For the third time in a month, Israel’s security forces have destroyed a synagogue in the Samaria town of Nachliel. The synagogue was originally built after the construction freeze in Judea and Samaria went into effect. Local residents erected it anew after each destruction, and promise to do the same again.
MK Michael Ben-Ari (National Union) said in response, “When it comes to illegal mosques, the Government of Israel displays great sensitivity and does not raze them. But no such consideration is shown for synagogues; there is no sensitivity when it comes to that which is holy to Israel.”
Lt.-Col. (res.) Itzik Shadmi, a resident of a town near Nachliel, said with bitter irony, “I would like to congratulate Defense Minister Ehud Barak on his cleverness and iron fist in sending in his forces in the middle of the night for a ten-minute mission, in and out, to destroy a shack used as a synagogue… in enforcing his racist decision to forbid only Jewish construction... Apparently the army doesn’t have any missions more important than this.”
The Binyamin Residents Committee issued this statement: “It is sad to see that while Iran and Hizbullah threaten our country’s very existence and the right of the Jewish People to its land, the government is busy showing the world that we don’t have any right to our land by destroying synagogues.”
The Mattot Arim (Cities of Israel) grassroots organization expressed “shock at the governmental weakness that led it to destroy the synagogue. We call upon the government and especially on Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to stop being controlled by so-called laws that have been snuck into the Israel law code. These are not really laws, but Trojan horses of the pro-Palestinian and radical anti-Zionist left. If building a synagogue is illegal, then the Ministerial Committee for Legislation must be woken up to ferret out all these illegitimate Trojan-horse laws and get rid of them. This is an urgent national mission, and the Prime Minister must not stand passively by, thus aiding the Palestinian victory mission to feel both strong and just – and all this at the expense of our brothers, the pioneers of Judea and Samaria, who are the spearhead of the under-attack Zionist enterprise… We feel deep shame that our tax monies are being used in such a disgraceful and anti-Jewish manner.”