Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu
Prime Minister Binyamin NetanyahuReuters

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Sunday urged the international community to help free four Palestinian Arabs who were arrested by their own security forces after they visited the sukkah of Oded Revivi, the mayor of the town of Efrat.

The four Arabs, Netanyahu wrote on Facebook, “came to honor the festival of Sukkot and their Jewish neighbors. They were welcomed as guests in keeping with the best of the Jewish tradition.

“These visitors did no harm to anyone. But when they returned from the visit, they were arrested by the Palestinian Authority. According to senior PA officials, they will be sentenced and jailed for the crime of ‘normalization with Israel,’” he added.

“Where is the outrage of human rights organizations? There is none. To their great shame, they are silent.

“This silence is neither new nor surprising. These organizations are silent when the Palestinian leadership pays salaries to the families of terrorists, glorifies murderers and calls streets and city-centers after them.

“These organizations prove again and against that they are not actually interested in human rights, but only in shaming Israel and libeling it around the world. They use the important ideal of human rights as a political tool to bash Israel.

“I call on the international community to work to help free these innocent Palestinians whose imprisonment is yet another proof of the Palestinian refusal to make peace,” concluded Netanyahu.

Revivi on Saturday night urged the Palestinian Authority to release the four Arabs who visited his sukkah.

"I call upon the Palestinian Authority to immediately release my Sukkot guests. It is absurd that having coffee with Jews is considered a crime by the Palestinian Authority. Initiatives that seek to foster cooperation and peace between people should be encouraged, not silenced. It's time the Palestinian Authority asks itself whether it would prefer to fan the flames of conflict instead of working to bring people together," said Revivi.

(Arutz Sheva’s North American desk is keeping you updated until the start of Simchat Torah and Shmini Atzeret in New York. The time posted automatically on all Arutz Sheva articles, however, is Israeli time.)