Avi Dichter
Avi DichterPhoto: Flash 90

The head of the Security and Foreign Affairs committee, MK Avi Dichter(Likud) spoke today (Monday) at the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism's (ICT) 16th International Conference in Herzliya and stated that there is a direct connection between Iranian extremism and Palestinian incitement.

"The question is what is pushing a regional power like Iran to meddle with Israel which doesn't present a threat to it? The answer is that Iran has aspirations of leading the Muslim area in the Middle East numbering 350 million Arabs. The Iranians understand that in order to achieve supremacy they have to find a common denominator which can unite the 22 Arab states - and that is their hatred for Israel. They do this with the help of proxies - Hizballah and Hamas.

"The absurd thing is that Iran has evolved from the Middle East's problem to the Middle East's solution. They were chosen for this by the US, Syria, China and the European Union. We saw just before the signing of the agreement with Iran how the US transferred the responsibility for stabilizing Iraq to the Iranians", explained Dichter.

He added that "The Americans thought that since the Iraqi President is a Shiite and the Iranians are Shiite, it would bring stability. This didn't happen. The world missed an opportunity with the Iranian agreement since it only dealt with the nuclear issue and not with the global terrorism being promoted and funded by Iran. Effective sanctions on Iran would significantly pressure it, so we haven't yet missed the boat."

Dichter emphasized that the great change in the Middle East stems from the transition from nationalistically motivated terror to religious terror. "The great change in the Middle East has been in the ideology fueling the terror. We saw this in 2011 with the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. We have moved from nationalistically motivated terror to religiously motivated terror. The Fatah of olden times is out, while Mohammed's rule of the sword is in.

"The approach that Islam must be enforced with the sword is being expressed much more stridently. Even in Sinai, where the Beduins live who are as far away from religion as earth is from Mars, yet we see suddenly an infrastructure which is purely religious and mainly religious terror", claimed Dichter.

Dichter added that "We see this in Israel too. The Palestinian Authority is trying to take El Aksa and attach the Temple Mount to it. This would mean that nobody but Muslims could enter it. El Aksa is the third holiest place in Islam after Mecca and Medina but the first to be out of Muslim control and this is their motive. This is a new effort to take the Temple Mount and turn it into a conflagration for the Muslim world. This is very dangerous from our perspective.

Regarding world terror, Dichter said that "the ban on Burkinis plays into the hands of extremists. Extremist terror must be fought. Here in Israel, we do not deal with Burkinis and with how Moslem women dress. The name of the game in fighting terror is intelligence. The second stage is arrests and interrogations of the relevant people who can provide the major intelligence. It should be stressed that the terrorist barrel has a bottom and if we dry up the bottom of the barrel we can put the lid on things through political or military means.

Dichter assessed the situation in Israel and noted that "The home front of Israel cannot be the front line and this must be a central fulcrum of our security policy.

"The fact that we are preparing our home front to be a front line is an operational mistake. Every initiative which we will take for unilateral withdrawals just because we have no partner will only serve to destabilize the region more. I can't find any motive for such a move except for political motives. Talk of a referendum about such a withdrawal is simply the frustration of those who failed in the previous elections."