, “The statement that it was settlers is simply not true. People come from around the country and stain the name of an entire public. To say ‘settlers’ is just an untrue statement.
The settlers whom we’re talking about lost four of their dear brothers. My residents’ vision is filled with blood when I see the bodies and the injured, these terrifying scenes – give us the will to keep building and planting, but we don’t harm others because they harmed us. Our outlook is that every time they kill a Jew, we will expand Jewish settlement and build, and in my opinion, that’s the proper answer.”
According to him, “When there’s a crime in Tel Aviv, you don’t say, ‘The Tel Avivians aren’t all right.’ There’s crime in every part of Israel, unfortunately. I’ll be the last to ignore it. The Council Head’s office was transferred to the site of the attack. Trust it the Police HQ is cooperating with the IDF. All of the security authorities are working in a tight-knit fashion. We are all trying to do two things: to prevent harm to all who travel on the roads, protect ourselves, and follow the law. Any statement otherwise is just not correct.”
When asked who participates in the riots, Ganz answered: “There are troubled youths. They have a face, you can see them. You understand that if the police would get their hands on someone who lives here, they could get to him in a second and arrest him? No one is interested in that. The police don’t want anarchy, the military doesn’t want anarchy, and the settlements are not interested in anarchy. In the end, we live here. Even when the mess leaves, we stay to live here we live here and are here on the roads.”
According to him, “It’s clear that our interest in the settlement movement is for it to grow and to start a third world war here between the people who live on the road. I took part in three of the four funerals and saw the pain and the anger. Even if some guys don’t know how to express the pain of losing a close friend, we need to help them understand how to manage the pain and what not to do, but that’s the reality.”