Chairman Eitan Broshi of the Knesset Agriculture Lobby has come out in support of a farmer who was released to house arrest, Sunday evening, after he was arrested, Sunday morning, for shooting and killing an Arab who reportedly tried to steal Broshi's truck in Moshav Beit Elazari, south of Rechovot. Two other thieves - one of them a resident of a Samarian or Judean village - fled the scene.
The Zionist Union lawmaker said, "One must regret the loss of life but one needs to see the action of the Beit Elazari resident as self-defense for lack of choice, rather than manslaughter or murder, which is a consequence of the plague of burglaries suffered by the rural sector in Israel." He promised to convene a meeting of the Knesset Interior Committee to work on the matter, given the failure of law enforcement to come up with an answer.