Incitement in the Palestinian media has thoroughly poisoned the minds of the average Palestinian, argues Deputy Defense Minister Rabbi Eli Ben-Dahan, to the extent that it would be almost surprising if there were no terror attacks.
“The Palestinian incitement 'machine' is more active and more dangerous than ever,” said Ben-Dahan. “That machine is fueled directly by Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas. It is he who is ultimately responsible for the terror we face.”
It is also fueled by the fact that Israel has admitted numerous terrorists via "family reunification" programs, Ben-Dahan asserts, which he intends to stop.
Israel has already taken numerous steps to roll back the situation and restore deterrence, said Ben-Dahan. “We have spread out security forces throughout the country in recent days, and we can see that in every incident that involved a terrorist security personnel were there to intervene. In each case the terrorist was killed or badly wounded.”
The government intends to go beyond that, however. “We have decided to increase the pace of demolitions of terrorists' homes, and greatly reduce the time needed to execute a demolition order. In addition, we have also ended the practice of returning bodies of terrorists to their families.” The funerals for such terrorists tend to turn into nationalistic riots, and just serve to aggravate the incitement already present, he said.
While all the terrorists who have committed terrorist acts in the past several weeks were Israeli residents, either from Jerusalem or, as in the case of the terrorist who committed Sunday's act of terror in Be'er Sheva, from a Bedouin village in the Negev, Ben-Dahan said that that was not the whole story.
All eight of them, said Ben-Dahan, were products of “mixed” families, “residents of Gaza or Arab villages in Palestinian Authority-controlled areas that were allowed to live in Israel as part of 'family reunification' programs."
"We have become 'net importers' of terrorists with these programs," added Ben-Dahan. "This, too, the government intends to put an end to.”