Danny Dayan, Head of the Council of Jewish Communities in Judea and Samaria (Yesha), sent a letter to President Shimon Peres on Monday, requesting an urgent meeting. Recent statements made by senior government officials constitute incitement against Jews in Judea and Samaria, he said, calling on Peres to stop such remarks.
Dayan started his letter by expressing appreciation for Peres's speech at memorial ceremonies for assassinated Prime Minister Yitzchak Rabin, in which he called for unity. “However, a different speaker—Defense Minister Ehud Barak—used the same platform to incite against an entire community, while spewing intolerable vitriol,” he said. “Unfortunately, not only did those present not protest, they applauded him.”
"The head of Labor's speech is part of a serious campaign of incitement targeting residents of Judea and Samaria that has taken place in recent weeks,” Dayan continued. “The unbridled incitement was found not only in the media but also, I am ashamed to say, in the government of Israel's cabinet meeting.”
The sudden frequency of highly-publicized verbal attacks on Jewish residents of Judea and Samaria is not a coincidence, Dayan said. “This is a well-orchestrated attempt to demonize an entire community for political purposes, while using the worst tools available to the inciter: distortion of facts, generalization, blatant lies, and preaching hate,” he said. Dayan pointed to biased media coverage as an example of incitement, saying video clips used by multiple media outlets were later proven to have been taken out of context.
Dayan ended his letter saying, “We request that the honorable President hold an urgent meeting with representatives of Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria, so that we can determine how to end this incitement and put the President's speech on the need for unity into practice.”
During official state ceremonies marking 13 years since the Rabin's murder, Barak attacked “nationalist extremists,” who he termed “cancerous growths.” Barak threatened to “uproot this evil from our midst.”
Several days earlier, Barak had made similar statements, accusing nationalist protesters who form unauthorized outposts in Judea and Samaria of “undermining the state's authority over its citizens,” and threatening to respond with “an iron fist.”
In reference to Ehud Barak and other leaders who lashed out at the residents of Yesha, an IsraelNN editorial noted: "For the self-appointed guardians of Rabin’s memory, fear and hatred are not evil emotions to be shunned, but legitimate sentiments to be indulged, even reveled in. It is when we contemplate political leaders in thrall to these lawless passions that we most fear for the future of Israel, even while pitying those who have succumbed to them."